Problems with .mp4 files in Sage Client

[briankeys]

I can't open any file with a .mp4 extension in Sage Client. They play fine in graphedit and windows media player and the CoreAVC tray icon pops up as they do but when I try to play them in Sage Client, I get a play back exception error noting problems rendering the video portion of the file. I have zero issues with .vob, .mkv, .mpg, .wmv, .avi or .mov. It's purely .mp4 files I'm having an issue with. They also play fine on my lone HD200 and in my other Sage Clients, just not my new one. Been screwing with this for three weeks, have Googled, tried all sorts of solutions in the properties files and reg edits and quite honestly I think I'm missing something stupid. I'm just lost and would appreciate some help.

The system is...
New ZBox Nano with ATI chipset and Windows7 32bit. Latest version of Sage Client installed with Diamond theme. (BTW, plays 1080P files flawlessly). All drivers are latest including video.

For codecs...
I just installed latest CoreAVC and Divx encoders along with AC3 for audio. I have tested all the file types including .mp4 in graphedit and they all run with these codecs and all play fine in both graphedit and WMC. No codec packs have ever been installed. All codecs are set to use DXVA.

In Sage Settings...
I have set mp4 files to play with Directshow.

Seems like I'm missing some important details here but long story short, Sage Client will play every file I feed it flawlessly using the directshow codecs except for .mp4 files.

Oh, just to make sure there wasn't any permission issues, I copied a mixture of avi, mpg and mp4 files to the local hard drive, ensured I was the owner and set permissions to everyone. UAC is turned off. Same situation, all files play except the .mp4.

Any ideas? I see it's a very common problem and I've followed many different threads which normally gives me the answer I need sooner or later. This one's just being stubborn.

[weeber]

Briankeys,

Unfortunately I'm only posting because I have a similar problem. It's not exactly the same, but I can't help but think there's a relationship between them. Every file extension works fine for me except for *.mp4. The video file will eventually start playing, but only after several minutes on the spinning circle. Graphedit shows no issues with my dshow setup (LAV splitter and LAV decoders) My issue also involves the following:

The mp4's are only slow to open when I try to play them from my NAS. If I copy the same mp4 files from the network drive to the local drive or USB thumb drive, it plays fine. Mkv's, Avi's, Mpg's, Mov's all play fine from the NAS. It's not an issue with the bitrate/resolution of the mp4s, I'm trying to playback relatively low bitrate 640x480 files. 720/1080 Mkv's/Mov's play fine from this NAS.

I've tried using LAV splitter, MPC MP4/Mov splitter, various decoders. All have the same symptoms. The weird part is that mp4's used to work fine with my setup, and I have no idea what changed.

Sorry I don't have a solution or suggestion for you, but I see it's been three days since you posted. Maybe we can work through the problems together, I think they're related. Also, if we get some activity in this thread maybe we'll attract some more attention. For some reason, it seems like Sage is handling mp4's differently from other file types.

My system
WinXP 32-bit, SageTV 7.1.9.7, PhenomII 555 (some old Nvidia chipset), Nvidia GT430. Plays everything I've thrown at it, except mp4's from the NAS for some reason (recent problem).

[nyplayer]

Have you guys Installed FFDSHOW?

[weeber]

Yep, tried ffdshow just now. Same problem. I don't think this is a decoder issue, I think it's a demuxing issue.

Just for grins, I renamed my mp4 file to .mkv (straight rename, no remuxing), and it played fine from the NAS. The same file with the .mp4 extension still takes forever to start playing from the NAS, but plays fine locally.

I also discovered that if I set the player to Sage Player instead of Dshow, the file will play normally, however the Sage Player doesn't handle some of the HD mp4s that I have properly and I really need Dshow working.

Graphedit shows an identical graph whether I decode an .mkv or .mp4:

Lav Splitter---->Lav Video Decoder---->VMR9
---> Lav Audio ---> Audio Renderer (Reclock)

I'm about an inch away from giving in and remuxing all my mp4s to mkv's. Or maybe I'll be lazy and just rename them to mkv.

[nyplayer]

Sounds like a problem with how the MP4's are muxed what are you using to create the MP4. I use the latest handbrake... I used to use Mediashrink but sometimes that would cause problems.

[weeber]

Not in my case. I'm almost positive this is Sage-specific. Windows Media Player, VLAN, MPC-HC can play the MP4 files just fine from the NAS. I've played the files using my HTPC, desktop PC, and Asus TF300 tablet.

It's only when it comes time for Sage to play the files from the NAS that I run into problems.

Oh, the files I'm playing were created using either Handbrake or MeGUI.

[nyplayer]

I did some testing and I found out that if i disable the EnableSageTVStreamDemux in the registry I get mp4 playback errors. Are you guys using external spliiters.?

check this in your registry
EnableSageTVStreamDemux 1 is on ... 0 is off. If it set to 0 then you are not using the Sage Demuxer in that case you have to set whatever splitter you are using to also play mp4. If this is set to 0 it is not a sage problem.

[weeber]

Interesting....I previously had this value set to 0 because of other issues that it fixed. I changed it back to 1, and using the Sage demuxer works for MP4s from the NAS. However, the issue that caused me to change it to 0 in the first place are back (some mkv files have moments where the video goes weird then plays fine). So, thanks for the solution nyplayer I'm not completely satisfied, but things are better than they were.

It doesn't make sense to me why using the dshow splitter works great for everything when played locally (including mp4's), but completely fails when trying to play mp4s from the NAS but mkvs and everything else still works.

I'm going to chalk it up as one of those great mysteries of the universe that I'm not meant to understand (there seem to be a lot). For now, I'm going to stick with the Sage demuxer; though I'm still considering remuxing all my MP4s into mkvs to go back to the dshow splitter.

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I did some testing and I found out that if i disable the EnableSageTVStreamDemux in the registry I get mp4 playback errors. Are you guys using external spliiters.?

check this in your registry
EnableSageTVStreamDemux 1 is on ... 0 is off. If it set to 0 then you are not using the Sage Demuxer in that case you have to set whatever splitter you are using to also play mp4. If this is set to 0 it is not a sage problem.

[nyplayer]

One thing I found out is that the less filters you install the better chance of not running into problems. The latest FFDSHOW is well done and also contains DXVA for H264 and VC1.

All I have Installed on my windows 7 pc's is FFDSHOW and Haali Media Splitter.. In case I want to play MKV outside of Sage. no other codecs and It Plays everything I throw at it through Sage.

I always KISS (keep it simple stupid)

[briankeys]

Sorry folks, I started a thread and got sidetracked with work stuff.

weeber, thank you for joining in, this has been very helpful. My problem is a little different than yours in that mp4 files don't play in either the NAS or local drive. Renaming the extension or deleting it altogether does fix the problem, thank you for that.

nyplayer, it is the pursuit of KISS that got me started on this thread to begin with. I replaced an old Sage client with a new net top PC and I only wanted to use the bare minimum codecs. All I have installed is the Divx and CoreAVC codecs with DXVA enabled everywhere I can find. I had some errors playing a few of my .mkv files and I was getting some strange artifacts in many of them.

I did set EnableSageTVStreamDemux to 0 and that fixed all my issues above. 1080p files play flawlessly but I now know that's where my problems with .mp4 files began.

My other older Sage client plays everything perfectly with the above set to 0. I've trashed it over the years with various codecs etc but recently cleaned all those out. Whatever my new client is using to demux externally to Sage is not working for .mp4 files while whatever weeber is using has issues with files located on a NAS.

Sooo.... how does one specify / install / tweak whatever is used to demux video files, in particular .mp4? I installed the Haali Media Splitter, no change. I also tried FFDSHOW, no change.

Again, all my video files work perfectly in windows media player and graph edit. They are all set to use the CoreAVC or Divx codec in Win7DSFilterTweaker (I tried FFDSHOW here also). Graphedit shows all the files using the correct codecs. It's just Sage Client, and it's just .mp4 files and the issue for me is they give playback errors with 'problem rendering video portion'

I do have EnableSageTVStreamDemux set to 0 and would prefer to keep it there as all other files play perfect with that setting and not having these issues on another client with the same setting.

Thanks for the help!

[briankeys]

I figured it out and thank you to the responses here for setting me in the right direction.

I uninstalled the Haali Splitter and installed the LAV splitter in its place. Now all my HD files including .mp4 play flawlessly.

Thanks!

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by briankeys

I figured it out and thank you to the responses here for setting me in the right direction.

I uninstalled the Haali Splitter and installed the LAV splitter in its place. Now all my HD files including .mp4 play flawlessly.

Thanks!

Great find... this solved a problem with... on my q180 that when using EVR I could not use the sagetv decoder with hardware acceleration.. I used to get a blank screen with audio. Now I can use all decoders. I disabled the Sagetvdemuxer.

[weeber]

I'm happy for you guys, but I'm still confused why LAV splitter (the only dshow splitter I have installed) fails for me on MP4s from the NAS.

I'm starting to think it may be an issue with WinXP. It looks like you guys are running Win7. I should have upgraded a while ago, but I'm still very happy with my old horse. I don't know if I want to spend any money for a dying platform (RIP SageTV).

[briankeys]

SageTV has been such an education for me over the years. Learned a few things about video, audio and networking while tinkering with it.... but I've never had that problem.

Your SageTV plays the file fine once renamed I believe so I would still look at the splitter. I know that Haali splitter is quite the control freak and is installed automatically with some of the codecs. I had to uninstall it first before reinstalling LAV before the latter would work.

It's strange that the .mp4 plays locally for you but not from the NAS until you change the extension. If you have Comodo firewall or similar installed, maybe it is blocking the splitter from accessing the network?

I wouldn't think it's a Win7 vs XP issue but I'm just rambling, sorry I can't be much help.

Also, don't think it's your issue but try accessing the file via a UNC path (\\nas_mane\file name) rather than a mapped drive letter or vice versa.

Thanks!

[weeber]

Thing is, I only installed Haali to try to fix this issue when I first noticed it. I've always used LAV exclusively (splitter, video, audio) for a few generations now. Haali is currently uninstalled from my system again. Though I need to do what what you've done and clean up other old decoders that I don't use any more. I still have old Cyberlink PDVD7 codecs installed

Excellent idea to check my firewall settings. I'm using Norton, and it's been good to me in the past, but it may have turned evil. I know Norton likes to spread everywhere within a system. I'll try turning it off.

I totally get where you're coming from I've been using Sage since V2, and I've learned so much. Even though it's "gone", I see nothing better and I'm going to keep using it until I have no other option.