Another .mkv question

Hi all,

I've looked through the sticky post on .mkv files and subtitles within Media Center: Windows Media Player & Center, problems with .mkv files & .srt files

That thread doesn't really answer my problem, as I'm not really interested in subtitles, but here's the deal;

In short, I've completely broken .mkv playback in Windows 7. At first, I installed CoreAVC and this allowed playback of jerky, pixelated, broken looking video. (Previously in MCE2005, .mkv files played fine with CoreAVC or CCCP).

I thought it might've been the codec, so I removed CoreAVC and replaced it with CCCP. Playback was the same - unwatchable.

Then after reading the thread above, I've removed CoreAVC and CCCP and the Sharky thing I installed and went back to nothing. I then manually installed the Haali Splitter and FFDShow, but this prevented playback altogether in either Media Center or WMP.

I've since removed these and reinstalled CCCP with the same result - now all my .mkv playback is completed broken. Thumbnails, however, still work fine for them.

Does anybody have any suggestions/thoughts? All much appreciated.

Thanks!

Al,

almost same problem here tried all different codec packs installing one tried then removed and tried somthing else. my problem is I can play MKV some files choppy but no thumbs explorer,WMP,WMC so now i'm converting all my mkv to avi format file size is a little larger but play back works great on wmp and wmc also can see thumbs on my xbox as an extender in wmc. tested on 10 files now converting 256 mkv videos 2/3 done and 6 hours have gone by.. tried to play mkv in extender but xbox can't play that format.

have you guys tried using gspot so that you can see which path your video is going until its decoded...?
also what type of video is this...
mkv is just a container (think of it like a packager)
and so inside are video and audio files...
a "splitter" splits them (haali is the splitter btw) to be decoded by a codec such as FFdshow, cyberlink, arcsoft or others...
consequently i believe that these are h264 files (mpeg-4 or avc) as this is usually the encoders choice...
in order to isolate whether it might be a driver issue can you download (and if you have do you have the same jerkiness) and test the same video in VLC?

I down loaded vlc player play some mkv most work fine this one crashed vlc also chopy on wmc wmp. playing files is not my issue it's thumbnails. but now converting over to avi. larger file size but xbox extender can play them. but can't play mkv files.

Thanks darkassain for your suggestions. GSpot I've used before without problems, however in my scenario this time, dragging a .mkv file onto GSpot results in "Not a valid AVI file", and it won't render. This seems a bit weird.

VLC I have no experience with, mainly because I tend to shy away from anything I can't use my Media Center remote control with, but I've installed VLC to test the same .mkv files and they play perfectly.

So what does that say about the problem? I hope it's not a driver issue, because everything is fine on this machine in MCE2005 and Vista, but because it's an nvidia Go 7600, I need the manufacturer (in this case Acer) to supply the drivers, and they haven't updated the drivers for some while.

got this on another forum and found it very useful. hope it helps. i watch 1080p mkv videos on my system all the time with no problems.

1. uninstall all installed codec packs
2. install CCCP codec pack. do custom install, and under players, only install Media Player Classic - Home Cinema
3. install CoreAVC (make sure that you select haali media splitter during the installation)
4. install AC3Filter
5. run Media Player Classic, press "O", --> playback --> output: select overlay mixer
6. go to internal filters --> uncheck matroska (left side), uncheck to the right: AC3, DTS, 2*H264, 2*VC-1
7. go to audio switcher uncheck: enable built-in audio switcher filter
8. go to external filters, click add filters: add haali media splitter, CoreAVC Video Decoder, AC3Filter
9. make sure that every filter you've added is selected as "prefer" (right)

now restart MPC and try an HD video. hope it works!

Well I've done all the suggestions about and MKV files with nicely with VLC and Media Player Classic, but they don't work at all with WMP or WMC.

Is this something anybody's come across? How might I get these files to play in WMP/WMC? In the past, simply installing CCCP or CoreAVC did the trick, but it makes no difference for some reason.

I don't know that much about codecs I'm afraid - if I understood a bit more I could probably fix this myself. Any more suggestions?

Well, i m running win7 Built 7100. and playing .MKV files with NeuView Player , The Player play files well with windows 7 codec pack.

sorry if i'm being stubborn, but if your MKV videos work in MPC, then why not just use MPC? it's a far better player than WMP...

garbanzo said:

sorry if i'm being stubborn, but if your MKV videos work in MPC, then why not just use MPC? it's a far better player than WMP...

That's ok - it's simply because this is a Media Center PC in my living room, under my TV, which I really only use as a Media Center device with the remote control.

Ideally, I want everything playing in WMC through its libraries with its remote control, so I don't have to keep quitting out, picking up my keyboard and finding files on the hard drive and watching them with the keyboard/mouse. That's kind of the point of the Media Center. I don't really use it as a PC.

Maybe I'll reinstall again with a fresh copy, and start with the issue from scratch. When I installed fresh, MKV files played, but they were mega choppy and messed up. I don't know what the problem was, but I thought installing a codec pack would fix it. It didn't. Since messing around with it more and more I think I've made things worse, not better.

Does anyone have WMC working with MKV files in Windows 7 on a laptop or Nvidia mobile graphics processor? I have a feeling, if it was a desktop graphics card with normal Nvidia Windows 7 drivers that it would be fine.