There are many media players (I would concentrate on HD movies here) on the market, more than you can imagine, the competition in this niche market is so high that any new model will only have a very short lifespan if its performance can not meet the standard.
Among these, I found that HDI Dune media players have outperformed others in image quality, reliability, compatibility, functionality, adjustability … Their product line continues to grow, they have various models of Smart, Max, Prime, Base, Center, Mini and Ultra. I don’t mean that it is perfect and in fact it still has a lot of small bugs, and its firmware update is very slow. However, users are invited to vote for new features so their engineers can set priorities. I’ve been interested in voting for the features I like to have (eg uploading subtitles so it can be displayed on a 2.35: 1 anamorphic screen) and it happened.
For Dune to run smoothly, there are some basic prerequisites that must be met. Below is the summary of what I think can enhance our enjoyment of a movie on our home theater using the Dune series of media players:
–file format
–subtitle source
–subtitle format
– movie wall
– cover format
1. File format
(any legality regarding the bit torrent is ignored here, the reader should always make their own copied copy of their purchased copy)
– We should always avoid using the mkv, mp4 format as they are compressed and many details are lost, the ts file is the most common and simple HD format, it always removes all the special features, bonuses, unnecessary audio data / angles. The downside is that it has no chapter, so if you want to jump to a particular scene you have to use fast forward and by trial and error.
–The BDMV format is Blu-ray format, it preserves the original structure of the bluray disc, so we can have the chapter function.
– The iso file is the disk image file, similar to BDMV, many media players on the market have difficulty handling iso files, but Dune does not.
2. Caption source
Dune likes UTF-8 font, so it’s best to use this font all the time. Dune can recognize other fonts as well, but it’s my experience that standardizing the font will eliminate the hassle of hopping around in the settings menu trying to figure out what type of font to use and its automatic font detection doesn’t always work.
I use ConvertZ to convert all subtitle sources to UTF-8, you can download it from here: –
http://www.bumpersoft.com/Education_and_Science/Languages/ConvertZ_12649.htm
3. Subtitle format
Dune can only allow one subtitle format, although it supports multiple languages, so we need to put each language in a different subtitle format to have multi-language subtitles.
For example, we will put all English subtitles in .srt format, all French subtitles in .ass or .ssa format
Also, your subtitle file must use the same filename as the movie itself.
For instance: –
Talk To Her movie, movie file name is talk.to.her.2002.bluray.remux.h264.1080p.ts
then your English subtitle will be: –
talk.with.her.2002.bluray.remux.h264.1080p.srt
your French subtitle will be: –
talk.with.her.2002.bluray.remux.h264.1080p.ass
To convert the subtitle to a different format I use Subtitle Workshop, you can download it from here: –
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Subtitle-Workshop-Download-5315.html
I recommend using the same arrangement consistently to avoid confusion. What I mean is that if.srt is for English subtitles, so in every movie I will use .srt for English.
4. Movie wall
This is not a necessity, Dune can always list the movies on the hard drive in alphabetical order. But with the showings of a series of bluray films, the cover is sure to enhance the impression of the public.
There are many plugins on the network that can do the same, but I found that most involve a lot of settings on the computer and players have to connect to the network all the time. My method is the simplest and does not need any network (I know, I know, there is no automatic retrieval of movie artwork or network information, it is a trade-off)
To have the movie wall when you access your library on the hard drive, you must put two files on the hard drive. One in the root directory and one in the movies folder.
I set these two files so that the movie wall just fits a 16: 9 screen, if you want you can change how many covers you want to show in a row, but you have to recalculate the size of the cover so it can fit the screen .
Both files are called dune_folder.txt, please use any text editor to write the following simple lines and save it as dune_folder.txt.
use_icon_view = yes
num_cols = 6
num_rows = 2
and put it in the root directory
then create another dune_folder.txt using any text editor with the following simple lines: –
icon_path = cover.jpg
icon_valign = bottom
icon_dx = 0
icon_dy = 0
icon_scale_factor = 0.6
use_icon_view = yes
caption_font_size = small
and put it in each movie folder
5. Movie cover format
You can get the cover from Amazon, Blu-ray.com, or scan it yourself. You must save it as cover.jpg
To fit on the movie wall, the size of each jpg should be 346×446
If you can’t get exactly this size at least stick to yyy x 446
Hope the above can enhance your enjoyment of movies with the Dune media player. If you have any problem, feel free to write to me and I will do my best to find a solution for you.
