Streaming MKV Files via SMP-N200

[Wobblyde]

Hello,

as Sony are refusing to answer, I am asking here. Does anyone know how to stream MKV files to an SMP-N200 Network Media Player? If I go to "http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/network-media-player", it states nearer the bottom that you can stream MKV files. If I look at the Technical Specifications of the unit, it lists the following:

Video - MPEG-4 AVC (.mkv, .m4v, .m2ts, .mts): BD, DVD, CD, USB, DLNA

NO / NO / NO / YES / via update

I interpret as MKVs being streamed via the USB port and via DLNA voa Update. My SMP-N200 is updated with the latest firmware but although my WD TV Live can see and stream my MKVs (via Serviio), the SMP-N200 only sees the AVI files and not the MKV files....

Anyone got any tips??

[Catmambo]

Hi

Happy to answer the question

It plays back .mkv via USB natively but doesn't stream them. However as Serviio transcodes to a compatible stream before streaming, then no reason why Serviio shouldn't work. Have you selected the Sony Blu-ray profile within Serviio as the n200 is based on the same platform?

Hope this helps

Cheers

[Onanova]

I have a Sony blu ray player & have set up streaming of mkvs using wild media server. I tried a number of upnp servers until I found this one which seems to work well. It does cost, but it's not much, and you can try it before taking the plunge.

Can't guarantee it will work with the n200, but assuming it uses the same software as the blu ray players it should.

I am thinking of buying an n200 so would be interested to hear if it works.

[Red_Snow]

I got a couple of the SMP-N200 boxes and observed the following:

1. MKVs do stream straight from my Synology NAS ....... however:

2. MKVs created using DVDFab under Windows - The do NOT stream (get unrecognised file or corrupt etc).

3. MKVs created using Handbrake (0.95) under OS-X do stream fine.

4. Most m4v files I have encoded from the DVDFab MKVs work - need to use universal profile under "apple devices". One of two play sound for a second and then drop ..... I'll try re-ripping those with MakeMKV/Handbrake.

5. I can make the DVDFab MKVs play if on the Synology NAS, I locate the MAC address of the streamer and change its type/profile to Sony BRAVIA

Hope this helps

Mark

[Catmambo]

Hi Mark

Personally interested in your solution here as I also use a Synology NAS. Am I right in thinking you can only apply one device profile in the Synology settings? I've always used my PS3 for content streaming, and setting the profile to BRAVIA broke this functionality. However does the N200 handle mkv files fairly well, as on the fly transcoding from the NAS to PS3 is far from perfect I guess ( I have a 410, so not a super fast processor), so might make sense to switch to N200 if performance is better.

Do let me know your experiences

thanks

[Red_Snow]

Hi Catmambo

I've not encountered any issues with the mkv playback and I don't think the NAS is actually doing any transcoding. In DSM (3.2) on the NAS, I can set a profile for EACH device. The reason I'm now encoding to m4v is so that I can use them on my Macbook and iPad without further work. Of course there is a quality hit if you re-encode Blu-Ray to 720 but you get a far more manageable file size and playback on my Apple devices. I made 10Gb per episode mkvs of An Idiot Abroad. I then encoded to m4v, kept the 1080 resolution and reduced to ~4Gb per episode. Playback thru the SMP-N200 on my TV looks very nice indeed.

Mark