Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Over the last couple of days I have been trying out HD films that have been compressed using the Matroska format. I tried this a while ago on my 3GHz 8800 GTX equipped machine, it didnt work well. The sound and image were out of sync and the film stuttered. I used WMP 11 and VLC both with poor results. As a result I avoided this form of media and stuck to traditional .vob formats. Unfortunately our friend Panic convinced me to try again. I had the Red Baron in .mkv format. As you may know BluRay and HD films are often as much as 50gb, but with compression this is significantly reduced and The Red Baron is 11.2gb in .mkv format. Panic told me that MediaPlayer classic was the best for playing this format so i downloaded it. I was impressed by the detail of the picture but my PC could not keep up with the images so it showed 2 second bursts, most unsatisfactory. However as you may have read I had accidently underclocked my PC from 3GHz to 2GHz, so when i discovered this and restored the PC to it stock potential I tried to watch the film again. It worked perfectly, smooth images and synchronised sound. The next step was to try this film on my G33 Shuttle media pc hooked up to a 46" full hd LCD tv. The shuttle has an E6600 core2duo processor, 2gb of DDR2 ram, integrated Graphics, 7.1 sound. I loaded Media player classic and the Red Baron onto the PC. It was awful. Stuttering image in full screen although it would work well in a window. When the film was working the quality was awsome, the detail impressive. Red Baron is a visual feast and a good film, shame I couldnt watch it on my setup. I thought I would have to overclock the little bugger and add a graphics card, which I didnt want to do. I thought I was destined not to watch .mkv films on my TV. The next day I discussed this problem with my fellow spartans and RTR told me that he used Media player classic as well, but he downloaded it with the K-lite codec pack. I just downloaded MPC on its own, so later that night after a good few games of COD4 at the BPR, I downloaded the K-Lite codec pack and installed it on my shuttle PC. I then watched the Red baron again and................................................. it worked. The image was smooth sound was good (although I havent bought a surround sound system in Switzerland yet). There is occasional light shearing when the camera pans, but it barely registers and does not detract. I wont replace all my dvd format films, but I will get a few more of these .mkv formatted films where the imagery would benefit from the extra quality. Obviously many older films were never on good stock in any case so there is no advantage to watching them in high Def, but there are a few that are worth it. The question is which films would benefit from being seen in this format. I would like to see (amongst others) Iron man Transformers Wall E Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krambo Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 (edited) Really enjoyed reading this thread, I just kept nodding all the way through as you were given all the right solutions. I was curious as to why you were having problems as I run .mkv files through my PC plugged into my 42" plasma and they look sweeeeet, and thats on an old AMD sempron 3000+ and a really old (AGP) ATi card. I have the films stored on my main pc with the big HD and access them through my network on the other machine and it workd perfectly with no skips or jumps or sync issues. Anyway i'll have a look and see if I can recommend any. Edited March 4, 2009 by Krambo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Author Share Posted March 4, 2009 My shuttle uses an integrated graphics chip that assigns part of the ram (I think 348 mb). This is worse than any dedicated graphics card, but not because of the amount of ram. However, I just checked T2 and the Red Baron using WMP11 and VLC and they worked fine on my Shuttle PC, it must have been the codecs (or lack of them). The K-lite codec pack seems to work across all players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krambo Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 good good. happy viewing :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Author Share Posted March 4, 2009 sadly the irritation does not end. I use I-tunes to sync contacts and playlists with my I-phone. After I installed the K-lite codecs I could not open I-tunes, vista closed the software and a message came up saying that Data Execution Prevention had closed the program. This is a vista security feature. I didnt initially associate this problem with K-lite, so I rebooted a couple of times, then uninstalled and reinstalled I-tunes, all to no avail. I then realised theat the I-tunes failure coincided with the K-lite installation, so I uninstalled, k-lite, bonjour, quicktime, and I-tunes and rebooted. Then I reinstalled i-tunes which now works. So I cannot run I-tunes and K-lite on the same box, However my shuttle PC does not have I-tunesso all will be well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krambo Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Hey Zeno check here :- http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5620755 gl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Thats xp for ya, you have to down load codec packs just to wacth a movie. It should come allready included in the o/s anouther reasion I went to vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Author Share Posted March 4, 2009 All of these problems were on Vista machines. interestingly when I installed K-lite it uninstalled some other codec pack. Now that I have uninstalled K-lite, WMP11 will not play an mkv, but VLC does with no problems, very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MedicSN6 Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 (edited) there are many different codec packs available. granted k-lite has a tone of sweet codecs, but you do have other options. Check the left-hand navbar for the codec packs section. I use the K-lite Mega codec pack, but i know there is just a pack for MKV. http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Matroska_Pack.htm Edited March 4, 2009 by Medic~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
custard~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 Very interesting stuff If only my PS3 could play .MKV I would be a very happy man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeno~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Author Share Posted March 4, 2009 I remember you were considering building a linux based media PC, in my case I think this could come down to using the wrong codecs, I think I was originally using VistaCodecs v4.50, K-lite is better. I know Xbox can stream, but I dont know if it can play .mkv files. So far I have Broken Arrow Casino Royale Dark Knight Red Baron Terminator 2 I am downloading Iron Man Wall E and Transformers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athlon64~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 (edited) Sweet, Its allways somthing to screw us up. They just can't make it work, we allways have to download something and then that will cause a conflict with something else and that won't work eather. Just like roseann roseadanna says From saterday night live show. "its allways something" Edited March 4, 2009 by Athlon64~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PANiC Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 FFDShow > k-lite http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm one codec instead of a whole bag full = less stuff for it to break dont want to install any codecs at all but still play everything? http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
custard~SPARTA~ Posted March 4, 2009 Share Posted March 4, 2009 PS3 can stream from my PC wmv files and it supposed to do DiVX but I'm buggered if I can get that to work. All I want is for Sony to add the codecs or whatever in an update and I would be good to go no need for a new media pc. I would far rather build a home server type rig and things like the PS3 stream stuff from it which is the way RViiiper wants to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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