Any updates on mkv or ts files

[rodercot]

Anyone had any success on making these files properly playable and recognizeable in the Db (files and media sync).

 rgds,

 Dave

[Emiku]

Yes,

I can play .mkv, however I can not change audio track or any other contents in the mkv container.

- Emiku

[rodercot]

Emiku,

 Are you using the included dvd player or forcing it with mplayer.

 rgds,

 Dave

[jeangot]

Hi guys,

I've experimented with this also last week without much success. You;re talking about high definition files, right? (in my case a 1080p mkv). I've found this to be unwatchable with xine. It seems to work when I force it through mplayer but I cannot pause or fast forward, which is problematic since I sometimes am interupted while watching a movie.

Rodercot: could you tell me more about the DVD player? How do I use that one? To force Mplayer I would simply rename my files to .evo for example. How can I try the DVD player and see if it's any better?

Jean

[colinjones]

What version are you guys using? 0710RC2? I have no difficulty playing either mkv or ts files - have been able to for the last few versions at least. Fastforward/rewind works fine, I don't have to do anything, they are just another media type for me.

I don't recall trying any 1080p ones, but I certainly play 720p mkv files all the time at least since b3 from memory - sure there was the occasional green corruption on the left hand side for mkv back in b3 ... that was an old xine issue but has been resolved since. I only have a couple of ts files and they are just MPEG2/SD from an old STB/PVR.

[jeangot]

Colinjones,

I use 710RC1 and my problem is only with high def files, I think xine is just not efficient enough and it overloads the cpu (AMD 4800+), whereas they play fine in mplayer, except for the forwarding/pausing that doesn't seem to work there. I think others have similar issues when I searched through the forum.
I also have slight stuttering when trying to play mpg files recorded by MythTV in 1080, using xine. They play fine using mplayer.

I still would like to know how to try DVD Player on my files if possible.

Jean

[rodercot]

Yes I am using rc2, these are hd and blu ray movies at 1080p. Half of them would not even start to play. This is on a c2d 8400. I also could not set them up in the db, LMCE would force them back to a doc viewer file every time I tried to change them to an hd or bd file. When I did change them manually the Amazon option would not show up.

 rgds,

 Dave

[rodercot]

Still no further along with this for any 1080p mkv or ts file any of the 30 I have stored. I have tried renaming them to evo etc.. no dice. I get a black screen and some will start the audio for about one minute then quit. What is the proper way to force Mplayer. I know I read in another post that the folder had to be a hd or bd recognized folder. If I set one if my folders to blu or hd it defaults back to doc viewer on an update. I guess I reading into wrong.

 http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5092.0
 
 Jean, I am sorry I did not see your question regarding dvd player. That was my term for zine! sorry. dvd player is used in xbmc and I have three machines with different systems on them allowing me to do all of this stuff on one machine or the other. dvd player in xbmc uses ffmpeg for it decoding/playback but it is custom to xbmc I believe.

 Can we modify the Mplayer.conf file and if so where is it stored. Also if we update via the mplayer current svn what will that overwrite if anything and or will it just install to kde. Just trying any solution at this point.

 rgds,

 Dave

[jeangot]

Dave, thanks for the reply. I was also using XBMC before and on the rare occasion that a file had a problem with Mplayer, it would always play with DVDPlayer. Just anything HD was a no-go, that's how I started looking into LMCE...

How patient are you exactly when you start these .evo files? On my system, I also get a black screen for a while, but then the file starts. I noticed that Mplayer is actually buffering (by running it once from command line) and this can take a while on a big file.
I would recommend using the "locate" shell command to find mplayer.conf. If it's missing, you can install the locate package with "apt-get install locate", and then issue a "updatedb" (takes a while) for it to scan all your files. Then you will want to find out if the mplayer.conf you;re editing is actually being used/parsed by Mplayer in LMCE :-) That's where I stopped I think.

As for building a new mplayer, I did that successfully, and it improved things a little: it would no longer crash when I press fast forward or pause. I just built it from the most recent LMCE source, and then copied the binary over to the right place. You just again need to make sure that you're putting it in the right place, as there are several instances of mplayer on the system if I remember properly, one used by kde and one for LMCE.
What I did was rename them all to mplayer.old, one after another, and see when LMCE would no longer find mplayer, telling me that I hit the right directory.

A good idea would also be to try running your video file with the same mplayer binary, from KDE, and see if it works there, then at least you know that it's not mplayer's fault. Just make sure that you're using the same binary, because simply typing mplayer will not refer to the binary used by lmce if I remember correctly.

Of course you risk messing up your entire system when you start playing with the files like this but I'm sure you knew that :-)

Hope it helps, and please share any findings. My conclusion was that I would use mplayer in KDE to watch mkv files until the next release of LMCE, but then I hit a problem with missing sound in mplayer under KDE, that I haven't fixed yet.

[rodercot]

Jean,

 So the mplayer that is installed at the kde desktop is not the one LMCE uses. I kinda figured as nothing I did in that player under preferences helped. I should not really say that I played around switching drivers in mplayer on the KDE desktop and trying until it actually crashed X and I had to do a reboot of the hybrid.

 Yes I noticed several instances of mplayer as well in the file system. if i look under dcerouter/home/linuxmce in my network place on my windows machine I see a .mplayer directory and a .xine directory each of which have a config file in it. the mplayer config file has no data in it and I cannot read the other when making a copy on my desktop and rename to txt.
 
 What is the link to the LMCE source and is that the most current build of mplayer in there.

 when i test one of these file in the kde mplayer first I get a gnome error (beats me) then it tries to buffer I here what sounds like a very sick dog moaning every two seconds then the mplayer gui just goes nuts with too many playback buffers, this is the mplayer from the kde pop-up in the left corner under sound and video or multimedia drop down.

 I did hang out waiting for the clip too start at least 1 min in somecases or until the audio started and stopped. I tried changing the movie folder to a blu or hd and then the file on one to m2ts and it would start after while with the sound and actually play the sound fine but no video.

 rgds,

 Dave

[rodercot]

Jean,

 Yeah found the SVN. Ouch that a lot o files in there bud. did you dwnld the whole svn and tehn just build mplayer.

 Here is my locate for mplayer.conf.

 linuxmce@dcerouter:~$ locate mplayer.conf
/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
/var/lib/dpkg/info/mozilla-mplayer.conffiles
/var/lib/dpkg/info/pluto-mplayer.config
/var/lib/dpkg/info/mplayer.conffiles
/home/linuxmce/.kde/share/apps/RecentDocuments/mplayer.conf.desktop

 I am not sure which one it is either. I would assume it is the pluto_mplayer.config

 Dave

[jeangot]

Dave,

to find the correct config file I guess you need to find an option that will show you some effect on the screen and then try it in each one. Use a normal video file (not mkv) renamed to evo, so that you can play it from LMCE until you see some change based on your config file edit, then you know you hit the right one (I personally skipped that part).

As for building, it took me a while to understand how that works. Then someone pointed me to this tutorial: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Setting_Up_A_Development_Environment

It's important that you first build the whole thing (which can take an hour or two), and only then you will be able to build individual modules (like CM11A in the example) without getting an error.

I found 2 versions of mplayer in there, under /charon-merge/ubuntu/, one in mplayer, and one in mplayer-svnxxxxx (which seems to be more recent). If I remember correctly one would build and one would not, and I guess one is used by KDE and one by LMCE. See which one you get to build properly, and then you just need to copy the binary to the right place and see if it helps you.

Keep in mind that even if your files play, you will not be able to pause or fast forward, which in my case is a big problem, if someone rings the doorbell or calls while I watch the movie, I can't pause it or fast forward back to the right place!

Thom is explaining here why this is happening: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=5092.0 and it doesn't seem trivial, so it's not likely to work untill the next release....

Jean

[rodercot]

I'm laughing 

 So my db rips are .ts and my hd rips are .mkv. They are in folders on the server of course and stored as movie_title.ts or .mkv. Now I got my network issues sorted out and this is the funny part, I have perfect dd or dts sound for the .mkv but NO video and I have perfect 1080p (well a little tearing) with the .ts but no sound. Nothing can be easy but you gotta laugh at this.

 rgds,

 Dave

[Itsik]

Here's something that might be of interest.

I've renamed two mkv files to m2ts, changed that media type in the webadmin to blu-ray disc.
mplayer plays the files flowlesly on the core/hybrid as well as on a MD.
What's interesting is that wile on the MD any attempt to skip forward/back/pause shuts down mplayer immidiatly, on the core you can skip forward/back without any problem what so ever.
Any idea what could be making the differance?

Itsik

[alx9r]

Itsik,
I have a 720p/DTS .mkv file that was exhibiting those green block artifacts under LinuxMCE.  I changed the extension to m2ts from mkv and changed the media type to blu-ray disc in webadmin.  From what I understand, making this change causes LinuxMCE to use mplayer instead of xine.  The file plays without artifiacts which is a big improvement, but ff/rew/pause doesn't work and eventually leads to the player exiting.   

I am using 0710RC1 in a hybrid/core configuration, so I am confirming what you saw on your MD, only I see it on my core.

I have not made any changes to the default 0710RC1 mplayer configuration.  Is there any chance that you have made any changes from the default mplayer configuration on your core that might have fixed the ff/rew/pause problem?  If so, can you recall what they were as I would like to try to reproduce your success.

Cheers,
Alex