Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Some mp4's wont play on my Smarthub bluray

Jan 28, 2015 7:15AM PST

I just got a Samsung BD-H6500 Smarthub bluray player to which I have my WD MyColud external hard drive hooked up by way of ethernet cable.

I like being able to watch all of my videos and photos on the big tv screen through the player and I am happy with the results except for one issue. Some of the videos in my albums will not play on the bluray player as it does not recognize their format, even though they are MP4.
I have isolated the files in question to be videos taken on an old HTC One smart phone shot in 'portrait'.

I have read some of the threads on this site but I want to share my specific issues. This is a little confusing so I will try my best to be clear.

All of the videos that were recorded with the HTC One smartphone were viewable except for certain videos taken that were shot in 'Portrait' form which is just holding the phone vertically instead of horizontally. I dont know why there would be any difference, but in fact there was. All videos shot with the phone held horizonally were fine, but the videos shot vertically, although playable on the phone itself, would not play on my PC.

When I downloaded the videos off my phone to my PC, I found that these specific videos (the ones shot in 'portrait' mode) wouldnt even play on my PC at first until I ran them through HANDBRAKE and converted them to MP4. Then I could actually see the content of the video, albeit the video was sideways or upside down or both, but its okay because it is still atleast viewable.

So having these videos converted to MP4, they will still not play or be recognized through the Smarthub player. Not being very knowledable about this issue, I have read on this forum that MP4 is just a container of sorts and there are differences in codecs (which I am also not knowledgable about)

My question is how can I find the detailed properties of these specific videos to possibly share on here and maybe someone can suggest a program that I can run them through so they will be formatted in a way compatible with the Smarthub system.

Handbrake has done a great job re configuring my 3gp videos to MP4 so I can watch them through the Smarthub but it is not working on the aboue videos.
Thank you.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
True.
Jan 28, 2015 7:22AM PST

MP4 encoding is all over the map so I'm calling it a non-standard. You are just beginning to grasp the mess that CODECs and video encoding is today. And to make it worse you find that one model Samsung may play this and then the next model won't play it.

Forget all that and try these on a WDTV. Much more forgiving.

If you want to transcode, sure. Pick something tame from the default offerings and test which works.
Bob

- Collapse -
transcoding
Jan 28, 2015 7:49AM PST

Thanks for your reply.
I won't be able to change any of my hardware as you mentioned the WDTV, but if you can walk me through thetranscoding process or give me some advice I would greatly appreciate it as it is just these select type of video files that are a problem.
Not being very experienced in this kind of thing, I have however used Handbrake to convert some file from 3gp to mp4.

- Collapse -
You already know how (you shared that in first post.)
Jan 28, 2015 8:20AM PST
- Collapse -
Answer
Let's tackle "the videos shot vertically, although playable
Jan 28, 2015 8:34AM PST

"the videos shot vertically, although playable on the phone itself, would not play on my PC."

Go get VLC Player. It plays almost everything on the PC.

- Collapse -
video
Jan 28, 2015 9:59AM PST

Thank you for the link and the information about the VLC program, but that is not really getting to the key question I have about converting the videos to be viewable in the Smarthub bly ray player model BD-H6500.

Unless it is pertinant to the videos running in the Smarthub, it makes no difference to me if they are right side up or upside down.

As far as my PC goes, thank you for the info about VLC and I will look into it, but the handbrake program will convert them to viewabiliy as well, just not viewable on te Smarthb.

Can someonehow me how to find the properties of these videos in question so I can see which codecs they currently are, then help me find a utility to convert them to a format that I can watch them on the Smarthub.

Again, thanks for the help.

- Collapse -
Then you're back to calling Samsung.
Jan 28, 2015 10:22AM PST

It's been a sort of a mystery why Samsung had not tackled this one to date. While I use Handbrake and VLC Player to inspect encoding of files that play and do not play, no one I've seen seems to tackle this directly.

I might but I would have to have your model TV, same firmware and sample files. However you know that stodgy old MPEG 2 is a good standby when we can't figure out what to encode to. Here's FFMPEG on that.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6503894/ffmpeg-convert-video-without-losing-resolution
Bob

- Collapse -
walk me through
Jan 29, 2015 1:15AM PST

I have to admit I am just not as knowledgeable on this stuff as you guys are but do greatly appreciate your help and consideration. I know a little bit about a little bit.

If you could walk me through the process of converting one of these files step by step, then I can replicate the process and fix all all the files in question. Also it would help the next guy with the same problem.

Can you instruct me on where and how to start?

Thank you

- Collapse -
I think that instruction would have to come from Samsung.
Jan 29, 2015 1:21AM PST

Remember that "step by step" can't be had because these steps change with each model. One time you can use one encoding and the next set that encoding won't play. Since I don't have your model I can't supply step by step, only guides and ideas.

There are tomes on the web about Handbrake and FFMPEG use but you want more than that. You want a step by step from your MP4 to this TV.

Hope Samsung will step up to that.
Bob