MKV Stuttering (I've tried everything)!

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live & Live Plus
1

Hey guys, I’m having some issues playing MKV files from my external hard drive. After about a minute or so into the video, it starts to stutter/freeze. This is happening on most the MKVs I try and play. I’ve done a lot of searching prior to this and below is everything I’ve tried.

  • Both USB Ports

  • Updated to latest firmware

  • Run file back through MKVmerge on version 4.0, and also on the most current version with “compression” set to none

  • Run a disk check on my external hard drive with both “auto fix file system errors” and “scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” checked, no errors were reported

  • Various resets with paperclip in the side

The only thing I haven’t done is a full disk defrag (would that even do anything?). This problem comes up every once in a while but now it’s happening on most my MKVs. All my MKVs run fine from my external through VLC. Any advice? 

2

Well a disk defrag would not hurt. A disk which is fragmented obviously has to work harder. However it might just be the type of mkv’s that you have. Post full text mediainfo on one of your files.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

free but use the custom install and untick the boxes if you don’t want the included ‘extras’.

3

Thanks for the reply. I was wrong in the OP though, I am having the same stuttering issues at about the same moment in the video in VLC on my computer as well. Another weird occurance is that every time I unplug the drive from the WDTV Live, and then plug it into my computer, it wants to “scan and fix”. I then scan and it finds no errors. Here is what mediainfo gives… The first is a 1080p file, the second is 720p.

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 9.82 GiB
Duration : 2h 26mn
Overall bit rate : 9 590 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-03-14 14:32:51
Writing application : mkvmerge v5.4.0 (‘Piper’) built on Mar 10 2012 13:34:39
Writing library : libebml v1.2.3 + libmatroska v1.3.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 26mn
Bit rate : 8 082 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 800 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) : 0.219
Stream size : 8.08 GiB (82%)
Writing library : x264 core 122 r2184 5c85e0a
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=8 / 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=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=24 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=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=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=8082 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2h 26mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.55 GiB (16%)
Title : english
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

-----------------------------------------------------------------Here is another one not working

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 4.36 GiB
Duration : 1h 49mn
Overall bit rate : 5 696 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2012-06-08 07:44:31
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.0.0 (‘The Stars were mine’) built on Jun 6 2010 16:18:42
Writing library : libebml v1.0.0 + libmatroska v1.0.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 49mn
Bit rate : 4 184 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) : 0.258
Stream size : 3.12 GiB (72%)
Writing library : x264 core 125 r2200 999b753
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=8 / 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=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=24 / lookahead_threads=4 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=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=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=4184 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1h 49mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.16 GiB (27%)
Title : English
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

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