[eugovector]

Short answer: Discs, no. Media Files, yes (with limited audio support)

While it will play unencrypted DVDs from a USB drive, it will not play CSS protected DVDs (could certainly be worked around, don't tell the MPAA). It will play VOB and ISO files, so you could easily set up a library on a central server and serve your movies around the house to these units.

Now, on the HD side. It will play H.264, VC-1, and Mpeg-2, the formats used in HD-Discs (with VC1 and H.264 being the most popular of course). It will play these in MKV, TS, and a variety of other containers as noted on their specs:

# Video containers:

* MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
* MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG)
* MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
* VOB
* AVI, ASF, WMV
* Matroska (MKV)
* MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4

# Video codecs:

* XVID SD/HD
* MPEG-1
* MPEG-2
o MP@HL
* MPEG-4.2
o ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
* WMV9
o MP@HL
* H.264
o BP@L3
o MP@L4.0
o HP@L4.0
o HP@L4.1
* VC-1
o MP@HL
o AP@L3

So on the Video side of things, if you can get the video off your disc and onto a server (easier on HD-DVD than Bluray...right now), you are in business. however, on the audio side of things, things don't look so good. The A100 is only HDMI 1.1, so no passing compressed DD+, DTHD, or the DTS variants to a receiver to decode.

Could they be decoded in the A100 and sent as PCM? Not right now, and it's unlikely that Dolby and DTS would allow them to. The A100 passes DD and DTS just fine, though, so they can be decoded in your receiver. So the short version is that currently, you can get DD and DTS, but no Advanced Audio codecs.

Hope on the horizon?

Word is that FLAC support will be forthcoming in the next firmware. Would it be possible to, when preparing the media to be put on the server, encoded DD+ and DTHD as 4 streams of FLAC (7.1)? Time will tell as I'm not sure the A100 has the processing power to decode Highbitrate VC1 along with 4 streams of FLAC, in fact, I would be surprised if it did.