Hi!
I have some problems to play VC-1 in mkv contaner… it start to play but don’t have a smooth playback…What can I do?
I have the same problem that seemed to start within the last few WDTV Live firmware updates. I don’t know when exactly, but this has not always happened. The video plays and the audio is fine, but the video playback seems like the frame rate is too low. It’s jerky, stuttery, but continuous. It does not freeze or pause. I typically use makemkv to back-up, but I also extracted from an MKV and remuxed it with MKVtoolnix. Same problems.
The common thread is VC-1 encoding. Also, all video is on a WD Elements external drive attached directly to the player.
Here are some MediaInfos:
The Departed
Format : Matroska
File size : 20.6 GiB
Duration : 2h 31mn
Overall bit rate : 19.5 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-09-12 22:38:10
Writing application : MakeMKV v1.5.8 darwin(x86-release)
Writing library : libmakemkv v1.5.8 (0.7.7/0.8.1) darwin(x86-release)
Video
ID : 1
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L3
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 2h 31mn
Bit rate : 14.5 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.291
Stream size : 15.3 GiB (74%)
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : PCM
Codec ID : 00001000-0000-0100-8000-00AA00389B71
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 2h 31mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 4 608 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 : 4.87 GiB (24%)
Title : 3/2+1
Language : English
Time Traveler’s Wife
Format : Matroska
File size : 15.4 GiB
Duration : 1h 47mn
Overall bit rate : 20.6 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-04-16 15:52:30
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.6.0 (‘Still Crazy After All These Years’) built on Mar 23 2011 16:58:35
Writing library : libebml v1.2.0 + libmatroska v1.1.0
Video
ID : 1
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L3
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 1h 47mn
Bit rate : 18.3 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.369
Stream size : 13.7 GiB (89%)
Title : Video
Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA / Core
Muxing mode : Header stripping
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 1h 47mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 843 Kbps / 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 : Lossless / Lossy
Title : DTS
Get Smart:
Format : Matroska
File size : 13.3 GiB
Duration : 1h 49mn
Overall bit rate : 17.3 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-17 13:55:36
Writing application : MakeMKV v1.6.5 darwin(x86-release)
Writing library : libmakemkv v1.6.5 (0.7.7/0.8.1) darwin(x86-release)
Video
ID : 1
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L3
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 1h 49mn
Bit rate : 16.4 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.329
Stream size : 12.6 GiB (94%)
Language : English
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 49mn
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 : 503 MiB (4%)
Title : 3/2+1
Language : English
I can confirm this problem . I thought the problem was my WD Sharespace firmware, but now I’m not so sure after reading this.
All my VC-1 / AC3 mkvs do the same as described. My higher bitrate x264 encodes don’t. I don’t really want to recode my VC-1 files to x264.
See this post:
It solved my problem, but I still consider it a bug if the WDTV Live can “downgrade” 1080p to 720p in video properly but not for VC-1. My player was set to 720p 60Hz, the auto HDMI setting was also a failure. It worked fine for a setting of 1080p at 60Hz because my 720p projector can downgrade a 1080p signal properly.
I have ever suffered the same problems too. I don’t think WD TV Live (mine Live Plus) handle VC-1 encoded movies well. So I ripped VC-1 movies to H.264 - the device can always plays H.264 well.
Here I list 3 solution for you:
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As you did, use MakeMkv to convert VC-1 BD to MKV. Load the BDMV to Handbrake and convert these VC-1 encoded .m2ts files to H.264 MKV. You’ll lose DTS audio - it is converted to AC3 or AAC. And the subtitles too, as Handbrake does not support pgs subtitle. To get subtitles back, you can use tsMuxer to extract subtitle from your source MKV and convert it to srt, then add it to Handbrake.
-
Convert VC-1 MKV to H.264 MKV with some video converter software- there are lots of them, yet few do convert MKV with subtitles. So you’ll lose subtitles again. I have yet found a video converter that pass-through DTS. Anyway, you can use tsMuxer again to add the original DTS to converted MKV.
3. Rip your VC-1 Blu-ray with some other app that can convert VC-1 to H.264. I prefer Pavtube ByteCopy - as it trascode VC-1 to H.264 without changing the original audio. And it also convert subtitles to vobsub, which plays just fine on WD TV Live.
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about handbrake on these boards. I’ve tried that and several other out, and I have to say that RipBot264 is my favorite.
It’s homepage is a thread in a forum that the author updates frequently.
