Does Sage ignore MKV DAR?

[Oats]

I want to covert my DVD rips to h.264/ac3 and mkv seems to be the best (only?) container that has this option. I ran into a problem where the aspect ratio isn't correct in SageTV. It is fine in WMP and VLC.

From what I gathered most DVDs are anamorphic, and store video at a different resolution/aspect ratio (PAR) than what is displayed during playback (DAR). The video player is supposed to read the DAR and stretch the video horizontally to the correct resolution/aspect ratio during playback. (if anything I said was wrong please correct me as it is confusing lol)

It seems like Sage isn't reading the DAR so it doesn't correct the res/ar. I tried a few different programs to convert the DVDs but got the same result each time so I don't think it is the conversion. Plus if I use the same settings and save it to a .mp4 file then it plays back fine. I then remuxed the video into mkv without transcoding and the resulting mkv file didn't play back correctly.

Is this just a problem with Sage and MKV files or am I doing something wrong?

[joematt]

What are you using to rip and make the MKV file?

[Oats]

Originally Posted by joematt

What are you using to rip and make the MKV file?

DVD is ripped with DVD Shrink, main movie only.

I tried Handbrake and Staxrip to convert to mkv. I used mkvmerge when I tested converting a working mp4 to mkv.

I also forgot to mention if I convert it and change the resolution so it isn't anamorphic the file plays fine, but it is almost twice the size.

[MattHelm]

What are you using to play it back? (OS, CODEC, etc.)

[Oats]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

What are you using to play it back? (OS, CODEC, etc.)

Win7, Sage is set to use the Microsoft decoder for H.264.

[Oats]

I just remembered I had to install Haali Media Splitter to get MKV files to play on WMP, Sage played MKV before and after with no difference. Again I don't really know what Haali does but a quick google search it sounds like it is an important part of the playback.

I'm wonder what Sage uses to do this since it played MKVs before installing the splitter. Is it possible that whatever Sage is using instead of Haali could be the problem? Is there a way to find out what Sage is using?

EDIT:
So I found I need to edit the properties to always_use_dshow_player=true for MKV files to play back with Haali. However, I deleted all the test MKV files I had created so I can't tell if it helped or not until I create another file. I'm encoding a TV show right now so it will have to wait 60-90 mins.

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by Oats

Win7, Sage is set to use the Microsoft decoder for H.264.

OK, that's basically the same setup as me, and all my MKV except 1 (and it's messed up in everything) work fine. At a guess, something else is the stream is messed up. Just wanted to make sure you knew it works for someone. But then again, I've did so many things to my system, who knows how mine works.

[Oats]

Forcing directshow player didn't change anything other than the video playback is extremely jerky.

Originally Posted by MattHelm

OK, that's basically the same setup as me, and all my MKV except 1 (and it's messed up in everything) work fine. At a guess, something else is the stream is messed up. Just wanted to make sure you knew it works for someone. But then again, I've did so many things to my system, who knows how mine works.

What was used to make your MKV files? Are they anamorphic?

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by Oats

What was used to make your MKV files? Are they anamorphic?

Handbrake. I've done it about every way. Seemed to work OK.

[Oats]

I have narrowed it down a little. I did a fresh Win7 install with nothing except SageTV on it and the file still played back with the wrong aspect ratio. So I don't think it is because of some codec/splitter/decoder conflict.

I also found out that the MS Decoder is what was causing jerky playback when using dshowplayer, using FFDShow or MPC-HC decoder resulted in smooth playback. This was a side issue anyway since mplayer was smooth to begin with.