MKV & No Video

[Spectrum]

I have been converting some files to MKV and have run into a snag. Any audio/video muxed using mkvmerge will give me audio only in Sage. The same audio/video files muxed using gdsmux (comes with the haali splitter) displays audio/video fine. Windows Media Player has no problem with the offending files, only Sage. I know sage is able to produce the video because watching the file via placeshifter works just fine, even on a machine that is incapable of viewing an mkv file.

The system is a Windows XP box running sage 6.5.9.204
always_use_dshow_filter is set to true

I have tried upgrading Sage versions (this has been happening for awhile) as well as upgrading the Haali media splitter.

I have attached images of graphs for both files, no problems there.
Also, here are links to 2 test files in case someone has any questions regarding the files themselves.
Test-mkvmerge.mkv
Test-gdsmux.mkv
Test-mkvmerge gives audio only, Test-gdsmux plays just fine.

The obvious solution is don't mux using mkvmerge. Problem is it's much easier to script it and it is the standard muxing tool for mkv files, not gdsmux.

Any help/insight would be appreciated. It looks like Sage and MKV files don't play nice together too bad as that's the easiest container to combine x.264 video and AC3 audio. AVI takes a hack to make it work as does mp4. Don't really want to go that route as MKV supports that combo natively.

[Jackal]

I've just started to mess around withe the whole blu ray ripping thing. I've been putting it off because it always seemed to require an assortment of programs to rip and playback the movies. But somewhere in one of the forums that I go to i saw a link to a program called MakeMKV. I downloaded it and finally gave it a try last night. I ripped and played back my first blu ray with easy.

So now I'm wondering why so many people are going through so much for this process? Am I missing something with all of this demux/remux stuff? All of the h.264 decoders?

While the rip would not play in Win7 MC, it did play in SageTV and using the VLC player. But I got an error message in the VLC player about a ".undf" file when I played the menu file. But the movie seemed to play just fine. I'll try a few more disc tonight when I get home. And I'll see about playing .mkv file in WMC on Win7.

MakeMKV is not without it's share of problems. I have looked over their forums and they do have problems with rips. I guess I got lucky with the Ultraviolet disc. That's why I will try a few more. But I really don't plan to rip a lot of movies anyway. I don't even do that with DVDs. But I did want to know how to do it and I must admit that playing them back from a HDD is a lot better than from the disc.

[babgvant]

I use eac3to to do all the splitting (a/v, chapters, and sup) then mkvmerge to mux into a mkv after using suprip to create a srt from the sup.

re. the OP problem -

Everything works perfectly in sage for that file (but I'm not using ffdshow).

I wonder why ffdshow is connecting to ac3filter, generally you don't want that to happen.

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by Jackal

I've just started to mess around withe the whole blu ray ripping thing. I've been putting it off because it always seemed to require an assortment of programs to rip and playback the movies. But somewhere in one of the forums that I go to i saw a link to a program called MakeMKV. I downloaded it and finally gave it a try last night. I ripped and played back my first blu ray with easy.

So now I'm wondering why so many people are going through so much for this process? Am I missing something with all of this demux/remux stuff? All of the h.264 decoders?

While the rip would not play in Win7 MC, it did play in SageTV and using the VLC player. But I got an error message in the VLC player about a ".undf" file when I played the menu file. But the movie seemed to play just fine. I'll try a few more disc tonight when I get home. And I'll see about playing .mkv file in WMC on Win7.

MakeMKV is not without it's share of problems. I have looked over their forums and they do have problems with rips. I guess I got lucky with the Ultraviolet disc. That's why I will try a few more. But I really don't plan to rip a lot of movies anyway. I don't even do that with DVDs. But I did want to know how to do it and I must admit that playing them back from a HDD is a lot better than from the disc.

I like MakeMKV but it will not downgrade the HD audio at this time. Getting the right hardware and codes for some of the HD audio can bean issue with some players and equipment. TSMuxer is really very easy to use as well as long as you don't get one where the main movie is not in one big file. Just stripping the movie file from a ripped BluRay has never been very difficult.

You are also not saving much space over having the whole ripped BluRay if you don't compress it farther. I believe that is where most people spend the extra effort. Getting the right balance between quality and size can take awhile and everyone has a different opinion on what is acceptable. I personally compress mine to 1280x720 and they end up as 2.5-4gb h.264 mkv files. I really cant see the difference in quality but I also don't have a giant $5,000 TV. The only stuff I bother to compress is the stuff the kids watch since that will become part of the permanent movie Library. The regular movies are rip and delete as soon as I watch them so there is no reason to compress them further.

[Jackal]

I'll look into those programs too. MakeMKV couldn't rip a disc that I tried the other day and now that I'm playing the movies that I have ripped, I'm noticing some stutter in them. Not sure what is the cause at this point.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by babgvant

re. the OP problem -

Everything works perfectly in sage for that file (but I'm not using ffdshow).

I wonder why ffdshow is connecting to ac3filter, generally you don't want that to happen.

Thanks for trying the file, means this is just something goofy w/ my config and not with Sage itself. Which decoder are you using? I may try the Cyberlink decoder and see if that makes a difference.

As far as the audio goes, it's working so I'm not gonna touch it

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Thanks for trying the file, means this is just something goofy w/ my config and not with Sage itself. Which decoder are you using? I may try the Cyberlink decoder and see if that makes a difference.

As far as the audio goes, it's working so I'm not gonna touch it

I'm using the cyberlink one on Vista.