Streaming mkv movies to my TV without having to convert first?

idyll

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Jul 11, 2004
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Is it possible to stream mkv movies to my TV without converting them first?

What about 3d mkv movies that are about 4gb in file size?

I have a Mac computer so something compatible with OS X would be great.


I'm willing to buy any hardware or device needed to make this happen. I do already have a Mac Mini at my disposal as well as an Apple TV hooked up to every TV.

If there is no wifi solution, please let me know of a device that I could plug my USB hard drive into and play the mkv movies that way. I'd actually like to know of a hard wired solution anyway.

Thank you! :)
 
I use a program on my iPad and iPhone called StreamToMe and ServeToMe on the computer.
I use it to play all kinds of files from my computer on my iPad or iPhone or airplay it to my appleTV.
http://zqueue.com/streamtome/
 
Plex and Mezzmo both have to Transcode MKV files for my TV, a 1080P movie can almost max out 4 cores on an i7, running on virtual machine so they could have GPU decoding working which wouldn't be that bad. Was going to test passing in GPU to vm to see if that makes a difference.
 
If you do not want to deal with any transcoding you could always get an OPPO BDP-103. A guy I know has one and it plays pretty much everything.
 
Thanks for all the helpful answers.

For anyone wondering, I was setting this up for a friend and we ended up going with Plex. http://www.plexapp.com/

This probably ended up being the best solution for him because all of his TVs are Samsung, so we installed the Plex app on them through the Samsung App store (free) and the Plex Media Server (free) on his Mac Mini. We put the movies on a Apple Time Capsule and told the Plex Media Server to get them from there.

The benefit of this is he can access his movies from any TV in his house using his TVs remote without having to go to his Mac Mini each time he wants to play a movie.
 
Check out Plex Media Server.

That just serves files.. You still need a device that plays MKV's.

To the OP.. WDTV Live Streaming is awesome for MKV's.

I use Mezzmo and WDTV's.. Best thing ever..
 
That just serves files.. You still need a device that plays MKV's.

To the OP.. WDTV Live Streaming is awesome for MKV's.

I use Mezzmo and WDTV's.. Best thing ever..

Plex transcodes for whatever client you're using.
 
@OP

I have plex server running in a vm in ESXI. The box has a Xeon Ivy Bridge quad core at 2 GHz. When streaming 1080p (blu rays), I see at most a 15% usage of 1 core. This is with transcoding the 1080p with 5.1 surround to something an old single core Athlon could playback.
 
@OP

I have plex server running in a vm in ESXI. The box has a Xeon Ivy Bridge quad core at 2 GHz. When streaming 1080p (blu rays), I see at most a 15% usage of 1 core. This is with transcoding the 1080p with 5.1 surround to something an old single core Athlon could playback.

What OS do you have plex server running on your ESXi? Also, what exact CPU do you have on it?

Thanks!
 
@ZzBloopzZ

Lol! I just happened to check this thread again. Didn't expect anyone to ask me anything.

I'm running a Xeon 1230v2 (4 core with HT). Plex is running on a Linux Mint VM.
 
If it is strictly for local media then I would recommend a boxee box. UI is fast. Does metadata really well. Does mkv just fine. Played a 14 gig 1080p/DTS file off a USB stick perfectly today. No buffering issues at all. Has wifi and Ethernet.
 
Out of curiosity how is the plex app for the samsung tvs? I assume playback is okay, more in the ui and overall feel categories is what I am asking.
 
I'm using plex on the Roku 3 and it is awesome! It does DTS pass through (sorry I'm not completely the best source for actual use of it though)
 
I had a WDTV Live (new version) and it worked great playing directly from my NAS. My only complaint was the interface and apps were slow. I just switched to a Roku 3 this weekend with plex running on a VM on my esxi box and I am VERY impressed. It works great and is very fast with the interface and channels. I'm going to swap my other WDTV on my other TV for another Roku here maybe next month.
 
Out of curiosity how is the plex app for the samsung tvs? I assume playback is okay, more in the ui and overall feel categories is what I am asking.

The playback on my Samsung TV is better than ok, and is far superior to the playback on a Roku 2, that I was previously using. I am streaming 1080p MKV's, and on the Roku, it would continuously buffer. I in turn had to back the settings down to 720p. On the TV its running wide open at 1080p, very smooth, and looks beautiful. Both were hard wired ethernet connections.

The UI isn't too bad either, I would say on par with the Plex Roku UI.
 
The playback on my Samsung TV is better than ok, and is far superior to the playback on a Roku 2, that I was previously using. I am streaming 1080p MKV's, and on the Roku, it would continuously buffer. I in turn had to back the settings down to 720p. On the TV its running wide open at 1080p, very smooth, and looks beautiful. Both were hard wired ethernet connections.

The UI isn't too bad either, I would say on par with the Plex Roku UI.

That's probably a bitrate issue. In the Plex app on Roku you can set the bitrate. I'm guessing it's defaulting to the lowest setting on the Samsung TV.
 
Its been a while since I messed with it but I'm pretty sure the bit rate was much higher on the TV as well. I went through every available settings playing around with it in comparison to the Roku, and ended up ditching the roku all together.

It's one of the Dual core plasma's, so I'm sure that helps out. PN60E7000FF to be exact.
 
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