Any experts in Smart TVs? Advice needed (can't play certain videos on it)

[Dan83bz]

So I finally got a TV again, after not having one for close to a decade - we did fine using an older 17" laptop I have as well as a 27" monitor the occasional movie but since we recently moved countries and left behind/sold/gave away loads of stuff, including the monitor, we decided to get a TV as well.

The Panasonic 55" TV we got is nice and all, pretty cheap (<500€), I was surprised to see how low the prices of large screen TV's have gone nowadays - issue is there's some formats it just won't play and we have quite a few TV series saved on hard drive, some movies as well, and although some play fine, some of the newer ones, better quality ones, mostly MP4 or M4V formats will simply not play, just says "Format not supported". After spending a fair amount of time researching the matter, it seems most TV makers, Samsung, Panasonic, etc included, use certain Media players that come built-in with the TV and will not play certain formats, including the newer MP4s - why they do this, without allowing even some codec update I don't know. Some suggested solutions I've read about were either converting the files to different format, such as avi or xvid or buying a separate blu-ray player or devices such as Roku, in order to play such files, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a smart TV, but alas...am trying to find whether there might be any other alternatives? The conversion doesn't seem like a particularly good solution since I've learned it can take hours just to convert ONE single file.

Any advice is appreciated, bar returning the TV as its already outside the return window nor am I keen to keep HDMI cables running across the living room

[japester]

I've seen this before and, believe it or not, I simply renamed the file from .mp4 to .avi and it played fine. Another time I tried the index was screwed so couldn't ff or rw bit world still play. This was on a 2012 Samsung TV.

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[jcm3]

You've really laid out the alternatives already. Many Panasonic TVs can only recognize a MP4 container file with a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video codec and AAC audio codec. Other encoding combinations won't work. You can re-encode the file to match the TVs capabilities, or connect a playback device that can correctly play the files.

Here are some low cost options for players, some assembly required. http://www.techradar.com/news/best-k...reaming-boxes#

[Dan83bz]

You've really laid out the alternatives already. Many Panasonic TVs can only recognize a MP4 container file with a H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video codec and AAC audio codec. Other encoding combinations won't work. You can re-encode the file to match the TVs capabilities, or connect a playback device that can correctly play the files.

Here are some low cost options for players, some assembly required. http://www.techradar.com/news/best-k...reaming-boxes#

This may sound like a silly question, but if I do buy a Fire stick off Amazon...will that even work outside of the UK? Because I've been reading a bit now about it and it says it will not work if it detects foreign IP?

[jcm3]

This may sound like a silly question, but if I do buy a Fire stick off Amazon...will that even work outside of the UK? Because I've been reading a bit now about it and it says it will not work if it detects foreign IP?

To do this "correctly" you won't be using Amazon's services. The stick is merely a platform on which you'd install different software.

[swanbourne]

My LG won't play H265 encoded video but my Samsung will. I asked LG if they were planning a firmware update to allow H265 playback and they said they weren't. I understand you need a more powerful processor for H265 than for H264.

Eddie

[Dan83bz]

To do this "correctly" you won't be using Amazon's services. The stick is merely a platform on which you'd install different software.

Gotcha! After reading thru the links again I see what you mean, so Amazon Stick + Kodi = play most things? Next problem is that I see now that none of the Amazons I checked (.co.uk, .de, .com) ship their sticks outside the resident country...so probably I'll have to find some workaround.

Is the Amazon stick better than a Roku for example at running this Kodi interface?

[Kingstepper]

Gotcha! After reading thru the links again I see what you mean, so Amazon Stick + Kodi = play most things? Next problem is that I see now that none of the Amazons I checked (.co.uk, .de, .com) ship their sticks outside the resident country...so probably I'll have to find some workaround.

Is the Amazon stick better than a Roku for example at running this Kodi interface?

I'll order one and send it on if you're stuck.

[Dan83bz]

I'll order one and send it on if you're stuck.

Thanks so much for the offer, much appreciated - but no worries - haven't decided which one I'll get yet, whether the Amazon stick or another.

I also have a post forwarding account from the time I was living in Cyprus for Amazon.de, so guess could sort by buying from that Amazon instead.