720p - 1080p no audio on extender but audio on theater pc

[Rezolution]

I've been having two issues with downloaded 720p and 1080p content on my HD 200.

1. Sometimes .mkv videos dont have any sound. They will say either dts or dd5.1 in the detailed info and they will play with sound through my laptop using the client or placeshifter, on the theater pc i run the sagetv server on, but they will have no audio when they play through the HD200. I've noticed that it's usually .mkv files that do this. Usually .wmv files dont have a problem. I'm using my audio through the HDMI cable and I have tried both sound options in the setup menu of the HD200.

2. Certain 1080p .mkv files show up as something like 7minute and 29second files regardless of how long they are. This problem occurs on the HD200, and on the client, and on the placeshifter. It occurs on my laptop, on my theater PC, and on my HD200. If i use windows media player or VLC media player, they play at the correct movie length (not 7M 29S). Why would sage see certain 1080p MKV files as being 7M 29S when they are 40 minutes or 2 hours?

Is this a problem with sage tv and mkv files or do i need to get some type of mkv repair tool?

[gplasky]

HD200 only supports dts as pass thru. You would need to connect a dts receiver/amp to get the audio. SPDIF or HDMI should work for the connection to your receiver.

Gerry

[Rezolution]

Hmmmm, is that hardware or firmware related?

Is that something you could add on as a module yourself? Or is it a licensing thing or something?

Will it ever support DTS (downmixing to two channels)?

[Rezolution]

Oh yeah, and what about:

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2. Certain 1080p .mkv files show up as something like 7minute and 29second files regardless of how long they are. This problem occurs on the HD200, and on the client, and on the placeshifter. It occurs on my laptop, on my theater PC, and on my HD200. If i use windows media player or VLC media player, they play at the correct movie length (not 7M 29S). Why would sage see certain 1080p MKV files as being 7M 29S when they are 40 minutes or 2 hours?

Is this a problem with sage tv and mkv files or do i need to get some type of mkv repair tool?
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[Fuzzy]

I think its partially a DTS licensing issue. They could work around it by forcing transcoding to the HD200 (since ffmpeg DOES support DTS), but until they implement some sort of selective transcoding system, this would require always transcoding EVERYTHING (video AND audio).

Your best bet in the interrim, is to add an AC3 or Stereo audio track to the MKV files with EAC3TO.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Rezolution

Oh yeah, and what about:

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2. Certain 1080p .mkv files show up as something like 7minute and 29second files regardless of how long they are. This problem occurs on the HD200, and on the client, and on the placeshifter. It occurs on my laptop, on my theater PC, and on my HD200. If i use windows media player or VLC media player, they play at the correct movie length (not 7M 29S). Why would sage see certain 1080p MKV files as being 7M 29S when they are 40 minutes or 2 hours?

Is this a problem with sage tv and mkv files or do i need to get some type of mkv repair tool?
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You may be able to run them through a re-mux process. Basically, you can load them up in a MKV muxer (like MKVToolNix), and simply re-output them as a new MKV file. This will usually fix incorrect timeline problems.

[Rezolution]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

You may be able to run them through a re-mux process. Basically, you can load them up in a MKV muxer (like MKVToolNix), and simply re-output them as a new MKV file. This will usually fix incorrect timeline problems.

Thanks for the very helpful replies. I'll check out both of those tools. I think they are exactly what I'm looking for.

[ohpleaseno]

I'm trying to work on getting a .dpc file written in DVRMS Toolbox to take a DTS encoded MKV, rip out the DTS, reencode it to AC3 and add it to the original file. That way with the one file, you can change audio tracks depending on if you are watching it on a extender hooked to a TV with a DTS capable receiver attached or if you are watching it on a TV without DTS capabilities.

Would anybody else find a use for this? I haven't been a big fan of the other solutions and this one could be a bit more automated. It started by taking Ben Drawbaugh's DTB method to replace DTS with AC3 and modifying it. Unfortunately, my DTB process writing sucks, so it's slow going. I'll keep you posted.

[Tokendude]

Well, I can confirm that Ben Drawbaugh's method that you linked to does work, although it takes some experimenting and guesswork to figure out exactly how to do it. What do you mean by making it a bit more automated?

[SilentBob]

You might also want to try the tool PopCorn MKV AudioConverter

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showthread.php?tid=20887

I processed a file with the tools on Ben Drawbaugh's site, but the resulting file only had the AC3 file, not both files.

PopCorn MKV AudioConverter uses other free tools to demux the file, convert the DTS to AC3, and then remux back into a MKV container, with the AC3 file first. That way when you play it, it will play with sound on all devices, if you want to switch to DTS you will need to use the audio selector to pick the other audio track.

[ohpleaseno]

Ben helped me tweak his DVRMS Toolbox process to do the AC3 addition to an MKV with DTS. It will add the AC3 track to the MKV.

Use at your own risk. You will need to follow these instructions from Ben's site (Relevant info quoted below)

"To use it you’ll need to download eac3to and MKVtoolnix (both free). First extract the eac3to archive to “C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\eac3to” and install MKVtoolnix with the isntall path of “C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Applications\MKVtoolnix\”


Also, you’ll have to copy the “Add AC3 track to a MKV with DTS.dpc” (zipped and attached) to “C:\Program Files\DVRMSToolbox\Profiles”

It seems to have problems reading from a shared drive, so buyer beware. I would strongly recommend only using it to work on a copy of a file. I lost a few files because I didn't set up input/output correctly. I'm not the most advanced user of DTB, so if any of you have more experience writing .dpc files, then by all means see if you can improve the process. Otherwise, it works great.

Jason