MKV issues - header compression already removed

Community Archives WD Elements Play
1

Hi all,

Am having dramas trying to get a MKV file to run on my WD Elements Play 1TB.  

Initially when pressing play nothing happened cept a blank screen. I checked the forums and via mediainfo found header stripping had been used. So I used mkwdclean --optimize on the file. Now when clicking play I recieve a “File is not supported error”

Mediainfo details below, but to my newbie eye it looks like the audio and vid codecs are supported and it should work.

Grateful for any advice.

General

Complete name                    : H:\Red.mkv

Format                           : Matroska

File size                        : 4.37 GiB

Duration                         : 1h 51mn

Overall bit rate                 : 5 625 Kbps

Encoded date                     : UTC 2011-01-07 07:54:06

Writing application              : mkclean 0.8.2 ou from libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0 + mkvmerge v4.4.0 (‘Die Wiederkehr’) built on Oct 31 2010 21:52:48

Writing library                  : libebml2 v0.21.0 + libmatroska2 v0.22.0

Video

ID                               : 1

Format                           : AVC

Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile                   : High@L3.1

Format settings, CABAC           : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames        : 5 frames

Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC

Duration                         : 1h 51mn

Bit rate                         : 4 988 Kbps

Width                            : 1 280 pixels

Height                           : 528 pixels

Display aspect ratio             : 2.40:1

Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps

Color space                      : YUV

Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0

Bit depth                        : 8 bits

Scan type                        : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.308

Stream size                      : 3.78 GiB (87%)

Writing library                  : x264 core 112 r1834 a51816a

Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=4988 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Language                         : English

Audio

ID                               : 2

Format                           : AC-3

Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3

Mode extension                   : CM (complete main)

Codec ID                         : A_AC3

Duration                         : 1h 51mn

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

Bit depth                        : 16 bits

Compression mode                 : Lossy

Stream size                      : 509 MiB (11%)

Text

ID                               : 3

Format                           : UTF-8

Codec ID                         : S_TEXT/UTF8

Codec ID/Info                    : UTF-8 Plain Text

Language                         : English

Thanks.

2

If I remember correctly, last summer/fall people all over the internet were having issues with mkwdclean.exe being buggy and not working properly, and files not being playable.  I’ve never used it myself.

Try just re-muxing the file itself using MKVMerge GUI from the MKVtoolnix package.

Select “Compression → NONE” for each and every track under the “Extra Settings” before clicking the re-mux button.

3

Thanks RoofingGuy. You were spot on, I re-muxed the file using MKVMerge and the file was then playable.

Cheers,

Gonad

4

You’re welcome, Gonad.

In the future, you might find this program useful: MKVFix

It’s an application someone wrote to scan through your files, looking for any with compression in the headers, and it can automatically call MKVMerge and re-mux any that need “fixing”.

The only “catch” is that it was written when 4.3.0 of MKVToolnix was the current version.  I don’t know whether it will work properly with your version 4.4.0.  I believe people were definitely having problems trying to use it in conjunction with 4.5.0 and above and they had to downgrade their MKVMerge version.

Just in case, here’s 4.3.0 which definitely works with MKVFix for scanning and remuxing “bad” files: v4.3.0 of MKVToolnix

1 Like
5

Fantastic RoofingGuy. I was just looking to do up some dodgy script so you’ve saved me a heap of time. I’ve tried out MKVFix and it’s exactly what I was looking for to do the rest of my collection.

Much appreciated,

Gonad