Support for MKV - half baked

[Julianus]

Support for MKV is so, so.

1. On Windows you can use DirectShow codecs or mplayer.
1a) DirectShow codecs, you need to make changes to registry first. After that you have only external .SRT subtitles. However embedded subtitles are not recognized and they do not work. Multiple audio is recognized. After discussion with SageTV support they do not intend to support embedded subtitles.
1b) mplayer does work with subtitles and multiple audio. However it does work with multichannel audio output, only stereo.

2. On other OS, only mplayer is used.

[bastafidli]

I use exclusively MKV produced by Handbrake with extender and have no complains.

[Julianus]

Of course not, the extender is using Linux and mplayer so no problem.

Only if you are using Windows and DirectShow decoders.

[panteragstk]

I use mkv on windows with no issues at all.

[icon123]

I use mkv files exclusively and they play on any platform I own.

BTW, in my world, embedded subs mean that they are encoded within the movie (no way to turn them off or on, they are allways present). Is that what you are referring to or are you reffering to subs within the mkv container (seperate from the video file) that you are trying to turn on/off? I assume the later.

[Julianus]

When I refer to embedded subtitles I mean the subtitle channels in the MKV file. You can have english, french or other language subtitle and you can enable them from a player like VLC.

Here is what the mkvmerge tool reports for a file:

File 'Tron (1982).mkv': container: Matroska
Track ID 1: video (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC)
Track ID 2: audio (A_AC3)
Track ID 3: audio (A_AC3)
Track ID 4: subtitles (S_TEXT/UTF8)
Track ID 5: subtitles (S_VOBSUB)
Chapters: 28 entries

You can see there are 2 subtitle tracks, one in text format and one in image.
If I extract the text subtitle it will create a text file with .srt extension.
VOBSUB subtitles get extracted into files with .idx and .sub extension.

SageTV only recognizes the text format and only if it is extracted from the MKV file into a .srt file.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Julianus

SageTV only recognizes the text format and only if it is extracted from the MKV file into a .srt file.

SubtitleRender can push embedded SRT into SageTV.

[medwynd]

Originally Posted by Julianus

SageTV only recognizes the text format and only if it is extracted from the MKV file into a .srt file.

I'm not familiar with the capabilities of the software but I know that the extenders can playback .sup subtitles because that's what I use in my mkvs.

[gabrielcab]

The HD300 can play MKV's flawlessly, but with a Windows SageTV Client it is a nightmare to play them. at least for me.