Media wont play? [MKV/H264/AC3]

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Not really sure why this one wont play, maybe someone can help me…I’ve pasted the mediainfo.  Thanks!!

General
Complete name                    : D:\TV Shows\Life\Life E01 BluRay BBC 1080p x264 H@M.mkv
Format                           : Matroska
File size                        : 6.08 GiB
Duration                         : 58mn 33s
Overall bit rate                 : 14.9 Mbps
Encoded date                     : UTC 2009-12-20 10:47:38
Writing application              : mkvmerge v2.9.8 (‘C’est le bon’) built on Aug 13 2009 12:49:06
Writing library                  : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID                               : 1
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@4.1
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 58mn 33s
Bit rate                         : 13.9 Mbps
Nominal bit rate                 : 14.2 Mbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 25.000 fps
Resolution                       : 8 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.269
Stream size                      : 5.70 GiB (94%)
Writing library                  : x264 core 80 r1376M 3feaec2
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.0:0.2 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=5 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / wpredp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=14240 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                         : English

Audio
ID                               : 2
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID                         : A_AC3
Duration                         : 58mn 33s
Bit rate mode                    : Constant
Bit rate                         : 640 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48.0 KHz
Stream size                      : 268 MiB (4%)
Language                         : English

Text
ID                               : 3
Format                           : UTF-8
Codec ID                         : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info                    : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language                         : English

Menu
00:00:00.000                     : en:00:00:00.000
00:10:38.680                     : en:00:10:38.680
00:17:09.480                     : en:00:17:09.480
00:27:17.000                     : en:00:27:17.000
00:40:28.280                     : en:00:40:28.280
00:47:56.000                     : en:00:47:56.000

2

Join the club, I have similar media that won’t play, and no support or answers in sight.

It’s most likely the codecs that were used, or the way it was encoded. ( my guess )

3

all the codecs used are supported by the WD TV LIve, and I have gotten them to play before…which is why this is bugging me. When I get back home I can try re-encoding this on my PC and see what happens [using that handbrake software people are talking about] – hopefully that will fix the problem. The reason I bought this is so I can play pretty much any type of file without having to do anything to it :(.

4

Kagedmaniak wrote:

The reason I bought this is so I can play pretty much any type of file without having to do anything to it :(.

I really understand that, but it’s asking an awful lot to expect a hardware device (that isn’t a computer) to support the literally hundreds of video and audio codecs out there (not to mention the new ones and updates to older ones that occur nearly every single week).  Even software players need to be updated frequently from the web, and given that firmware updates (quite a different thing) only come out every six months it just isn’t realistic.

When I look at the dozens of problems on this board they nearly all fall into the “why can’t I make the WDLive work the way *I* work” rather than folks trying to tailor their workflow to the device.  It’s a bit as if you bought a Windows computer and were upset it doesn’t run all that Mac software you have.  (A bit – but, as I said, I perfectly understand your frustration).

I spent some time before I accepted that I needed to organize my existing collection into a format the Live would play properly.  Now that I have my workflow down, it’s easy, but there was a definite transition and I didn’t like it any more than you do.  The good news is there are tons of excellent freeware tools out there that can faciliate this process and make it (almost) painless.  And you only have to do it once.

I’ve yet to find a file (even Flash files captured from my browser) that I couldn’t convert to play perfectly on the Live.  Try it and you may well be amazed (and life will be sooooo much better).

5

Yes, that may be hard to understand, but when media is encoded with x264 codecs, as MKV files, then why is it that some files work, on some others don’t?

Most importantly, these are 1080p files, and in my case, they are 7 - 10 GB’s, which took forever to download in the first place. 

I’m sure there’s freeware stuff out there, but why do we have to set up media to work with the device, when it advertises that it plays those media files and codecs in the first place?

The worst part is that support is non-existant it seems, my threads have not been answered, and there doesn’t seem to be any WD support presence on these forums, which adds to the frustrations.

There are much better players out there for the price, and there are 3 cool new units coming out in the next couple months, and if WD keeps up what they’re doing, their sales will drop long term since people will be moving onto better media players.

It would be nice for a support staff to respond to this, but I won’t hold my breath.

The overall vibe on this forum is pretty negative, even those who are happy with the device have some gripes with it.

Personally, my device will be going back to Best Buy before my 30 days is over.  I really wanted to like this device, but there’s a long list of annoyances that come along with it.

6

I completely understand what you are saying. I really meant that I saw it supported .MKV containers, H264, etc, which is essentially 99% of everything I have or get. The file I have now is the same exact codecs [that at least I can see] as other files, yet this one doesn’t play. I mean, if I wanted to convert out of MKV’s, I could just use my xbox or something :).

Basically, I’m just frustrated why it wont play the video that it says it can play [MKV/H264/MPEG4]. I posted the complete info of the file…maybe someone can help. Still haven’t gotten to using handbrake yet but will try sometime soon.

7

I hope the two of you can get your files to play – can’t offer any more advice.

But to the gentleman who thinks a “new device” will solve things – , yup, been there, done that.  The truth of the matter is that ALL of these media players/centers/whatever have issues, even the ones built in to the new TVs.  All you have to do is visit any of the support forums for them and you’ll see that the vast array of setups/files/outputs/networks and the literally tens of thousands of possible configurations are causing people fits for those folks who are unwilling to standardize their operation. 

This is why AppleTV does what it does – it’s self-contained (no wireless adapter so no issues buying the wrong one, disc drive internal and no support for external ones that may or may not work) and plays ONLY the media in iTunes (thus no improper codecs – heck, it doesn’t even allow you to play all MP4 files even though you’d think THAT would be a no-brainer).  Guess what?  Even with ALL those restrictions it still has lots of issues (which is why I dumped mine in favor of buying TWO WDLive units).  Apple knows you can’t expect any device to play everything, or even the majority of things out there and yet they still face tons of support issues (which they handle about as successfully as WD folks around here do, which is to say not very well).

So you can look for greener grass or you can decide to do what I do.  And, guess what?  Everything works ABSOLUTELY PERFECTLY for me.   Nothing I have (NOTHING, including all manner of things downloaded from the internet, once I’ve converted them) doesn’t play, my wireless streaming works great, and I’m a happy camper.  Gee, what a country when I decide to follow just a few simple rules that anyone can follow.  

8

Out of curiousity, what converting software do you use and what do you convert it to? I’m guessing there has to be some preset of somesort in some program for MKV with 1080p video/surround sound, etc. I don’t want to lose any quality in the 6 gig file :).

Thanks!

EDIT: Just read one of your replies in a previous thread and saw what you do.

9

I’ve taken a look at the mediainfo you posted and there isn’t anything obvious there that would explain why it doesn’t play for you. However I noticed there’s a @ in the filename, you might try to rename it without that and see if it helps. Also to rule out any problem in the muxing stage you could try remuxing it with Mkvtoolnix http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/downloads.html , it takes only a minute and it wouldn’t be the first time I “fix” a video that way.

10

Kagedmaniak wrote:

Out of curiousity, what converting software do you use and what do you convert it to? I’m guessing there has to be some preset of somesort in some program for MKV with 1080p video/surround sound, etc. I don’t want to lose any quality in the 6 gig file :).

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT: Just read one of your replies in a previous thread and saw what you do.

However, one program I do use a lot to convert other video is the freeware mkvmerge.  If you select the audio track and go to format specic options and checkmark the “AAC is SBR/HE-AAC” box it will “correct” a lot of audio issues which may or may not prevent your file from playing.  I also use ffmpeg to convert a lot of video/audio problems – it’s command line driven and thus somewhat more difficult to use, but it offers a TON of possibilities and I’ve yet to find a file it can’t convert to play on Live.

You can definitely run your video source through Handbrake (as I use for my original stuff) but it will further encode it, which may not be what you want (although if you keep the RF slider at 20 you probably won’t lose anything you can notice).