Insignia NS-BRDVD3 - Netflix & BD-Live - Want Your Opinions - Page 7

Ok cool thanks. Thats just what I wanted to know. I was hoping someone would put out a hack or something in the future but meh, I dont have the patience. I ordered a BD drive from Newegg for $80. It would have been nice to have a standalone player (ie. not take up PC resources if I'm playing a game and the wife wants to watch a movie), but its ok. An internal drive also offers a ton of flexibility with what you can do with it.

Do you think its better to let your vcard handle the output, or a standalone player like this one. I got a 5770 on the way as this is an HTPC, but I was just curious cost wise.

Thanks again.

I'm personally partial to standalones mostly due to ease of use. I was doing netflix through my HTPC before getting this player. Although that worked ok, it was a PITA to use and the PQ wasn't great. I don't have blu-ray or a video card with the same horsepower as your ATI on my HTPC, so I don't really know how well that works. I imagine it would work fine. I do know that with a standalone, I can press one button on my universal remote and be watching blu-ray or netflix in a matter of seconds. And the transport controls are very responsive. I'm sure a good HTPC setup could be almost as seamless, but mine's not there yet. With really good hardware, your's may be.

I'm at a point now where the more I can do with a standalone and use my HTPC less, the happier I am. Since my DirecTV DVR is a decent client for music, photos and other video formats, I'm almost HTPC-free except for Hulu and web browsing.

I finally tested an AVCHD DVD from my Canon HF200 authored and burned with the Canon software that came in the box. It plays just fine.

I was also pleased to see that it lists xvid encoded avi's and plays them fine. No renaming to wmv required.

These questions are all in regards to the OP's model (Insignia NS-BRDVD3, aka "wired"), as I'm really hoping this player has broad general compatibility with BD-Rebuilder beta output:

Great to know this supports AVCHD: was it burned to disc (what type?), or just from USB? According to manual (which is horribly-written) on page 18, it implies that AVCHD on disc only plays back from DVD-RAM, which would be about pointless, and is likely false.

Has anyone confirmed if the player works with DVD-Video and/or AVCHD on DVD+R / DVD+R DL, either bitset as +R or -ROM? The manual does mention compatibility for +R discs on page 18, but unlike the other formats it doesn't list what modes are compatible (AVCHD/DVD-Video/DVD-Video Recording/etc).

Has anyone tested whether or not this will play full-movie BD9(/5) backups output from BD-Rebuilder beta?

Has anyone tested BD-R/RE movie burns (direct copy or BD-Rebuilder shrinks) on this player?

Do external, non-bus powered USB HDDs work well with this, and has anyone successfully played back either AVCHD (full file structure with or without BDAV interactive features) and/or full BD rips (BDMV) via USB HDD/flash-drive?

Thanks so much to anyone who can provide any feedback on these points!

Maybe it is because I am trying to use a dual layer disc. I will have to try a normal one.

I am pleased that I have found that it will play MP4 and MKV files in their native format with Dolby Digital or DTS. It works from USB or DVD and will even play a UDF Formated DVD with a 4.3GB file.

Update... I finally got it to read AVCHD but only on a DVDR it wouldn't read it on a RW or DL. I guess that is better than nothing but I really wanted to DL capability like my PS3 has.

The poster in post #173 says he used a 1TB external USB drive, so I would say the answer is yes you can play files from one - not sure if all the formats will work or not.

How is the NetFlix quality on this box? What resolution are you getting and what sound codec?

Thanks,

I just bought mine yesterday and hooked it up but the Netflix quality seemed very good to me. The set up was very quick once I plugged in the ethernet cable. Maybe 7 minutes max.

Thanks, I went through all that. It was the internal wireless card. Time for new computer upgrade (it was a 7 year old powerbook).

I've had my connected this way since I bought it and it works perfectly (HDMI for video and Optical TOS for audio). My receiver is a Denon AVR-1709. I have the new firmware and stream netflix.

I've used a Roku, and have an identical experience with this box.

Some of the Netflix streams are in HD, and while not as good as my Comcast HD, it's pretty close.

It's been hit and miss with the non-HD streams. Some are really good, some are a little dark. To compare to Comcast, it's pretty close to the SD channels I get. The stream has always been smooth.

I'm only getting digital stereo for sound, but that's all I ever got with the Roku. Can you get anything else yet?

I find the SD and HD streams to be on par with my xbox 360 netflix stream. SD= dvd quality
HD= as mentioned, not quite network quality, but close.

I've only gotten stereo sound from both the 360 and the insignia. im guessing DD/dts isnt available(yet).

Out of curiosity I opened one up and saw it had an asatech sata drive (possibly THIS one). It appears the decoding and video processing is done by the drive. The asatech web site claims divx support. Some of the chips on the main board were hynix and nanya. I couldn't see the processor because it had a big heat sink on top of it. I may post some pics later.

I saw somewhere that oppo and philips have asatech drives. Does anybody know what other makes use these components?

Netflix streaming has been uneven for me. The picture quality has been good for the most part. I watched some LOST in HD and it looked quite good, albeit with the occasional playback stutter.

However, other movies, like "The Awful Truth" (1937) had severely out-of-synch audio. No idea whether this is related to the player or simply the source data. I reported it to Netflix, but don't know if I should report to Insignia as well.

I've yet to have any success on the region-free front, which is unfortunate because I've only got so much space on my shelves and was hoping to swap it with my region-free player.

I am thinking about purchasing this blu-ray player as a second player for my "home office." I know that I need an HDMI cord but was wondering if I also need to purchase audio cords as well or if the player comes with cords. I am connecting the player right to the TV, no surround sound system or receiver. Anybody have any advice?

Interesting. Esata, not regular Sata? I looked at your link, and I don't know if we can conclude that the decoding etc is done in the drive: that page mentions all kinds of analog outputs, which can't be done over (e)SATA, so I think they're overstating what the drive itself can actually do, unless it comes with far more than just an (e)SATA hookup to the rest of the player.


If you're just hooking up to a TV, and it has HDMI input, this means it gets both video and sound over the HDMI, and no other hookup cords are needed.

Some are better than others. HD is very good. Its pretty much up there with cable quality. SD streams are more unpredictable. Some are pretty good and DVD like in quality while some are pretty bad.


The output is showing up as DTS 2.0 on my receiver for the majority of movies. I did get a couple of DTS 5.1 videos. Don't remember which ones it was. I'll check again a little later to confirm.

You're right. It's a big fat red Sata cable, not eSata (corrected my post). It has a couple of other ribbon cables coming from the drive board as well.

Will a wireless (wi[fi) dongle work with this player, if so can someone suggest a good one?

Does the power feed in as standard SATA-power cable, or is it on one of the ribbons do you think?

I've been reading all these "news" articles conjecturing that some BD players will be retailing for around $50 on Black Friday, and since that's a little bit cheaper than the price of any BD-ROM drive for PC that I can find online, it might be worth it to me to get one and just pull the drive out, if it works as a standard BD-ROM in a PC. But this drive sounds like it may not work, unless those ribbon cables are nothing but power *and* there's a redundant standard SATA power connector around back as well.....? Even then it still might not work in a PC, I guess, but it seems likely to.

Failing that, $100 for a BD SAP that does Netflix, Profile 2.0, and has a USB port and what seems to be generally good compatibility with various media types is still very tempting.

Anyone tried a burned BD-R/RE yet? The Insignia NS-BRDVD3 manual doesn't mention compatibility, but the Asa BD-ROM drive listings do mention it.....?

I highly doubt it. You'll need a wireless bridge. Google "gaming adapter" and you'll find plenty. However they cost nearly as much as the player. I'd go hard wired or get a cheap used WRT54G and load the hacked firmware to make it an ethernet bridge.

The following wireless AP has a bridge mode as is $42

http://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-54Mbp...p_ob_e_title_2

My house is pre-wired for networking in almost all rooms except my living room. I use a similar wireless bridge to provide access for about 3 devices including an HTPC, PS3(stronger signal than the built-in wifi of the ps3), and XBOX.

I highly suspect that it's an encode issue if it's repeatable and isolated to specific titles.

I think Netflix pre-encodes titles at certain bitrates and then streams the pre-encoded files depending on your connection speed. Sometimes there are issues with specific encodes. For example. I once had an issue with a specific stream of Heroes I was watching. but only at the highest HD encode (netflix usually has 2 HD encodes). When using my xbox, many times I will start out streaming at the lower bitrate HD encode and then when netflix senses that i can handle the higher bitrate encoede, it will stream that one to me. However, that higher bitrate encode had an audio issue. So I ended up having to continously stop and start the epsiode to finish watching the episode since there was no way to specify that I wanted the lower bitrate stream.

All I know about SATA is it's not IDE I wouldn't know a SATA power cable if I saw one. I can't trace them without taking another look at my pics later (I've already put the cover back on and don't plan to open it again). Seems like there was an empty 4-pin plug next to the other connectors. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic of the drive connections.

My main reason for opening it up was to see what it had in common with other makes to figure out who made it.

Anyway, can't you get a BD drive for $50 these days?

Have you tried a USB hard drive?

A USB hard drive would not work for me

Might have to be FAT32 formatted, not NTFS

If you could post some of those pics, I'm sure many of us would appreciate it!

Also, I can actually find them for around $60 plus shipping, which now seems would be less hassle in the long term anyway. But my interest in this as a (potentially sub-) $100 BD SAP w/ Netflix is still strong.


Good point--can anyone confirm what format their HDD was, and if it worked or not?

My HDD was NTFS. I'll give FAT32 a try. Thanks, fhall1.

Here are some pics of the inside:
On the main board, the ribbon beside the sata also goes to the drive. The big black cable goes to the USB port. The 2 wire ribbon goes to the drive. The wide ribbon at the bottom goes to the display.

The Nanya chips are all RAM and the Hynix chip is NAND flash.

The red cable looks like a SATA cable. If the red cable and the ribbon next to it are the only connections to the drive, then the ribbon has to be supplying power.

There's a microprocessor under the heatsink.