WD TV LIVE mkv slowly jumping frames and then fast forward

Hi to you all!

I´ve bought the media player WD TV LIVE yesterday and the external hard drive WD Elements 2TB and after connecting all to my tv i got two problems. The first one was that after passing all my information to the external drive the tv live did not recognize the wd elements, but it´s already solved with some searching here in the forum. The second problem is that when i play the avi´s files, the image and the sound is great, but when i play mkv files (i tried with fringe, supernatural and the event tv series in hdtv), while i´m watching the video, sometimes the image begun to skip frames and slowing down until it stops and the audio is off. After a minute or something the video fast forwards to a certain point and then begun to play normally again with sound.

I also try to watch the avatar 1080p mkv backup that i have and the image from the beginning until the end of the movie is jumping forward (doesn´t play smoothly) and the sound is off.

Why is this happening? Is the wd elements very slow and the buffer of the tv live is always running out?

Can someone give me an hand with this problem?

Thank you very much and I´m sorry for my bad english. Hope you understand my problem.

The encodes are bad.

Proper .mkv files play fine.

Hello RoofingGuy,

how i can i solve the problem?

Re-encode them.    If the bit rate is too high, you’ll need to reduce it.

Hi TonyPh12345,

for what i´ve read i have to use MKVMerge right? What is the “normal” value of the bit rate?

Thank you.

Usually something lower than 20 Mbit second.

No, MKVMerge isn’t going to change the bitrate.   You need something like Handbrake.

Usually, with HB, you just use the High-Profile Preset, select the output to MKV, and hit GO.   

Ok TonyPh12345. Thanks.

By the way, how can i see the bitrate of my existing mkv files? Just to see if they all are with a bitrate more than 20mb/s or not.

Mediainfo will tell you the average bitrates.

Here is an MediaInfo example:

(What should I do now?)

General
Complete name : Supernatural.S06E05.720p.HDTV.x264-CTU.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 1.09 GiB
Duration : 41mn 22s
Overall bit rate : 3 782 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-02-22 21:41:29
Writing application : no_variable_data
Writing library : no_variable_data
Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 41mn 22s
Bit rate : 3 395 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.154
Stream size : 983 MiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 85 r1442tw
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=30 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=6 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=0 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=3395 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Audio
ID : 1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 41mn 22s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size :

114 MiB (10%)

That’s VERY ODD! It may be Live version you are running. I saw the same episode, from torrents (of course), last saturday! Without any single problem! From an USB connected hdd.

Although, not a very good episode :wink:

Install latest beta .43 and enjoy the show :wink:

Or it may not be the same file (just because it’s the same episode doesn’t mean it’s the same file).

Pirated files are like that – often badly encoded.  In any case, we can’t help you with illegal downloads (best advice – create the files yourself from materials you own.  In that case they will ALWAYS work).

Maybe with the next firmware update the problem will be solved. Until then I´m re-encoding all the mkv using Handbrake.

Thank you all for the help! You were great!