[Fixed] .mkv file issues

Sazar

Rest In Peace
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Ok, I have a few high-def movies that I have ripped to my main desktop and was planning on not only viewing in the bedroom but also in the living room over my network.

I will use 2 movies as an example of the issue I am experiencing. I, Robot is a true 1080p rip and I have Gattacca which is a 720p rip (was an older movie and there was no added IQ improvement at 1080p so I saved space).

On my main system, I am able to view both movies using VLC (my player of choice) and there is no issue with seek functions or anything. Everything works perfectly and there are no hiccups or issues with audio synch.

Now, when I am trying to view it on my media box (specs of my old system) I have some minor issues. Specs are as follows. AMD X2 4400+ (sckt 939), 2GB Corsair XMS Pro, Vista Home Premium, 2 320GB S-ATA drives and so forth, connected to my 42" 1080p television.

The issue is as follows. The opening sequence of the movie will start in VLC and then the video will freeze or fade to black while the audio plays. I have the exact same codecs on both my primary system and my secondary. As mentioned, there are no issues whatsoever with the playback on the primary system. I initially believed it was a problem with network bandwitdh so I transferred the files to the local hard-drive and the problem persists.

I spent a few hours yesterday and I couldn't figure out what the heck is going on. I'd prefer to be able to serve the videos over the network so that the files are viewable on any device I choose to plug into the network.

I have experienced the same issues with Media Center (once proper codecs were installed), Media Player Classic and VLC.

Any suggestions for trouble-shooting this?
 
Re: .mkv file issues

i play lots of MKV in mediacenter, (videos stored on a server2003 box in the loft) using the cccp codec http://www.cccp-project.net/ works wonderfully.
i have found VLC isnt so good at handling them over a network.. e.g if i play one and try to skip halfway through the movie, VLC will take up to 20 seconds to play it properly...
with mediaplayer & cccp = instant
 
Re: .mkv file issues

Well KC, I have CCCP already, one of the first codec packs I install.

I have experienced the issues I am mentioning over the network, on an e-sata drive and on the internal drive. All 3 exhibit the exact same issues and I am not sure what the problem is. Also, Media Player Classic isn't even displaying any image, it's just audio or crackling only.

I can't for the life of me figure out what the problem is. I wonder, since I am connecting to my television with VGA at the moment (working on getting an hdmi output video card) that it may be an hdcp issue? But my regular dvd rips work just fine. :(
 
Re: .mkv file issues

I had a similar issue once before. Checked all the hardware and double checked. was driving me crazy. until i decided to uninstall all the codecs and remove any and all traces of them. then did a fresh reinstall of all I needed. It worked. So I don't know if it would do the same for you Saz, but its worth a try. Sometimes its just one of the unexplainable things that work. :)
 
Re: .mkv file issues

You can also (depending on the codec used) try renaming from MKV to h264 or something. I've noticed that some players handle the files differently depending on the expected container.

On a semi-related note, did you see this thread I did earlier? Freakin sweet for the videophile.
 
Re: .mkv file issues

try coveravc - its a good codec for decoding mkv/x264 on slower pcs - its not free though
 
Re: .mkv file issues

I had a similar issue once before. Checked all the hardware and double checked. was driving me crazy. until i decided to uninstall all the codecs and remove any and all traces of them. then did a fresh reinstall of all I needed. It worked. So I don't know if it would do the same for you Saz, but its worth a try. Sometimes its just one of the unexplainable things that work. :)

I already tried that and it allowed for longer video viewing on I, Robot but then the video just went to crap.

I'll see if I can do it again tonight.
 
Re: .mkv file issues

You can also (depending on the codec used) try renaming from MKV to h264 or something. I've noticed that some players handle the files differently depending on the expected container.

On a semi-related note, did you see this thread I did earlier? Freakin sweet for the videophile.

I'll try this out tonight. Thanks.
 
Re: .mkv file issues

try coveravc - its a good codec for decoding mkv/x264 on slower pcs - its not free though

Coveravc is software decoding and was an option in the back of my mind but, the hardware I have is way more than sufficient. The .mkv files when used before on this system were running @ about 50% CPU usage, which is about right for a large file.

I don't want to use additional applications if the codecs will work (as they already do on my primary system).
 
Re: .mkv file issues

1080p will stress out the system your using, i had an amd64 x2 4200 and that would get upset with 1080p at times, using latest ffdshow tryouts or coreavc sorted it out in the end.

btw vlc is software decoding too, but even when i tried that it didnt always work, mpc+coreavc or ffdshow was what worked in the end
 
Re: .mkv file issues

I thought I had FFDShow installed but I'll have to check it out.

My issue is that it does this even with a 720p .mkv file which is half the size of the 1080p videos. It doesn't appear to be based on the resolution alone.

And MPC is not showing video, but this might be an issue with the codecs (which is what it appears to be regardless)
 
Re: .mkv file issues

Uninstall all codecs then reinstall cccp reset all settings. If it dosent work after that reinstall gpu drivers if it still wont work go to the cccp forum and ask them for help.

Be sure to change the number of decoding threads in decoder options to as many threads your cpu is capable of in ffdshow for best video performance.
 
Re: .mkv file issues

Well I think I've figured it out :)

As much as I love my old video card, it seems that I am going to need to get something with a better on-board decoder. I fiddled around with codecs and player and am perfectly fine now, but there are still slow-downs and dropped frames and cpu usage is flying high, even with core priority for 2 threads.

If I can off-load the workload to an on-die processor on a video card like the AMD 3450, I think I may be better off. Time to go shopping I think :)

Thank you everyone for your assistance, a final re-install of codecs helped out immensly.
 

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