Other Hardware Enable playback by nfusion HD FTA receiver?

[Christina]

The nfusion HD free-to-air satellite receiver is capable of receiving, among other things, high definition PBS broadcasts from orbital location 125 degrees West and displaying them by HDMI cable on HDTV. For recording broadcast TV programs, in standard definition or high definition, a hard drive in USB enclosure can be connected, and those recordings can be played back. They are *.TS files. The hard drive, of any size, must be formatted in one FAT32 volume, with a program like Fat32Formatter, as in FAT32 WindowsXP will not format a volume larger than 32GB, though it will read from and write to a FAT32 volume of up to 2TB. Satellite broadcasts are in MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 codecs; the nfusion HD receiver works with both.

As Blu-ray recording media are still very expensive, it would be especially desirable to use DVDFab and a Blu-ray computer drive to record backup copies of Blu-ray discs (as well as standard DVD's) to a hard drive in USB enclosure and then use an nfusion HD FTA receiver for playback on TV.

The nfusion HD displays only *.TS files, not folders. So, some files, like VTS_01_1.VOB from DVDFab folder VIDEO_TS were copied to USB hard drive, and the extensions .VOB replaced with .TS. They appeared in the "file list" of the nfusion HD, but trying to play them produced only black screen.

VLC Media Player works nicely to play on a computer a DVD movie ripped by DVDFab. Is there a way of making those files playable on an nfusion HD FTA satellite receiver through a USB hard drive?

[AGJ]

The first VIDEO_TS IFO file is what plays the DVD back in correct order. If you can get all the files in the folder to the drive and then play that file then they all should playback correctly

[Christina]

"Main Movie" created a folder containing two .BUP files (which are backup of the two .IFO files) and five .VOB files. The two .IFO files (VIDEO_TS.IFO and VTS_01_0.IFO) and the five .VOB files (VTS_01_1[to 5].VOB ) were copied to the USB hard drive and the file extensions were all changed to .TS.

None of them works. Opening one of the small files (like VIDEO_TS.TS)causes a very brief black screen and then the re-appearance of the "file list". Opening one of the large files causes the black screen to last longer before the re-appearance of the "file list".

It seems that those files need to be processed into another form to enable the nfusion HD to digest them - but what form?

[AGJ]

If you have the DVD to Mobile give the Vob Passthrough a try as it creates one large vob but might be too big for yout FAT32 drive. Other than that you will have to find out what other file formats it plays. Maybe Divx or AVI and you can check the user guide for it to find out

[Christina]

*.VOB files don't even appear in the nfusion HD's "file list". Only *.TS files appear in the list. Files ripped from a DVD by DVDFab but with file extensions changed to .TS are recognized by the nfusion HD, which tries to open them, unsuccessfully.

My computing skills are very limited. If someone with the necessary skills would compare a *.TS file created by the nfusion HD when it records a TV program to files ripped from a DVD, he should be able to see what sort of conversion of the DVD files would be necessary.

The nfusion HD User's Guide says nothing about the form of files created by the nfusion HD when it records TV programs, but I expect that the creators of the nfusion HD selected an appropriate, existing form of file rather than spend resources inventing something new.

I wonder if a *TS file created by the nfusion HD when recording a TV program is simply an ordinary MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 file but with a line of code inserted at the beginning to cause the nfusion HD receiver to play the file when it is selected in the "file list" and the "play" button on the remote control is pushed.

[AGJ]

Well the vob thing is your problem as all the files in the VIDEO_TS folder are VOB files as the VOB passthrough combines all the VOBs into one big VOB. So you need to figure out exactly what file format it can playback. Give the different formats a try in the DVD to Mobile to see which one will work

[GregiBoy]

I think that a forum dedicated to this player would be a more appropriate place for this discussion and to obtain the relevant information on the file format.