Remux EVO to MKV with DD audio

[bialio]

That's an interesting point - I'm connected via RCA on the audio end (going to TV speakers) so I think my extender is probably working to down mix the AC3 to stereo.... In other words it's not pass thru!

I don't have an extender connected to my Full Rig - have a full client there. That could be the crux of the issue.....

btl.

[Taddeusz]

It may only understand up to 448K and not realize it's proper AC3 and doesn't know what to do with it. Or maybe it's something in the firmware that can be changed and made to allow up to 640K AC3 to be passed or decoded. Might ask the question to support and see what they say.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bialio

That's an interesting point - I'm connected via RCA on the audio end (going to TV speakers) so I think my extender is probably working to down mix the AC3 to stereo.... In other words it's not pass thru!

FWIW, my extender can't play remuxed EVOs smooth either, Sage is looking at some buffering problems.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

It may only understand up to 448K and not realize it's proper AC3 and doesn't know what to do with it. Or maybe it's something in the firmware that can be changed and made to allow up to 640K AC3 to be passed or decoded. Might ask the question to support and see what they say.

It passes 640k AC3 just fine, it just seems to have trouble with high bitrate, non-TS files.

[bialio]

Glad it's not just me.

[stanger89]

448k DD doesn't seem to make any difference.

[bialio]

That doesn't suprise me - my MKV with video only (HBR VC-1 I'm assuming) skips and stutters just as much as the one with 640k AC3.

[bbenkstein]

I'm having a similar problem with the HD Extender. I've got 1080P mkv files with both TrueHD (FLAC) and DD5.1 (AC3) and both stutter with the video and have no sound. All of the mkv files play fine on the Sage Server using Windows Media Player, VLC or Sage itself.

[Muchacho]

For what it is worth, I have found that the HD extender does not like the mkv wrapper. I recently did a 720p encode of a Bluray disc to x264. When I used an mkv wrapper, I had intermittent stuttering. However, when I used an .mp4 wrapper, the movie played fine. I have seen this a few times. Perhaps I am just not making proper mkv files, but it would be worth a try using an .mp4 wrapper.

[stanger89]

My assumption so far has been that it has to do with the server side, probably the remuxing. Wish I could get TSRemux to work, I won't use mp4 because it lacks AC3 support.

[Taddeusz]

I've been creating SD 480p MKV files by transcoding DVD's through Handbrake. THe only caveat I've found is that Handbrake doesn't add a cue table to the file and so they won't FF/REW in Sage. You have to run them through mkvmerge to add the cue table and then they'll FF/REW properly.

That being said, I have a 720p MKV movie with DTS audio that plays with video and audio through my HD Extender but the audio skips every few seconds while it's playing. It plays fine on my PC client. I would guess it's some kind of a buffering problem. I have another 720p MKV movie with DD audio that plays fine with no audio skipping.

[bialio]

6.3.7 and the latest HD100 firmware vastly improves the playback of HBR video in an MKV wrapper. My test encode of the HD DVD Serenity (VC-1, AC3, in MKV) plays without any noticeable issues.

btl.

[Motofreak75]

instead of converting EAC3 to AC3, have you tried to convert it to DTS @1536 bitrate, it just sounds so much better !

and plays just fine on the STX

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

instead of converting EAC3 to AC3, have you tried to convert it to DTS @1536 bitrate, it just sounds so much better !

If you say so

[Motofreak75]

smarty pants

my next project.

convince sage to get the stx to passthrough EAC3 to my Marantz

[Muchacho]

Originally Posted by bialio

6.3.7 and the latest HD100 firmware vastly improves the playback of HBR video in an MKV wrapper. My test encode of the HD DVD Serenity (VC-1, AC3, in MKV) plays without any noticeable issues.

btl.

Cool- I still am unable to play back 1080p VC-1 / AC3 muxed from HDDVH to an mkv wrapper. It pauses/stutters every 20 sec or so. I wonder if the problem is (i) network speed, (ii) that I am outputting 1080i, or (iii) that the HD extender cant handle it. If I re-encode the video to x264 it works fine, but that takes like 2 days to do and is not really worth the trouble.

Any thoughts?

[Deacon Crusher]

any updates on these capabilities Stranger and Bialio??

I've been working the same test case for a while.

An m2ts file that is AVC mpeg4 with TrueHD that I've muxed/converted/transcoded to Dobly Digital. Plays fine with multiple apps on my computer, but when I start it on the extender I just get a black screen.

I've added the m2ts extension.

Thanks

[stanger89]

My two test files (an EVO->MKV with VC1 and AC3, and a AVC+DD TS file) both play audio and video. Problem I have at the moment is I don't think my NAS can keep up with either.

You might want to try TSremux and convert it to just a TS file (though yes, I think the extender is supposed to support m2ts).

Honestly I haven't tried too hard since I'm still trying to figure out the best way to get enough space for my rips, I've got a few DVDs that I've been trying to find a home for, not to mention my HD DVDs.

[dadams]

Quick question - I have been playing with this and had a few problems. Whenever I use MkvMerge to merge the video and audio it will crap out on me when I use the timecode24.txt file. It successfully runs when I leave it out, but I'm getting stuttering and the audio is not synced correctly. Any suggestions? I'm currently working on the HD-DVD version of "The Thing". Love that movie.

[Deacon Crusher]

Well good tip, but ...

TS file does play. However, no sound and very choppy.

Guess I'll have to keep working on this.

thanks

[dkemme]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

any updates on these capabilities Stranger and Bialio??

I've been working the same test case for a while.

An m2ts file that is AVC mpeg4 with TrueHD that I've muxed/converted/transcoded to Dobly Digital. Plays fine with multiple apps on my computer, but when I start it on the extender I just get a black screen.

I've added the m2ts extension.

Thanks

I would like to play m2ts files with my HD-100. How do you add the m2ts extension?