MKV vs AVI

ncarver wrote:


dcb917 wrote:

The Roku 3 streams at 1080 over 5ghz N

 


 

Statements like this are made all the time on this forum (and elsewhere) but are quite worthless.  Being “1080” does not define the quality of the video nor the difficulty of streaming it.  What we need to know is the bitrate!  If you don’t understand the difference between resolution/lines and bitrate/compression/quality, do some reading.  Anyone can stream “1080 video” over even “b” Wifi if it has been compressed enough.  What many of us want, though, is to be able to stream Blu-ray quality, 40+Mbps video.  Good luck with that over Wifi.  I couldn’t do it with “n” Wifi and directional antennas, and 5ghz Wifi has even worse range/penetration.

The WD spec web page for this device does not contain the word bitrate anywhere.  Shame on them!  How dare they not differ to your superior intellect and acknowledge that "What we need to know is the bitrate! "

I don’t have easy access to a 40+ bitrate file but I did try one that is 29.92.  Streams fine over wifi on the Roku3 / plex, stuttered a bit on the WD which makes sense given that it is N 2.4 ghz only.

The WD spec web page for this device does not contain the word bitrate anywhere.

Sure it does.

  1. MPEG-2 Max (MP@HL 1920x1080ip30 or 1280x720p60), bit rate (SD:20, HD:40).
  2. MPEG4.2 Max (ASP@L5 1920x1080p30 or 1280x720p60), bit rate (SD:20, HD:40).
  3. EG-4.10 (H.264) Max (BP@L3.0 720x480p30 or 720x576p25, MP@L4.1 and HP@L4.1 1920×1080p30 or 1280x720p60), bit rate (SD:20,
    HD:40).
  4. SMPTE 421M (VC-1) Max (AP@L3 and MP@HL 1920×1080p30 or 1280x720p60), bit rate (SD:20, HD:40).
  5. WMV9 Max (MP@HL 1920×1080p30 or 1280x720p60), bit rate (SD:20, HD:40). Does not supprot WMV7 and WMV8. Does not support
    Screen, Image and Image Version 2 profiles.
  6. AVS Mac (Jizhun@L6.0 1920×1080p30 or 1280x720p60) , bit rate (SD:20, HD:40).
  7. AVC does not support ‘High10.’

All, this simply comes down to a personal choice of which device you like better. That’s it. The whole debate about specs is silly. I prefer the WD, clearly others do not.

Recently, Roku updated their FW, as well as a new version of Plex that has made the combination of the two, or using the Roku 3 on it’s own via its USB port a much better platform for playing local media files than ever before. Support for MKV containers, DD+, and DTS passthrough, FLAC support, some DLNA client services etc. have been added.

I have several WD boxes, a Roku, and I also use Plex. I personally like the interface for the WD devices better than that of the Roku for my local media, but I’ll give them credit, the most recent update (in January) has made the product much more competitive for playing your own files. For me there are still too many issues like the inability to play subtitle files over the network (supposedly getting fixed), and several media containers that still need to be transcoded like avi/Xvid. Also I am unclear if it can pass DTS HD MA, and it would appear most other people discussing it are just as confused as I.

I like that we can use custom themes, apparently dcb917 does not. So be it. Both devices are decent, and yes, the Roku has a lot more options for streaming video from the internet. It still does not play as many media types, both container and stream as the WD boxes. For some that will work fine. For other it won’t. Have a lot of AVIs? You’ll be doing a lot of transcoding.

I guess I am saying, each to his own. I’ll use my WD for almost everything local, and my Roku for most of my streaming needs, as well as certain apps for the Roku (like simple.tv) that are not DLNA compliant.

It is certainly worth noting though, that Roku has really stepped up their game with the Roku3 as far as local media, and the specs page does not yet reflect all of that yet. Most of this has been discussed on the Roku forum. A year ago I was lauging at people who insisted on using their Rokus for local media. Since the beginning of this year, it is actually become a very reasonable option. 

Ill still just keep the two boxes taped together and get the best of both worlds :laughing:

-P

dcb917 wrote:

The WD spec web page for this device does not contain the word bitrate anywhere.  Shame on them!  How dare they not differ to your superior intellect and acknowledge that "What we need to know is the bitrate! "

 

I don’t have easy access to a 40+ bitrate file but I did try one that is 29.92.  Streams fine over wifi on the Roku3 / plex, stuttered a bit on the WD which makes sense given that it is N 2.4 ghz only.

 

Well at least we agree about something:  [my] “superior intellect.”  :smileyvery-happy:

Not sure why you think the SMP’s spec page is relevant to my post.  I already told you that many people (including myself) stream 40+ Mbps Blu-ray quality video to their SMPs.  The point of my post was that you had proclaimed that you were successfully streaming “1080 video” to your Roku, but simply saying “1080 video” is almost completely useless for judging video quality and difficulty of streaming.  You are far from alone in failing to grasp this.  People frequently post questions on this forum asking, “can I stream 1080 video using this setup?”  Of course you can, if you compress the video enough.  You need to include the bitrate of the video to make any video streaming discussion or comparison worthwhile.

You need to do a bit of reading about 5 Ghz 802.11n Wifi.  You seem to believe it is just inherently superior to use of the 2.4 Ghz band.  (Because 5 > 2.4??)  Superior performance is far from guaranteed, however.  Plenty of real-world tests I found on the web showed worse performance.  5 Ghz helps with interference issues, but is worse with wall penetration.  I don’t have significant interference problems where I live, the problem is penetrating multiple walls/floor.  5 Ghz will be much worse then!

ncarver wrote:
Not sure why you think the SMP’s spec page is relevant to my post.

To point out that dcb917 mocking your intellect was silly since contrary to his claim, bitrate is mentioned in the manual/specs.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330&wdc_lang=en

No mention of bitrate.  This would be the “specifications” page.

It says “For details, please refer to the user manual.”

ncarver wrote:


dcb917 wrote:

The Roku 3 streams at 1080 over 5ghz N

 


 

Statements like this are made all the time on this forum (and elsewhere) but are quite worthless.  Being “1080” does not define the quality of the video nor the difficulty of streaming it.  What we need to know is the bitrate!  If you don’t understand the difference between resolution/lines and bitrate/compression/quality, do some reading.  Anyone can stream “1080 video” over even “b” Wifi if it has been compressed enough.  What many of us want, though, is to be able to stream Blu-ray quality, 40+Mbps video.  Good luck with that over Wifi.  I couldn’t do it with “n” Wifi and directional antennas, and 5ghz Wifi has even worse range/penetration.

I have since tested a 40 Mbps file, it streams fine over 5ghz to the Roku 3.  I do have a decent router (Asus N66U), centrally located, up high and it is 30-35 feet from the Roku 3 and has to pass through one wall.  The trade off for 5ghz is range, that is what you give up to get greater throughput. 

I highly recommend http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ and its forums to anyone wanting to further explore.

MKV can hold presentation timestamps, and thus if authored correctly, and played correctly, will exhibit no av sync drift. AVI files don’t have timestamps and if the file is authored wrong, will exhibit drift and nothing can solve it. Both of them can contain media at various compression ratios.

Both are ok and iReal playercan play both of the formats.

I use DVDFab and for some reason I have nothing but audio sync issues when making MKV copies of DVDs.  I therefore prefer anything but MKV.

Wrong choice, MKV rocks, DVDFab **bleep** when it comes to MKVs.

Techflaws wrote:

Wrong choice, MKV rocks, DVDFab **bleep** when it comes to MKVs.

I had some reasonably good luck with their 3D ripper to MKV…

AVI as a container is very old and basically flawed. It’s got a 2GB file size limit, and the only way to get audio with timestamp information in it is to wedge a sub-format into the audio container where the sub-format has timestamp information in it.

Regardless, the rule of thumb is: If it plays audio out of sync then it was encoded wrong, or it’s being played back wrong. If you have a MKV and it plays fine on your PC via VLC or a variety of playback programs, but it plays wrong (or hangs like it frequently does for me) on your WD device, then it’s very likely WD’s fault, and likely you’ll get little help from WD. If it plays wrong on most playback clients, then it’s likely the MKV file was encoded wrong, or you fed out of sync data, or data w/ bad timestamps, to the encoding process.

Generally, video that’s been encoded and is sitting on the internet, hasn’t had a lot of attention paid to the a/v sync. Frequently programs like DvdFab get the timestamps wrong while encoding. I’ve had really *good* luck with AnyDvd and DvdClone, converting to MKV, but that’s just 1 guy’s findings.

AngryAtWD wrote:

AVI as a container is very old and basically flawed. It’s got a 2GB file size limit

OpenDML AVI has no such limit and has been supported by the WDTV for years.

AngryAtWD wrote:
If you have a MKV and it plays fine on your PC via VLC or a variety of playback programs, but it plays wrong (or hangs like it frequently does for me) on your WD device, then it’s very likely WD’s fault.

Not necessarily. VLC is no benchmark for playability on hardware players cause it’s fine tuned to play non-compliant/messy files and has also no RAM/buffering limitations.

OpenDML may have been supported by WDTV for years, but it’s a deprecated file format, and there is little if any, high quality software that will author to it. I should know, one of my better friends helped write the AVI file format, and I wrote a good chunk of DirectShow.

VLC is not fine-tuned to play non-compliant files, it’s *written correctly* to deal with a wide range of format parameters. Your “fine-tuned” comment made me laugh out loud. It’s WD that can’t deal with any variance within the format spec. VLC certainly has buffering restrictions, but you’re right, it does run with the assumption there is a lot of RAM. Regardless, if your MKV file plays on a variety of PC playback engines, it SHOULD play on the WD device, and if it doesn’t, it’s probably WD’s issue, not the file being authored wrong.

AngryAtWD wrote:

VLC is not fine-tuned to play non-compliant files, it’s *written correctly* to deal with a wide range of format parameters. Your “fine-tuned” comment made me laugh out loud.

Actually, yeah, it is.  They used to paint their website (videolan.org) with this language:

The media player that fulfills all your needs. It handles DVDs, (S)VCDs, Audio CDs, web streams, TV cards and much more.

And whats more, VLC can play back your files, even if the media is damaged! Missing or broken pieces wont stop VLC. All the video and audio information that remains can be played. 

They don’t have that language on their main site anymore that I can find, but most of the download mirror sites out there still quote that as “Publisher’s Info”

Just google that text and you’ll see thousands of hits with that quote.  :)

al VLC means is that they put error (exception) handling around their codec so when it barfs, the player can keep playing. This is called “good programming”, something a lot of other companies can learn from. They do a lot of work to ensure their codec is bullet-proof. Good for them. But I see your point that not all companies can invest the same amount of time/effort to bullet-proof their codecs too. Wish there was a “file verifier” that really worked well, but there isn’t. That’s because there’s too much variation within a codec format. If you took a look at almost any company’s codec code and how many paths and variations there are within the code, you’d shudder. It’s a spaghetti mess. Miss the old days were there was simply Mpeg2 DVD flavor and that’s it.

We’ve been through that discussion before, but just keep in mind that the WD doesn’t use software decoding.  They use hardware decoding built-in to the Sigma chipset.

So, whatever weaknesses are in the decoder, they’re there forever because silicon can’t be changed (unless it has front-end re-programable microcode, which I doubt but don’t know for sure.)

AngryAtWD wrote:

I should know, one of my better friends helped write the AVI file format, and I wrote a good chunk of DirectShow.

I don’t know. For all the authority you claim, you haven’t posted much of substance. But good for your friend. I’ve been using Alexander Noe’s Avi-Mux GUI for years and never had any issues on standalone players (nor with MKVs on my WDTVs).