Please help determine AVCHD (or DivX) format for Onkyo BD-SP809

[daringtofly]

Been lurking for more than a decade, first time I came up against a problem I could not solve by searching
I recently moved into an apartment complex and they have a theater room decked out with a HUGE screen, 8.1 in-wall speakers ... and an 809 🙄 The only way to watch our own content is through this thing. Welcome to 2011! So I've been struggling to figure out what it wants when it displays "There is no playback file on the Memory Device or Device has incorrect/no format". According to the manual, my best bet is AVCHD. Storage (FAT32 SDHC <32GB or DVD-R/RW) "must have a proper file and folder structure meeting AVCHD format specifications." Onkyo's announcement mentions "DivX HD" but the manual claims no support for this.

Here are my goals with this thread:

1. Find out, as exhaustively as possible, what this dang thing will play
2. Find out what modern solutions are needed to make my (MOV, MKV, HEVC) content compatible

Ideally I'd have something like deank's AVCHD_PROFILES_TEST to run against it, or any of the old SDHC AVCHD structure tests for Panny TVs/BR players but those links are long dead. I guess the hardware is Funai-based and similar to the 808 but I can't find any info on its chipsets. Given FAT16/FAT32 formatting, would it be wrong to assume that it wants 8.3 filenames and 4GB split like the PS3?

What I've tried so far:

• re-encoding with Handbrake to different Profiles/Levels, frame rates, etc.
• various conversions (AVCHD BD5, BD9, crf / USB 4GB) with BDtoAVCHD
• tsMuxeR's AVCHD folder output
• tsMuxeR's Blu-ray folder output
• Panny-style \PRIVATE\ sub-foldering for above

I have no idea if the problem is my audio stream (codec, bit depth, sample rate), video stream (container, format, frame rate, H.264 Profile and Level), subtitles (perhaps need to hardsub?), or the AVCHD folder structure. Absolutely nothing works. So I have a couple asks for the community:

1. If you have an AVCHD native video camera, please take a few seconds of video and send me a ZIP file with the contents for testing
2. If you have ever gotten this player to display AVCHD or "DivX HD" content, please let me know how it's done
3. If you know of tools or resources to test an unknown player's capabilities, post them up

It's worth a lot to me to get this working, so I'm willing to kick $10 to your favorite charity. I'm counting on you! 🤞

[Emulgator]

First guess: Wrong kind of device ?
BD-SP809 will accept only 3 kinds of devices: USB Stick, USB-Cardreader, USB Hub.
No harddisk, no PC-Link, no MP3-Player, no Digicam, no USB-Keyboard, no Mouse etc.

Second guess: Format incompatibility ?
FAT16, FAT32 only.
No NTFS, no exFAT.
Max 32GB SDHC.

Let the BD-Player format your stick and the add your files on his desired filesystem.

3rd guess: Structure incompatibility ?
No AVCHD on Stick, AVCHD from disc only.

No bare .m2ts,.MTS !
Complete BD/AVCHD folder structure only.

This means these containers can only be played from disc.

DivX (3,4,5,6) with MP2, MP3, AC3 audio in .avi seems the only format not excluded from being played from stick.

That list of incompatibilities seems longer to me than the list of compatible formats.
No Onkyo for me, sorry.

[daringtofly]

Yes, this is truly a horrible player and I would not use it if I didn't have to
Thank you for taking the time to reply These are some excellent guesses! I'll try to address them.

Originally Posted by Emulgator

First guess: Wrong kind of device ?
Second guess: Format incompatibility ?

I'm using a 1GB SD card in a USB-Cardreader, formatted by the 809. JPG and WMA are read and displayed so I think the format is fine.

3rd guess: Structure incompatibility ?
No AVCHD on Stick, AVCHD from disc only.

The manual says no AVCHD on USB flash drive or Blu-ray, but yes to AVCHD on SD card (see "AVCHD on SD.jpg").

No bare .m2ts,.MTS !
Complete BD/AVCHD folder structure only.

This means these containers can only be played from disc.

I am willing to burn a disc to try, of course, I just want to be reasonably certain that I'm not running afoul of other requirements. That's why I'm testing on SD first.

DivX (3,4,5,6) with MP2, MP3, AC3 audio in .avi seems the only format not excluded from being played from stick.

For the 808, partly true ("808-DivX.png"). The 809 is DivX-certified in some regions ("DivX-Certified.png", "808-809-Divx.png", "808-809-Features.png" Source: divx.com; Onkyo catalog) but the (B)CDD1AN on the back of my North American unit is not on that list. I'm trying to confirm with Onkyo, but anyway I think AVCHD is better than DivX. Even for the 808, it claims DivX files need to be on disc and SD is simply more convenient. I've been referring to the 808 manual because it is written more clearly than the 809's in many cases, and I actually don't know the chipset differences in these devices. Do you know where I can find that information?

>>>Imgur album with images<<<

[Emulgator]

If interested in chipset, I would try to get a service manual (elektrotanya has it, manualslib has it),
or just open the player, it is 4..7 screws, PH2 screwdriver and you may be loking for Mediatek ICs.

P.S: I saw prefix MN, that would point to Matsushita (Panasonic), being rather strict.
In detail: MN2WS0150A3.

Still there is a bad chance of region-dependent firmware which might block certain combos out.

[SeeMoreDigital]

DivX and XviD both conform to 'Part-2' of the MPEG-4 ISO 14496 standard.

If you haven't done-so already...

Try encoding some 'MPEG-4 (SP or ASP) video with MP3 audio muxed within the .avi container' samples. And transfer them onto a CD-R or DVD-R disc...

It's possible to generate MPEG-4 SP (Simple Profile) or ASP (Advanced Simple Profile) video using either DivX or XviD (and a few other) video codec software's - but whatever you do, do not enable their Qpel and/or GMC options.

Another useful tool is Moitah's MPEG4 Modifier, which can 'modify' certain attributes of MPEG-4 .AVI contained files, making them compatible with hardware playback devices - without having to re-encode them.

Cheers

EDIT: For anyone who's interested... The Onkyo BD-SP809 is fitted with a Marvell Qdeo media processing chip-set, which technically offers support for decoding: MPEG-2, MPEG-4 SP/ASP, MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 in both standard and high definition PS (program) and TS (transport) streams.

[Ghitulescu]

IIRC that Onkyo is made by Funai (as OEM) on Panasonic basis. A very restricted player like all based on the Uniphier chip.
If made after fusion, could be based on MTK instead (like Oppos that played almost everything).
I might expect the AVR play more formats than the BD player.
The best solution is to have BD-RE (25 or 50) and burn them.

[SeeMoreDigital]

...Or buy a different Blu-ray player with USB input

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by SeeMoreDigital

...Or buy a different Blu-ray player with USB input

Yes, especially when one considers that cinavia is not enforced (yet) on other media than the discs.