Need Help - Can't Get MKVs to Play in SageTV Win Client

[SteveW]

Hey folks!

I was planning to use MakeMKV to convert my existing Bluray rips to MKV to make them accessible through the Android miniclient as well... I already have a number of HD-300 extenders and a couple Windows clients.

Did a test on a couple of bluray rips converted to MKV - even reripped a bluray itself with MakeMKV... My extenders have no problem playing the MKV's (no shocker there). My Windows client will not - they will play the bluray rip, but not after converting the movie to MKV - I either get an error saying it can't render the audio (convert existing bluray rip to mkv) or can't render the video (straight bluray disk to MKV conversion).

I can play these same MKV files on the same PC using VLC, so whatever is going on is within the SageTV Win Client. Latest version of LAV filters is installed. I've tried fiddling with the decoders in use in the client - changing from Microsoft DTV to LAV, etc, but I'm not making any progress...

Can someone who's done this themselves possibly point me in the right direction?

Tnx!

[Striker:WG]

Use GraphStudio (its a free download, just google for it) to see what codecs and renderers are being used by default when you graph your MKV file.

Then check the Sage TV settings and Client Log files to determine which codecs and renderers Sage is trying to use.

Chances are you will need to either adjust codec/renderer merit values to determine ones are used by default.

Have you changed the registry setting on the Windows PC's to not use the Sage Demuxer? That is another key step (at least for me) when trying to get things to playback properly.

I have a post on gettting MadVR working (spoiler alert, it doesn't work properly for LiveTV) but it covers all the other stuff above. Probably worth a read.

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...9&postcount=11

[UgaData]

I have had a similar issue in the past.

I had to disable the SageTV demuxer (sagetvstreamdemux), after doing so I was able to play MKV files from MakeMKV.

I am still in the process of converting from ISO files to MKV.

Search the Registry for SageTVStreamDemux and set it to 0 (this only needs to be done on the Windows Clients)

[SteveW]

Thanks folks for the idea to disable the SageTV demuxer... That did the trick...

[UgaData]

FWIW,

Before getting too far, you may want to do some research about how Sage handles subtitles in MKVs.

Things like subtitles for foreign languages and the like aren't displayed unless burned into movie.

For Me, going forward I am still using MKVs, but if I think the movie or TV series needs subtitle support I will watch it using VLC.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by UgaData

FWIW,

Before getting too far, you may want to do some research about how Sage handles subtitles in MKVs.

Things like subtitles for foreign languages and the like aren't displayed unless burned into movie.

For Me, going forward I am still using MKVs, but if I think the movie or TV series needs subtitle support I will watch it using VLC.

Yep - been there already with the Blurays. Some I’ve had to burn in the forced subtitles after ripping them. Thanks for the reminder tho as I know there are a couple that I missed and will have to be on the lookout for...

[SteveW]

So have been continuing my conversions and have run into a new problem. Some of the blurays I have ripped to MKV will not play on the HD-300 extenders (nor on the Android client) while they play fine on the Windows Client.

I thought maybe it was my original rip, so I went back to my original disks and redid them through MakeMKV. Same situation. Will play find in the Windows client but not the extenders. On the extenders, the timeline advances, there are no errors. I can jump ahead and back, but there is no picture and no audio.

Some disks I rip have no issues as MKVs on the extenders or on the Win clients, but some rips will only play on the Win clients. Has anyone else run into this?

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by SteveW

So have been continuing my conversions and have run into a new problem. Some of the blurays I have ripped to MKV will not play on the HD-300 extenders (nor on the Android client) while they play fine on the Windows Client.

I thought maybe it was my original rip, so I went back to my original disks and redid them through MakeMKV. Same situation. Will play find in the Windows client but not the extenders. On the extenders, the timeline advances, there are no errors. I can jump ahead and back, but there is no picture and no audio.

Some disks I rip have no issues as MKVs on the extenders or on the Win clients, but some rips will only play on the Win clients. Has anyone else run into this?

MKV is a container format. What is the codec used for the video and audio streams of the resulting mkv file? If you are doing a straight rip (no re-encoding), you will get the codecs used on the Bluray. Bluray supports several codecs, some of which I believe the HD-300 does not support.

--John

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

MKV is a container format. What is the codec used for the video and audio streams of the resulting mkv file? If you are doing a straight rip (no re-encoding), you will get the codecs used on the Bluray. Bluray supports several codecs, some of which I believe the HD-300 does not support.

--John

Yes, straight rip with no re-encoding. Since the originals rips of these movies as Bluray were playable in the Sage Windows clients and extenders in the Video Bluray/DVD menu, I was not expecting to run into a situation where just ripping them into an MKV container would mean they are not be playable on the extenders...

As for which codec is used for the video and audio streams in the resulting MKV, not sure. If you can point me to the best way of finding out, I can compare a working rip to MKV versus a non working one...

[trk2]

I'm not aware of any Bluray codecs that are not supported by the HD300 except for UHD Blurays. There are MKV compatibility fixes in the later HD300 firmwares that unfortunately also break DTS-MA bitstreaming.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

MKV is a container format. What is the codec used for the video and audio streams of the resulting mkv file? If you are doing a straight rip (no re-encoding), you will get the codecs used on the Bluray. Bluray supports several codecs, some of which I believe the HD-300 does not support.

--John

Hmm.. When I look at the video details in Sage. the ones that are playing correctly on the extenders say that the video format is "MATROSKA[H.264.." or "MATROSKA[MPEG2.."

The ones that aren't playing say "MATROSKA, WEBM[H.264..."

What's WEBM? I've seen that mentioned somewhere in the last few weeks on the forum... Maybe in one of Josh's posts about his transcoder updates? I am running Josh's plugin and his interim Sage.jar...

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by SteveW

Hmm.. When I look at the video details in Sage. the ones that are playing correctly on the extenders say that the video format is "MATROSKA[H.264.." or "MATROSKA[MPEG2.."

The ones that aren't playing say "MATROSKA, WEBM[H.264..."

What's WEBM? I've seen that mentioned somewhere in the last few weeks on the forum... Maybe in one of Josh's posts about his transcoder updates? I am running Josh's plugin and his interim Sage.jar...

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...99&postcount=6

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by SteveW

What's WEBM? I've seen that mentioned somewhere in the last few weeks on the forum... Maybe in one of Josh's posts about his transcoder updates? I am running Josh's plugin and his interim Sage.jar...

I'm not sure what the difference between the two is, or whether WEBM works on the HD-300s.

--John

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by SteveW

Hmm.. When I look at the video details in Sage. the ones that are playing correctly on the extenders say that the video format is "MATROSKA[H.264.." or "MATROSKA[MPEG2.."

The ones that aren't playing say "MATROSKA, WEBM[H.264..."

What's WEBM? I've seen that mentioned somewhere in the last few weeks on the forum... Maybe in one of Josh's posts about his transcoder updates? I am running Josh's plugin and his interim Sage.jar...

Have you tried removing Josh’s plugin and jar and reverting to previous version of Sage as a test?

When playing back on an extender, most of the work is done by the extender, but I think it’s still possible that a problem with the format detector code on the server side could cause problems with playback on an extender.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Have you tried removing Josh’s plugin and jar and reverting to previous version of Sage as a test?

When playing back on an extender, most of the work is done by the extender, but I think it’s still possible that a problem with the format detector code on the server side could cause problems with playback on an extender.

I have removed Josh's plugin. I removed the mention of Josh's plugin in the Sage properties file by leaving the line as:

mediafile_mediaformat_parser_plugin=

I don't believe more is needed than that, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I put the original stock Sage.jar back in as well, and then restarted the server. The HD-300 extenders will still not play anything that shows the video details as MATROSKA,WEBM vice MATROSKA.

Maybe this issue has always been in Sage? Maybe recent versions of MakeMKV is now creating files with MATROSKA/WEBM? Not sure.

I may fire up a fresh install of SageTV server on another PC to prove out what is or is not going on with these MKVs.

Thankfully I did not delete all of the movies in their original bluray format on my NAS, so I only have about 60 I will have to rerip to get them back.

Was hoping to go this route to use the miniclient on an android TV box while we are away camping to be also play our stored movies, but can't go this route if it makes them unplayable on the extenders... Tried the extenders on the road in the camper with less than ideal results.

[SteveW]

I finally had some success. Removed the import directory with the MKVs, deleted all of the .properties files for those MKVs, and re-imported the directory again - just doing a rescan after the removal of the plugin wasn't enough. They all now play, and the video detail for all of them now just says "MATROSKA".

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by SteveW

I have removed Josh's plugin. I removed the mention of Josh's plugin in the Sage properties file by leaving the line as:

mediafile_mediaformat_parser_plugin=

I don't believe more is needed than that, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

I put the original stock Sage.jar back in as well, and then restarted the server. The HD-300 extenders will still not play anything that shows the video details as MATROSKA,WEBM vice MATROSKA.

Maybe this issue has always been in Sage? Maybe recent versions of MakeMKV is now creating files with MATROSKA/WEBM? Not sure.

I may fire up a fresh install of SageTV server on another PC to prove out what is or is not going on with these MKVs.

On your test server, you might want to have the default Sage media format parser re-run against the "bad" MKV. You can do this by adding "force_full_content_reindex=true" to the Sage.properties.

I suggest doing this first on the test server as it will rescan and update details for ALL your content, so it would be good to do it on a test box before potentially touching your entire library.

--John

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

On your test server, you might want to have the default Sage media format parser re-run against the "bad" MKV. You can do this by adding "force_full_content_reindex=true" to the Sage.properties.

I suggest doing this first on the test server as it will rescan and update details for ALL your content, so it would be good to do it on a test box before potentially touching your entire library.

--John

Thanks John. As per my last post, on my production system, removing the import directory, deleting the .properties files for each MKV, and re-importing them with the plugin turned off and the stock sage.jar running has cleared up the issue for me. All MKV's just show up now as "MASTROKA", and all will run on the extenders now.

I'm sure Josh will have this all sorted out when they release the next version of SageTV with his changes in it for the things he's working on...

[jpwegas]

Steve,
Looks like our last two posts crossed in the ether!

Glad it's working!

--John