Best Devices for Serviio?

I have been using Serviio with the Sony BDP-S3100 Blu-Ray player, via a 2008 iMac as the server. But I want to get a different, inexpensive Blu-Ray player because of these two problems:

(1) Amazon Instant Video is no longer supported on the Sony BDP-S3100 (the app doesn't work – I've done everything, I've even reset to factory settings... all the other apps work, but not Amazon).
(2) Although Serviio streams all my MKV files nicely (without transcoding–my computer is too old to transcode well), the subtitles are tiny. AVI files don't seem to work though.

I am looking to buy a different BluRay player (or a different media player) that will (1) work with Amazon Instant Video and (2) work with Serviio at least as well as the Sony does.

Any recommendations for relatively inexpensive devices that work especially smoothly with Serviio? (subtitles, without transcoding) It doesn't even necessarily need to be a Blu-Ray player as I could keep using the Sony for Blu-Rays... It just needs to work with Serviio (and Amazon Instant Video).

I was looking to buy the Samsung BD-J5700 — but I've been reading about the "J Series" TVs on this forum (would the "J Series" BluRay player probably be the same?) and I see that there is no J Series device profile, and I hear there have been problems with the J devices and Serviio (external subtitles not working), so I decided to hold back and ask the community here what you all would recommend for a player. I always remux subtitles into my MKV packages—in that case should I have no problems with the J Series?

[atc98092]

I have both the -3100 & -3500 and Amazon still works on it last I tried. Strange. I'll have to try it again. I usually only use my TV for Amazon now, so haven't paid attention.

So far for me, the least expensive BD player that plays the most files without transcoding has been Sony players. I have an H series Samsung BD player and it was about the same. I wouldn't worry about the lack of a Samsung J profile because a) the H profile works lust fine with the BD players and b) there will be a J profile in the next Serviio release (which is getting close).

The biggest issues with the Samsung profiles are with the 4K TVs, so those issues won't occur with the BD player. However, The main reason I switched back from a Samsung to Sony BD player was for HD audio support. The Samsung would not play HD audio from DLNA sources. All of my BD rips contain either Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio as one of the available tracks. The Samsung would not pass this, and would only send the lossy version to my AVR. My older Sony players (-3100) would pass both versions, but the newer one (-3500) only passed DTS MA for some reason.

Some other options, if you aren't concerned with a disc player. The Roku 4 has many wonderful attributes, and a wide variety of channels available, including Amazon at 4K. This biggest issue with any Roku is that they cannot play a file with MPEG2 video, so they require transcoding. There are also several other media streaming devices, such as the Amazon Fire TV, the Nvidia Shield, and a number of boxes developed with Google (Android) TV. The Amazon Fire now also support 4K, although only at 30 fps, while the Roku will play 4K at 60 fps. Both support 10 bit color. Naturally, higher priced units will support more codecs. From what I understand, one of the BD player brands is the Oppo, although I am not familiar with it's DLNA support.

One final option, if the loss if Amazon is the only issue you're having, is either the Roku stick or Amazon Fire Stick. The Amazon Fire stick is only $40, and uses WiFi for the network connection. Really cheap way to get your Amazon back.

I have both the -3100 & -3500 and Amazon still works on it last I tried. Strange. I'll have to try it again. I usually only use my TV for Amazon now, so haven't paid attention.

So far for me, the least expensive BD player that plays the most files without transcoding has been Sony players. I have an H series Samsung BD player and it was about the same. I wouldn't worry about the lack of a Samsung J profile because a) the H profile works lust fine with the BD players and b) there will be a J profile in the next Serviio release (which is getting close).

The biggest issues with the Samsung profiles are with the 4K TVs, so those issues won't occur with the BD player. However, The main reason I switched back from a Samsung to Sony BD player was for HD audio support. The Samsung would not play HD audio from DLNA sources. All of my BD rips contain either Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio as one of the available tracks. The Samsung would not pass this, and would only send the lossy version to my AVR. My older Sony players (-3100) would pass both versions, but the newer one (-3500) only passed DTS MA for some reason.

Some other options, if you aren't concerned with a disc player. The Roku 4 has many wonderful attributes, and a wide variety of channels available, including Amazon at 4K. This biggest issue with any Roku is that they cannot play a file with MPEG2 video, so they require transcoding. There are also several other media streaming devices, such as the Amazon Fire TV, the Nvidia Shield, and a number of boxes developed with Google (Android) TV. The Amazon Fire now also support 4K, although only at 30 fps, while the Roku will play 4K at 60 fps. Both support 10 bit color. Naturally, higher priced units will support more codecs. From what I understand, one of the BD player brands is the Oppo, although I am not familiar with it's DLNA support.

One final option, if the loss if Amazon is the only issue you're having, is either the Roku stick or Amazon Fire Stick. The Amazon Fire stick is only $40, and uses WiFi for the network connection. Really cheap way to get your Amazon back.

Thanks for the recommendations.

I don't think the 4K stuff would matter as I don't have a 4K TV. I actually was mistaken, I have the BDP-S3200 not the BDP-S3100. By the way, you mentioned that the Samsung lacked HD audio support—well one thing I have noticed with my Sony is that for some movies, the Bluray player seems to indicate that the audio is 192kbps, but if I look at the media information for the movie on my computer, it says the audio is like 1500kbps. It doesn't bother me because I don't have a good sound system. (I don't even have an AVR. But I'm going to just buy an entry level AVR—Denon AVR-S510b—and use that with some old speakers.) But what is happening? Is it transcoding the audio so that it's lossy? But I have transcoding disabled. Or is the Sony BD just misreporting the audio information? Or does transcoding just pertain to video, not audio?

Also—did you find that the subtitles are really small on the Sony BD? Or is that pretty much standard?

What happens when Samsung won't play the HD audio? Does Serviio deliver a lossy version? And if transcoding is turned off, does the audio just not play? Not sure how this works. One other question: would a J profile possibly allow for HD audio to play with the Samsung, or is that going to be specifically a limitation of the device?

[atc98092]

Or does transcoding just pertain to video, not audio?

Transcoding can do both, or either. Depends on what the profile calls for on the specific file. Sometimes the audio is fine but the video needs transcoding, and sometimes it's the other way around. It's possible the Sony is not reporting the audio stream accurately.

Also—did you find that the subtitles are really small on the Sony BD? Or is that pretty much standard?

No, my captions are quite easily readable. Not too small at all. Can't remember if Sony has a menu to adjust captions. You might look.

What happens when Samsung won't play the HD audio? Does Serviio deliver a lossy version? And if transcoding is turned off, does the audio just not play? Not sure how this works. One other question: would a J profile possibly allow for HD audio to play with the Samsung, or is that going to be specifically a limitation of the device?

Depends on the video. Sometimes, especially with DTS-MA, the lossy core plays automatically. With TrueHD, I usually have to manually select the lossy track. If transcoding is off, you'll either get no audio or the file won't play. Again, it depends on the file and the player.

When you play an HD file directly on the TV, you will never get HD audio. The TV does not have the hardware decoder to support it, and the audio out path (optical or ARC) does't have the bandwidth to stream it to an AVR. Nothing in the profile can change that.

By the way, Zip just released version 1.6 this afternoon, so time for an update!