Desidarius

Right now I watch movie files on my macbook, of usually 720p quality in the .mkv file format. I have a monitor that displays 1080p, though most of the movie files of that quality run choppy on my little macbook. Would the picture quality be better using a blu-ray player? My monitor has HDMI input, it is this Asus monitor:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...567&CatId=4420

I also wasn't sure which blu-ray player to get, as I wasn't sure if some produce better picture than others, I would assume that they are all the same, except for extra features.

Isny

I have MKV files for some anime and my computer barely runs the files as they are of such high quality. (And I have a great computer)

Obviously this is YMMV based on the compression of the files and the source.

Gizmo

The BD390 plays MKVs just fine.

gorgo99

I stream them through my ps3 or 360 after converting to vob with mkvtovob (a free program)... they look great, but not as good as bluray. Also, they don't have the lossless audio of blu.

Still, that's my preferred way to watch downloaded TV that I missed.

Gizmo

As for quality, I'd say between DVD and Blu-ray...but mainly just a bit better than DVD. All depends on the source, file size etc.

RichC2

They aren't quite Blu-ray quality but they are substantially higher than DVD. They are generally somewhere between HD Broadcast and Blu, but it does depend on how it's done (codec, bitrate and resolution).

I personally use a WD TV HD Media Player though I am tempted to update to a Live edition. I back up my own Blus for travel purposes (visiting family and what not).

kahuna

I download Korean Dramas. Usually each episode is a 1.5GB MKV file in 720P resolution. I watch them on my Western Digital WD TV Live Media Player hooked up through my AV receiver to my LCD TV. All episodes come with fan subbed english subtitles. They look way better than watching them on standard tv resolution as well as any that I have owned on dvd. Heck I would move to Korea just to be able to watch these dramas in Hi-def.

joltman

Isn't mkv just a container? Meaning the quality would depend on the codec used, not just that it's a mkv file.

HumanMedia

Of course. Its just a wrapper around variants of MPEG4. It has nothing to do with what the quality is like.

What the original poster probably means is MKVs downloaded from the internet which are generally low bit-rate 720P compressions from lossy BD conversions or broadcast material. The quality of these is somewhere between DVD and Blu-ray.

kahuna

I also download these 720P and 1080i files in x264 avi format. The 1080i files are about 8GB in size.