No AC3 Filter for MKV files

[technazz]

Anybody know why when I play a MVK file (with dd5.1) ac3filter doesnt work? I dont get my DD5.1 flag on my receiver with a MKV file. I do with a XVID/MPEG2 with DD5.1. Look at my sig for specs.

Thx

Technazz

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by technazz

Anybody know why when I play a MVK file (with dd5.1) ac3filter doesnt work? I dont get my DD5.1 flag on my receiver with a MKV file. I do with a XVID/MPEG2 with DD5.1. Look at my sig for specs.

Thx

Technazz

Have you disabled DTS passthrough within AC3 config settings?

[technazz]

Originally Posted by jaminben

Have you disabled DTS passthrough within AC3 config settings?

Yes I do.

Originally Posted by talbot3t

Are you sure you are not decoding with the internal sagetvplayer? Even if you have set mpeg 4 to use directshow, MKV containers are still decoded with the internal player. You can however set the internal player to output ac3 over spdif or you can set sagetv to always use directshow for playback in the property file.

I have MPEG4 set to Directshow. I can see video fine as I'm using AVC 1.6 decoders. That setting seems confusing, I would assume use direct show would mean use directshow? No?

Originally Posted by talbot3t

change the following to use directshow decoding filters:
always_use_dshow_player=true

change these to make sage internal player output ac3 over spdif:
extra_mplayer_args=-afm hwac3
mplayer/audio_renderer=win32

Ill give this a try tonight.

Thx

Technazz

[talbot3]

The mpeg4 setting is ignored for some containers such as MKV which is why you will need to set the always_use_dshow=true if you want to use directshow for playback. Can you play the MKV file with graphedit? Do you have a directshow decoder for mpeg4 avc such as coreavc, cyberlink, or ffdshow? Do you have a mkv splitter such as haali installed? Are the decoder merits correctly set up? If you do not see any video most likely you have a decoder filter issue. Try playing the files in a directshow player like graphedit and see what happens.

Did you try changing the mplayer settings? That should force sagetvplayer to output ac3 and dts over spdif. If you want mplayer to decode to 6 channels instead of passing the bitstream set:

extra_mplayer_args=-channels 6

If you are not interested in mplayer spdif passthru, you can leave the render set to directsound.

EDIT: Most of these comments are not meant for the OP, but for APERRY who jumped in with a question.

[aperry]

Thanks talbot3 for the help. I tried playing the video through graphedit and it worked fine, but gives no picture in SageTV. Haali is installed, most recent version. Graphedit showed ffdshow for the video portion, ac3 filter for the audio portion.

I did try changing the sound settings like originally specified above, and it did boost the sound, but the AC3 filter icon did not show in the task bar. The settings were these:

extra_mplayer_args=-afm hwac3
mplayer/audio_renderer=win32

[talbot3]

If there is no AC3 filter icon showing and the mplayer arguments changed something, then the files are being decoded with mplayer (sagetvplayer.exe). Are you using the overlay render? If you are make sure that the overlay color keying is enabled.

Have you tried setting:
always_use_dshowplayer=true

This will completely bypass mplayer and should give you the same playback as graphedit.

[talbot3]

Are you sure you are not decoding with the internal sagetvplayer? Even if you have set mpeg 4 to use directshow, MKV containers are still decoded with the internal player. You can however set the internal player to output ac3 over spdif or you can set sagetv to always use directshow for playback in the property file.

change the following to use directshow decoding filters:
always_use_dshow_player=true

change these to make sage internal player output ac3 over spdif:
extra_mplayer_args=-afm hwac3
mplayer/audio_renderer=win32

[aperry]

So, I tried these settings, and while it seemed to even out the sound, I've lost the video for MKV files. The only way to get it back I've found is to change the always_use_dshow_player value to false, but then my sound gets soft again.

Any ideas?

[Shield]

Originally Posted by aperry

So, I tried these settings, and while it seemed to even out the sound, I've lost the video for MKV files. The only way to get it back I've found is to change the always_use_dshow_player value to false, but then my sound gets soft again.

Any ideas?

Use the coreavc decoder if you have it.