Unable to play Matroska files

[setherd]

I updated my codec pack (K-lite) to the latest version and somehow subtitles started appearing in my MKV files.

not sure if i'm using Haali or Gabest as a splittter. i'll check

[phelme]

I apparently spoke too soon.

Everything was working fine until I tried to play a show that was *currently recording*. Using ArcSoft MPEG Demux (via CustomDemuxGuid) which I had to employ to get CyberLink to play MP4's and MKV's, caused nothing but spinning when trying to play the currently recording Amazing Race. I guess it just can't handle playback of MPEG2s while they're being recorded to, at least while using the CyberLink video decoder. I dropped back to Sage's MPEGDeMux and was able to continue just fine, but then of course MP4's and MKV's don't work with that combo.

Oh well, time to try something else or just give in and use SageTVPlayer.

[waltraud]

Originally Posted by phelme

So did you ever get this solved?

At the moment I don't have time to do more tests. For the time being I use XBMC to watch movies. It actually starts growing on me

I might try your approach this weekend.

[waltraud]

OK so its definitely a problem with Haali Media Splitter.

I installed the K-Lite Codec pack, select the Gabest Splitter and now Matroska files play and also use the DiVX H.264 Codec. But playback is jerky and I cant change audio tracks.

I side effect of the K-Lite pack was that it broke video thumbs in GameEx so I removed it again.

I think I'll stick with XBMC for now.

[weeber]

I agree there appears to be a problem with the Haali splitter. I recently posted about my Nero recode .mp4 files stopped working in Sage, but were fine in WMP. Turns out Haali wasn't working properly for .mp4, but was working with .mkv. I uninstalled Haali and installed Gabest mp4 and mkv splitters, and all appears to be good.

[setherd]

here is my setup i'm using fine.
FFDshow decoder
Haali splitter
In ffdshow I have it using directvobsub in the output and subtitles that are in MKV files appear fine.

[solinar]

I had trouble getting mkvs to play with hardware encoding. Here is what I finally did to get it working.

Note: This probably only works for Nvidia Cards, as CoreAVC with CUDA support I think is only applicable to them.

Reformat and Reinstall clean XP Pro
Install drivers for everything
Perform all Windows Updates
Install CCCP
Install CoreAVC Pro 1.9.0, using custom install and unchecking Haali media splitter (1.9.5 is out, haven't tried it yet)
Install SageTV 6.5.13
Edit sageproperties to include:
always_use_dshow_player=true
videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=CoreAVC Video Decoder

[ttdberg]

Guys,

I've been following this thread and a few other like it with similar complaints; inability to play MKV files in Sage. Just wondering if there is any new information available that might help - I am having the same problems discussed in this thread.

Here's my story, if anyone has any ideas or new info please let me know. I have also opened a support case with Sage Support.

I am unable to get matroska files (with .mkv extension) to play in SageTV (version 6.5.9). For the longest time, I have been converting videos to MP4 files using Nero Recode (bundled with Nero7) and I have not had any problems playing them. I am trying to start using MKV files instead for a variety of reasons. I have created MKV files
using various techniques and encoding methods. HandBrake, StaxRip, Mkvmerge, AutoMKV (various versions). I have tried creating the MKV files with AAC audio, AC3 audio, with subtitles, without subtitles, etc. The files always play perfectly on my SageTV machine in standard media players (Windows Media Player, ZoomPlayer, Media Player Classic, etc.). When played in those players, you can see that Haali Media Splitter and FFDshow Audio / Video decoders are used to play the file (which is what I would expect). I have verified using graphedit as well as the system tray icons give it away.

When I try to play the same files in SaveTV, I get the infamous error message, "ERROR (-4,0x80040218): There was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback." It happens consistently with every MKV file.

This problem seems to be consistent with the issue described in a variety of forum threads, including this one. My Sage debug log contains the same error messages as the original post in this thread.

My setup is a single machine running Sage (not in Service Mode) , no clients, placeshifters, extenders, or anything like that. All of my video files are stored locally on the Sage machine, I am not trying to play back files that reside on networked machines or shares.

I am using SageMC (6.3.8a). Java is 1.6.0_13. If I encode a video with Handbrake using the exact same settings - one to MKV and one to MP4, the MP4 files always play fine inside Sage but the MKV files never do.

I have tried both VMR9 and Overlay rendering. Same results with each. I have tried various versions of Haali Media Splitter as well as replacing Haali with the Gabest Splitter. Doing that made some (but not all) of the MKV files play in Sage, but suddenly many of my MP4 files would not play anymore so I had to revert back to Haali.

I am using DirectShow filters for h264/x264 playback (intentionally), not SageTVPlayer.exe

These lines are in my sage.properties file:
videoframe/aac_audio_decoder_filter=ffdshow Audio Decoder
videoframe/ac3_audio_decoder_filter=AC3Filter
videoframe/h264_video_decoder_filter=ffdshow Video Decoder
videoframe/mpeg4-video_decoder_filter=ffdshow Video Decoder
always_use_dshow_player=true
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false

I have tried a variety of settings in the videoframe/ options above, including clearing them out - nothing helps.

I have tried using the Divx 7.1 H264 decoder as well as the CoreAVC Video decoder in place of FFDSHOW, no help there either.

At this point, I think I have read every shred of public information available on this topic, and tried everything I possibly can and I just can't solve this one. Any help would be appreciated.

If Sage support helps me solve this, I will come back and post what worked.

My Sage machine is XP Pro-SP3
Nvidia Video Drivers are 185.85 (latest)

[valnar]

I have no problems playing MKV files in Sage or on my HD200 extenders. At this point, after everything you've done, I would recommend a system reload.

[TwistedMelon]

I am unable to get matroska files (with .mkv extension) to play in SageTV (version 6.5.9)

Umm, this is the BETA forum. The beta version of SageTV is currently 6.5.16.

Update to the latest version and then repost if you're having the same issues. If you want to be "safe"-ish back up your entire SageTV hierarchy so that you can later restore it if you need to.

[redondo_se]

ttdberg,

Use the MatroskaSplitter from media player classic instead of Haali (assuming that's what you're using).

• Uninstall Haali
• Unzip the MPC MatroskaSplitter .ax file to a directory somewhere
• use regsvr32 from a command line to register it, e.g.
  • regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\MPCVideoFilters\MatroskaSplitter.ax"

Might want to give the computer the old reboot after that.

[Taddeusz]

I recently tried Gabst's MatroskaSplitter. I don't like it as much as Haali. Gabst's doesn't have any options. Haali has an option to force loading VSFilter which seems to be required by SageTV when you have always_use_dshow_player set to true. Otherwise subtitles don't seem to be viewable as SageTV doesn't put VSFilter in the graph. At least that is my experience.

[redondo_se]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I recently tried Gabst's MatroskaSplitter. I don't like it as much as Haali. Gabst's doesn't have any options. Haali has an option to force loading VSFilter which seems to be required by SageTV when you have always_use_dshow_player set to true. Otherwise subtitles don't seem to be viewable as SageTV doesn't put VSFilter in the graph. At least that is my experience.

That's true, but if you use FFDSHOW, with MPC/Gabest MKV splitter, it can show the subtitles. No need for VSFilter. However, if you have H.264 TV streams, e.g. from Dish/R5000 or HDPVR, you probably don't want to use FFDSHOW for those.

I got around this by modifying the FFDSHOW source code so it won't connect to the SageTV demux for H.264 or HD-mpeg2. I also made some other modifications to FFDSHOW so I can use Girder to switch audio and subtitle streams on the fly, using my remote

[Taddeusz]

Yea, in my recent playing around with different decode filters I noticed that ffdshow is currently unable to deal with interlaced H.264 video.

Cyberlink's H.264 decoder improperly reports resolution of 1080p as 1920x1088 while it properly crops the image to 1920x1080. This causes scaling problems. Arcsoft gives me weird hiccups in my transcoded videos. I've currently settled on ffdshow as it seems to work properly. Although it won't decode HD PVR recordings. I think I'm going to give Divx a shot and see how it fairs.

[ttdberg]

Hi Guys,

I said I would come back and post what worked if I found a solution. Well, as it turns out, I found two solutions, so here goes:

Solution #1:

Remove all traces of Haali Media Splitter from my sage system. Credit goes to previous posters in this thread who hinted at the same thing. I ended up removing Haali - in this case, this meant removing the CCCP because Haali was bundled with it. After doing that, Sage was still able to play all of my Nero MP4 videos (using the CoreAVC Video Decoder, but without sound). But MKV files still would not play. Next I downloaded and installed the Gabest MKV splitter which came bundled with the DSFP - http://www.degeelebosch.nl/corone/dsfp/main.htm - I only installed the MKV splitter, not the entire filter pack.

After that, most (but not all) MKV files played in sage. Those MKV files that had AC3 sound played completely fine, including sound - via AC3Filter. Those that had AAC sound would only play video, but no sound.

At this point I re-installed FFDShow (not the entire CCCP, because I didn't want to re-introduce Haali to the system). Now I had both video and sound from my Nero MP4 files and also from all of the MKV files that would play (still most but not all of them)

It is worth adding that I believe the reason the Nero MP4 files played fine throughout is because I have Nero7 installed on my sage system, so I think the native Nero MP4 splitter was allowing the files to be played within sage even in the absense of Haali or the Gabest MP4 splitter. At least that's what graphedit led me to believe.

Solution #2:

Within hours of implementing solution #1, Sage support got back to me with a new version of dshowplayer.dll. I put my system back exactly the way it was (removed the Gabest MKV splitter and standalone FFDshow and re-installed CCCP, including Haali). I confirmed that MKV files would not play at all, just like when I started.

I stopped sage, re-named the original dshowplayer.dll and dropped the new one provided by sage support in its place, then re-started sage. Viola - everything plays perfectly now, no issues whatsoever.

However, there is still one mystery. As it turns out, the dshowplayer.dll that sage support provided is exactly the same byte count and has the same version stamp on it as the original one that I re-named. So unfortunately I can't explain what's different about it that solved the problem. I have asked Sage support to explain, and I'm just waiting for a response. I don't want to post the updated dshowplayer.dll file here because I fear that would be overstepping boundaries with support, and I'd rather they supplied the file to anyone who needs it after going through proper troubleshooting steps.

I sincerely hope this helps someone in the future that may have the same or similar problems.

Best regards.

[waltraud]

Thanks for the update!

I hope they include the updated dll in the next beta

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by waltraud

Thanks for the update!

I hope they include the updated dll in the next beta

They did. It is in the 6.5.16 beta. I had the same issue with .m2ts files and was sent the same .dll. The new beta also lets use another demux instead of sages. It works better than choosing one yourself with the registry tool.

[waltraud]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

They did. It is in the 6.5.16 beta. I had the same issue with .m2ts files and was sent the same .dll. The new beta also lets use another demux instead of sages. It works better than choosing one yourself with the registry tool.

Well, either ttdberg received a different DLL or my problem is not fixed with the new one. I am running 6.5.16 beta removed and reinstalled DIVX and Haali. Still the same error.

[waltraud]

I just installed the lastet beta (6.5.17). No more errors.

[kricker]

I'm having an awful time trying to get MKV files to play on an XP box with the latest beta 6.5.17. They play fine on my win7 PC with the latest beta.

On the XP box, the timeline never moves and pressing skip forward closes the movie. It does this whether I choose direct show or sage player. For Directshow I have tried with the Haali splitter installed and the Gabest mkv splitter. They both produce the same results. I have also tried both splitter with coreavc and ffdshow.

The mkv files play fine in WMP.