Downloads not playing

[scoopyx]

Hi folks.
I've just joined up because I have a very strange issue and I don't know what to do about it.
I've come here because I don't know where else to go or what else to do.
The issue is this: For a long time, I have been able to download TV shows (primarily in MP4 but now many in MKV) which have played flawlessly on our TV or through the USB slot on our Blu-ray player.
But earlier this year, for some reason nearly all the shows I got just wouldn't play in either machine.
I thought I had tracked the problem down to being a matter of video fps (our equipment only likes 20 to 30 fps), so I'd convert them using HandBrake and away we'd go.
Now, I check every download to see what its framerate is, and even if it's within those limits (it's normally 23.976 fps) ... nope, no go.
I even re-encoded some of them in HandBrake so the fps was within those limits, but still no luck!
What I want to ask is, does anyone know whether uploaders/encoders have changed the way they do things or how they're encoding these things so that they become more problematic?
Or has there been an announcement somewhere that I haven't seen or something?
It's really frustrating, because I thought I'd fathomed it out, only to be caught again.
Anyway, advice or thoughts would be welcome.
Regards,

scoopyx.

[vn11]

can you see any information in logs of the player if you run it through on the laptop - does it work ok on the laptop?

[eman916]

bluray machine probably updated to block non-certified .mkv and\or .mp4 this happened to my Sony Bluray player.

[scoopyx]

Hello again folks, and thank you for the responses.
I actually think I've been able to figure this out (!!!)
Our equipment appears to not like either the AC-3 audio codec (all the time) or the MKV container (some of the time).
Regarding the laptop, no, I hadn't actually done that - hadn't thought of it, actually.
But I guess it's now basically moot anyway, because if I run things through HandBrake with settings that I am certain will work on our equipment, everything seems to be happy.
I just make sure it's set to output to MP4, the audio codec is AAC and the FPS is within the limits of our equipment, and away we go.
I still don't know for certain what changed from before, but I'm not complaining.
My wife (and me, to a lesser degree) can now watch the shows we want to.
Thanks for everything folks, and I'll be back.
Regards,

scoopyx.

[kalebson]

Good to hear you got it working.