14 replies to this topic

[hidefdave]

After much research, I decided to buy one of these units to replace my old blu-ray player on the understanding that it would, amongst other things, stream content from my home PC, and/or from an attached portable hard drive.

A mate had recently bought the base model DMP-BDT75, which I had plugged my 1TB NTFS formatted drive into, which it read straight off the bat and played everything I threw at it - multiple audio tracks, subtitles, the works, so I naturally thought the 110 would do the same, plus all the other bells and whistles....

In short - it didn't. Got the error message "incompatible USB device". OK, somewhat annoyed...  

Next I tried to make it work with the network drive settings to stream content from my home PC. Whatever combination I tried, nothing worked...IP address, folder name, login, password - nothing! Now starting to get angry....

I'm running Vista on my home PC, so I thought I'd try running Twonky media server to get the network connectivity happening that way. Well, the player can see all the files I want to access - but won't play any of them......Aaaaaaarrrrghhhhh!!!!!!  

I've read awesome things about this player...If I said I was disappointed, that would be wildly optimistic!

Has anyone got any suggestions to help with the above? I've spent hours trawling the net to try and find some solutions!!

Thanks guys - sorry about the long post!

D.

[Mjr69]

Hi Dave, I don't have your player but I had similar problems when I first got both my Pioneer and my Oppo. I had no luck with the MS or the Twonky products - could see the file but no worky.
Assuming you are using wired not wireless (by using the addon WiFi accessory) and you have gone into the folders security tab on your PC and chosen "share" with all the folders that contain the files you wish to stream?
Then I would download the free version of PS3 server - https://code.google....dows-1.50.0.exe
just add the appropriate config text file and you are on your way (hopefully)?

[blairy]

Sounds very much like the player is the problem...however.

Is the portable HDD powered (via an outlet) or self powered (meaning the player powers it). If the latter do you have a powered 'portable' HDD or even a USB stick you can use for testing?

With the network issues...well could be anything (as you obviously already know).  How are you connected...wifi or cable?  Have you enabled the panasonic on your network (don't know how but I recall having to do this with Vista)?

Do you have other equipment on your network (eg PS3) that is working just fine?

Some of this may help narrow down the problem, but it is all a major PITA, esp when you previously tested it on your mates.

blairy

[hidefdave]

Hi guys, thanks for the swift replies!

Player is wired using a netgear powerline av adapter. I also have a Tivo connected and it's working fine (transferring content to and from). I have downloaded the iPhone app for the blu-ray player and that's working as well, so the network side of things seems to be OK.

I can see the player when I open the network tab on the vista machine, and all looks as it should there too...

The hard drive is a plug pack powered one. The player wouldn't play mkv's via an SD card, but would from a USB stick (which looked absolutely magic btw!), so it will play the file types I want - I just want to be able to do it over the network!

I'll give the PS3 thing a go - thanks Mjr 69, see if that will get things happening!

Thanks guys for the fast responses - will post back and let you know how things go!

Cheers,

D.

[hidefdave]

oops, double posted!

Edited by hidefdave, 31 December 2011 - 03:30 PM.

[hidefdave]

Mjr69, on Dec 30 2011, 02:01 PM, said:

Hi Dave, I don't have your player but I had similar problems when I first got both my Pioneer and my Oppo. I had no luck with the MS or the Twonky products - could see the file but no worky.
Assuming you are using wired not wireless (by using the addon WiFi accessory) and you have gone into the folders security tab on your PC and chosen "share" with all the folders that contain the files you wish to stream?
Then I would download the free version of PS3 server - https://code.google....dows-1.50.0.exe
just add the appropriate config text file and you are on your way (hopefully)?

ok...I've got the ps3 server working, although it is somewhat problematic...

- 720p mkv files will play after selecting one of the transcoding options (and actually look REALLY good)
- trying to fast forward through the file causes the player to hang
- 1080p mkv's will play, but they stutter (I know my network is fast enough to handle them as I have streamed too lappy with no problems)
- avi files won't play at all, transcoded or otherwise
- mkv files at anything below 720p play in the wrong aspect (seems to stretch the top left hand quarter of the frame?!)
- 720p or 1080p files that are any other aspect than 1.85:1 are stretched (no option to adjust)
- I can't select subtitles as an option anywhere - only Audio
- mkvs with DTS audio files don't output any audio

I know the player can play the file types directly from a USB stick, so why would it need to transcode them via DLNA?

Still very frustrating my player won't recognise my NTFS external hard drive when my mates lower spec player worked such a treat   Is there any fix for this?

I would really love to get the network drive thing happening to see if things will play properly that way. I read that it can be difficult to achieve, but once its working it works well. What the player needs is:

IP address (would this be 10.1.1.xx?)
Shared folder name (have tried everything here... when I access shared drives from lappy i simply use \\*computer name* and I can see all the shared folders)
User ID (would this be my user name for windows login?)
Password (as per above?)

Any suggestions as to where I'm going wrong? Its probably a simple thing, but i am completely stuck! I'm hoping that if I can get the network drive access working, it will play most if not all the file types it can see on the network, which was my original plan.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated!

Cheers'


D.

Edited by hidefdave, 31 December 2011 - 03:33 PM.

[SLE355]

hidefdave, on Dec 30 2011, 12:27 PM, said:

A mate had recently bought the base model DMP-BDT75, which I had plugged my 1TB NTFS formatted drive into, which it read straight off the bat and played everything I threw at it - multiple audio tracks, subtitles, the works, so I naturally thought the 110 would do the same, plus all the other bells and whistles....

In short - it didn't. Got the error message "incompatible USB device". OK, somewhat annoyed...  

I got the same error message.

Have you got the latest firmware? I'm updating mine now from 1.68 to 1.70.

http://panasonic.jp/...dt110_asia.html

[hidefdave]

SLE355, on Dec 31 2011, 04:50 PM, said:

I got the same error message.

Have you got the latest firmware? I'm updating mine now from 1.68 to 1.70.

http://panasonic.jp/...dt110_asia.html

Yep, first thing I checked when I plugged it in...latest firmware already installed (1.70). I've seen a bit on the "enhanced firmware" that is available here. Has anyone had any experience with it?

D.

[KEF Ci2000]

hidefdave, on Dec 31 2011, 06:23 PM, said:

Yep, first thing I checked when I plugged it in...latest firmware already installed (1.70). I've seen a bit on the "enhanced firmware" that is available here. Has anyone had any experience with it?

D.

Worth bricking a $100 BD75 to get a region free blu ray player??

[jackiss]

I have the same player and it does not work with NTFS formatted drives.
It does however work with exFAT formatted drives which allows over 4GB size files. Unfortunately it only works with a limited number of usb hard drives.
I've had no luck with 1.5TB usb powered drives from Seagate. I know someone who has also "donated" to receive the enhanced firmware.
It works with no problems however I've been told the process to acquire the firmware can be difficult.
Apparently the combination of language barrier issues and a very picky person that provides the firmware can make for a very frustrating experience.

[hidefdave]

jackiss, on Jan 1 2012, 02:26 AM, said:

I have the same player and it does not work with NTFS formatted drives.
It does however work with exFAT formatted drives which allows over 4GB size files. Unfortunately it only works with a limited number of usb hard drives.
I've had no luck with 1.5TB usb powered drives from Seagate. I know someone who has also "donated" to receive the enhanced firmware.
It works with no problems however I've been told the process to acquire the firmware can be difficult.
Apparently the combination of language barrier issues and a very picky person that provides the firmware can make for a very frustrating experience.

I've read the same sort of thing re the firmware. God knows why they would make it so difficult! Do you know if the enhanced firmware overcomes the drive formatting issue? And is there an easier way of getting hold of it?

D.

[jackiss]

No the enhanced firmware doesn't provide NTFS support. There's no real issue if you use exFAT though.
I've multiple portable 1TB hard drives that work with the player formatted with exFAT which provides all the related benefits of NTFS.
Decent article here explaining the differences - http://www.tech-reci...32_versus_ntfs/

I think everything from XP SP2 and up provides an exFAT formatting option.

[scanspeak]

KEF Ci2000, on Dec 31 2011, 07:12 PM, said:

Worth bricking a $100 BD75 to get a region free blu ray player??

Why not get it chipped?

[hidefdave]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. Thankfully, I have finally managed to get the network drive part of things working! It's not without it's problems, but seems to handle most of the files types OK - will output dts, render subtitles etc. So with some time and (a lot!) of patience, these things can be done!

As I say - not perfect, but I'll keep tinkering away!

Cheers,


D.

[hidefdave]

Just an update...

I finally managed to sort out the various problems I was having with the "network drive" option. Player and PC now have static IP addresses, which has made the world of difference!

The player will now stream AVI's and mkv's up to 720p without issue. 1080p files can stutter, but this may be partially to do with my network setup.

I also managed to successfully obtain and apply the "enhanced firmware" to the player from firmwareinfo.com. I was banned on the first attempt, but second time around I triple checked to make sure the info I supplied was exactly what was being asked for. The rest of the process was very straight forward. I have to say despite the initial difficulties, it is a worthwhile upgrade! I am happy to help someone else with this if interested - please PM me for details.

Cheers,

D.