MP4 Playback (nero created)

[gkearneyca]

Hi: I'm fairly new to htpc and Sage. I'm planning on switching from MCE to sage with Sage 6. (I recently purchased a few lisc).

A main feature I use for HTPC is as a digital jukebox. I have converted dvd's and movies to HDD, most of them have then been compressed using Nero AVC. I'm using the mymovies plugin for mce; SageMC appears to have the same/better functionality.

Nero mp4's work great in WMP and MCE. I'm using the klcodec (ffdshow & haali).

So now my problem...

1. If I play these files back using Sage6, video looks great but audio is way too low.

2. If use mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false ... there is no change: video, good; audio, too low.

<EDIT/Corrected> 3. If use mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false AND always_use_dshow_player=true, the movie will generate an error.

I'm stumped on what to try next. Any ideas?

Thanks.
gk

[lobosrul]

I have the same problem with audio, plus I cant fast forward or rewind. I have not tried changing any sage.properties settings however.

[popechild]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I have the same problem with audio, plus I cant fast forward or rewind. I have not tried changing any sage.properties settings however.

I had the ff/rw problem until I tried setting mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false. This fixed it for me. So I'm guessing it's a problem related to using mplayer.

[drpixel]

Try adding the following to your Sage.Properties file:

If using 2 channel audio:
extra_mplayer_args=-channels 2 -af volnorm

If using 6 channel audio:
Wait for the patch to SageTVPlayer.exe, as this will fix a channel mapping issue that you'll discover when running 5.1 audio. See my other post for details regarding that. http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20808

The 'volnorm' parameter will cause mplayer to play for a bit, scan the overall audio output levels and normalize the volume. This should increase the volume level of the movie to a somewhat higher level. I think Nero just rips the audio really quiet for some odd reason. My other movies don't play nearly as quiet.

[gkearneyca]

drpixel - thanks!

I tried this out on my test machine and it seems to improve the volume to acceptable levels. I'll check my other machines later.

thnx,
gk

[nyle]

When you encoded the video did you set the audio level to it's highest setting? The videos that I've encoded with the highest setting in Nero Recode have sounded a lot better. Still quieter than others but very watchable just by truning up the volume.

However, I have a new problem. After putting on patch 13 I can no longer watch my Nero MP4s in Sage it plays audio but the video is black. Any ideas? I have to exit Sage in order to use Nero Showtime to play them. Really not convenient at all.

[gkearneyca]

Nyle:

I use the default audio settings when encoding with Nero. I have been satisfied with the quality. Just the issue with volume; I believe the volume is associated to AC3 - I normally boost with AC3 and/or ffdshow.

I am not having the video problem.
Are you using default settings in sage.properties?


Note: I could never get ffdshow to work properly for these mp4 files - they would error out on instantiation.

Sorry I couldnt be of more assistance.

gk

[nyle]

Originally Posted by gkearneyca

Nyle:

I use the default audio settings when encoding with Nero. I have been satisfied with the quality. Just the issue with volume; I believe the volume is associated to AC3 - I normally boost with AC3 and/or ffdshow.

I am not having the video problem.
Are you using default settings in sage.properties?

gk

Well, the default settings should be there but I have been running SageTV since 2.0 and upgraded all along. Never made any changes to them though and I don't install a lot of add ins. I just use SAGETV as is. It worked under patch 12.

When recoding with Nero under sound options there is a volume setting for the 5.1 sound encode on the latest version. I don't know it was in older ones as this is the first I've used recode. I've been using other solutions up until this version. When I saw that SageTV played them I started encoding to it exclusively. Then I applied patch 13 and playback of video stopped.