MKV File Support in SageTV

[Narflex]

I know many of you have modified your SageTV configuration so that it will also import MKV files and it was apparently working fine for you all.

We've gotten some bug reports lately of issues related to thumbnail generation for MKV files and also relating to issues playing back MKV files on the MVP through the transcoder.

While we don't officially support MKV files at this time; there was a *global* fix we made to the transcoder & player that may fix the new issues that had come up. (the fix definitely resolves the crash in Ogg files)

I'm curious to get some feedback from those of you with MKV files that were having new issues with them to see if these new builds help resolve anything.

These new files will be in the next build. Here they are now if you're interested in giving us some feedback on them before that point:

http://download.sage.tv/SageTVTranscoder.zip
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVPlayer.zip

[FZ1]

My xvid video and vorbis audio .mkv's still don't play on my MVP with these versions. They play fine using sage on the sage server.

Thumbnails are generated fine.

While playing, the timelime will progress but no audio or video will play. The MVP and OSD also lag badly while playing.

[millers_35]

I gave it a quick try to generate some mkv thumbnails but it still was getting hung.

Miller

[lobosrul]

The transcoder was going nuts after i installed the latest beta. In fact i renamed it so it wont be opened. Maybe its mkv files thats causing it, i do have a few.

[tbonessc]

I tried this update as well, but the transcoder still hung generating a thumb.

[dvd_maniac]

I still have the thumbnails disabled but I did try to see if this resolved my other problem...
It didn't.
When I try to RW/FF mkv files on either of my MVP's it stops playing video and audio but the timeline keeps going. Black screen no audio.
If I try to open one up that is not at the begining of the file it does the same thing. I have to mark the Watched flag to get the file to start from the begining again.
Pain in the rear...
Should I upload one of my files and create a support ticket?

[alon24]

As before, I see thumbnails, but SageTvTranscoder takes 52% CPU all the time (from the second I go into Imported Video).

Not a fix for me.

(50% cpy on a core2duo so do that math, 1 core is at 100%)

Edit:
Correction, I am not getting thumbnails, Reno911! (mkv) does not get a thumbnail, and sagetvtranscider at 50% cpu

[mcaron1234]

These files solve one problem for me but not another. I now get thumbnails and can see and play mkv files from sage imports directory. Before I had to open the mkv from the browse to file dialog, and then it wouldn't actually open a movie window, I would have to go the the sage videos menu and click on the preview window to get the mkv file to play in the movie window. However, I, like others here, am still getting sagetranscoder to max out one of my cores. I am able to manually kill the sagetranscoder process in task manager but this type of brute force problem solving always leaves a worried feeling...

Also, despite setting the mpeg4 playback to directshow, sage is still playing the mkv (with H.264 video) with sageplayer. I know this because I have ffdshow set to show the osd when playing and the ffdshow tray icon isn't there when sage plays these files. I forgot to check mkv with xvid video before I left for work this morning.

I'll be submitting a bug report today.

Matt

PS Were these files also supposed to fix the dvd menu bug in Vista? No joy here if that is the case.

Edit: No these don't fix the menu thing that file ishttp://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?p=235232&postcount=2

[Mark SS]

Workaround I use for mkv files is to put a folder.jpg in any library folders that contain them. Seems to prevent the transcoder from trying to generate thumbnails.

[FZ1]

After further testing, my MVP .mkv symptoms are identical to dvd_maniac's.

[alon24]

Good News on Thummbnails After working with the Sage team, using an idea from another thread to find the command line for SageTVTranscoder, when its hanged. I found they were sending the wrong command (added "Stv://127.0.01" to it) to SageTVTranscoder.
That was fixed in the new 6.2.8.

It was also suggested to turn the extraction time to 0 so set:
video_thumbnail_extraction_time_offset_sec=0

And now all is well, Now all we need is to get a version from Sage, that does not hang when trying to extract a picture from an MKV, after xx number of seconds, but this is a great advancement...

[setherd]

I am running the latest RC 6.2.8 and also get the transcoder stuck running using 50% of my CPU. I have only a few MKV files I will remove them from my library and see if this helps

[millers_35]

With the latest beta 6.2.8 I was still getting the transcoder.exe stuck when generating thumbnails. But I set this property "video_thumbnail_extraction_time_offset_sec=0" and now they are working great. Thanks for the tip.

Miller

[setherd]

Originally Posted by setherd

I am running the latest RC 6.2.8 and also get the transcoder stuck running using 50% of my CPU. I have only a few MKV files I will remove them from my library and see if this helps

I just thought I'd throw in that I deleted my MKV files and now the transcoder problem has gone away.

The MKV files I had were in Japanese with a second audio track in english.
It would sure be nice to have sage be able to pickup on other audio tracks in files...just throwing that out there

[jaminben]

Yep, I have the same problem as setherd regarding the audio tracks. Some of my .mkv files have 2 audio tracks and although you can select to play the second audio track via the menu the film still plays the original audio track. Any chance this can be fixed easily? or does it require some alteration to the general code by a Sage tech dude.

Cheers

jaminben

Edit : Well I've just been playing with the options of Haali Media Splitter and it appears you can specify what audio language you want and it will always defaut to that language.

So heres the solution,

Goto Haali options, Languages, Audio Language Priority, and in the Value box type ",eng" (without the quotes) (,eng = english)
Hopefully that will sort out all your audio problems with .mkv files

[natrlhy]

I'm running SageTV 6.2.10 and I'm seeing odd playback issues with my .mkv files.

When I go to watch a .mkv file, it plays but video has a reddish hue to it and it's not very watchable. When I stop the playback of the .mkv file, a SageTVTranscoder.exe process continues to run and it consumes 100% of one of the cores. If I try to watch another one, the second core is at 100%, maxing out the CPU potential of the HTPC.

I play the same .mkv file in Windows Media Player and it's just fine. I even see the Haali Media Splitter icon in the system tray as I would expect.

Is there something that I have misconfigured? Everything .mkv wise worked wonderfully in SageTV 6.1.9.

Thanks!

[natrlhy]

Just downgraded back to 6.1.8 where everything is working fine again.

Even my HDTV recordings kept recording in 480i even though the actual feed was 720p or 1080i...

HUGE UPDATE:

I went into the detailed setup of my working 6.1.8 install and saw that the Video/Audio --> Video Renderer was set to VMR9

In DVD the Video Renderer was also set to VMR9

In my 6.2.10 install it was set to Overlay in both areas as well.

When changing my 6.2.10 install back to VMR9, everything appears to be working correctly. That includes the playback of my .mkv files as well as HDTV feeds from my Vbox USB device.

[Snuffy2]

Originally Posted by natrlhy

I'm running SageTV 6.2.10 and I'm seeing odd playback issues with my .mkv files.

When I go to watch a .mkv file, it plays but video has a reddish hue to it and it's not very watchable. When I stop the playback of the .mkv file, a SageTVTranscoder.exe process continues to run and it consumes 100% of one of the cores. If I try to watch another one, the second core is at 100%, maxing out the CPU potential of the HTPC.

I play the same .mkv file in Windows Media Player and it's just fine. I even see the Haali Media Splitter icon in the system tray as I would expect.

Is there something that I have misconfigured? Everything .mkv wise worked wonderfully in SageTV 6.1.9.

Thanks!

Same experience with 6.2.10. Never tried mkv files in any other 6.2.x, but I do remember them working fine in 6.1.

BTW:
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback=false

Thanx

[pciccone]

Same, transcoder stuck at 100% - 6.2.10 release while playing mkv files...

[Jabroni]

Any fix for this problem?? Im having the same prob that SageTVTranscoder.exe is eating all my cores cpu whenever i access a folder with HD files (some X264,.TS,etc)

Im using the latest release (6.2.10)