Streaming MKV Files success

[Padoh]

Not sure if anyone has posted this yet but I had tried various ways to get .mkv to work including converting which seems to always mess up the sound in one way or another. I then just renamed the .mkv to .avi and hey presto it streams fine using the latest tversity. I had to play around with settings to stop it buffering every few seconds but last night i managed 30 mins of a film no problem. Hope this helps anyone out there.

Oh i should point out the only reason i stopped at 30 mins was it was 2am and i had to be up for work at 6am so thought i should really head to my bed

[Mag00n]

What are your setting to avoid buffering?

Im having a problem with HD content where it buffers every few minutes.

[ravex911]

Hi,

I do not see how renaming those to AVI would fix the issue but if you've been able to can you explain.

I did try renaming them to AVI, but they don’t load and get the typical Xbox error. What setting did you use and does it buffer at all? Seems to me the issues is machine speed specific since on a typical due core, you're going to get 90-100% CPU utilization.

I upgraded my hardware to a quad cpu on my pc and was able to do an initial test and for the 10 minutes I ran the movie, no buffering occurred.

What setup are you using and what pre-requisites have you installed on your machine. I am guessing ffdshow and file splitter at the minimum and .net 3.5 so you can run the latest ver of Tversity...

Your response will be appreciated.

Thanks

Jon

[Padoh]

Ok, I take it back. It seems that my success was just for 1 file. Not sure how or why it worked but it did. Since that 1 success i have tried others and the only way i can get them to work is convert them into mp4 files and splitting them into smaller chunks. I can then stream them 1920 x 1080 res no problem at all as they are not transcoding. The downside is the stereo sound but i have an amp that splits it into 7 chanel stereo so that is a small price to pay for what is fantastic quality video.

[ravex911]

Yes, converting them into 2gb MP4’s is a pain though. I've played around with the conversions, but many do not split correctly. I am pursing the transcoding option, but I think you need a mega fast system to keep up with the buffering issue.

You'd think there was an easy way to play an .MKV file. So far Xbox seems to have the best results. I tried hard wiring my plasma to my pc, but pc video cards won’t view full screen on a 1080i plasma without the annoying black borders.

I wonder if there is a better piece of hardware that does better with .MKV streaming....

[neb]

I just transcoded / streamed a 1.2Gb 720p .mkv file perfectly fine - first try!

I set max resolution to 1280 x 1024. It buffered for about 10 seconds before playing - there wasn't any pausing/skipping during playback. My computer is a quad-core Q6600 overclocked to 3GHz, with 2GB DDR3 @ 1333MHz.

However I tried to watch another .mkv and it didn't work at all - in fact it made TVersity media server crash. I don't get why some work and some don't though? VLC plays it fine.

Guess I will just have to hook up a VGA cable to my TV to watch that

[ravex911]

I've been able to watch any .MKV file 720p/1080P. My resolution is set to 1280 X 1024 as well. My system is a Quad-Core 2.4 with 3 gigs ram. Here is what I have installed on a plain Windows XP SP2 system. Follow this guide and you should be able to play anthing with no or very little buffering interuptions.

Requirements
------------------
1. Start with a fresh install of Win Xp. If you can;t do that, make sure you uninstall any and all CodeEx you already have. Then make sure to reboot.
2. Install dot net 3.5
3. Install TVersity (the newest version 1.0.0.4 RC4) and Install the included Codex but make sure you Do NOT install the FFDshow.
4. Install FDDSHow (ffdshow rev 2079) seperately, make sure to grab the newest version you can find, there should be a 2008 Release for either Aug or Sept of 2008.
5. Install the Haali Media Splitter
6. Install Media Player 11
7. Reboot Machine

Tversity Configuration
---------------------------
[General Tab]
1. set the playbay Device to Xbox360
2. Max Disk Space to use 16000 MB
3 Leave everythign else in general as default

[Transcoder]
1. When to Transcode, Set to Never
2. Resolution 1290 X 1024 is fine you can adjust if needed.
3. Enable to user Directshow for windows media encoding
4. Windows Media 8
5. Optimize for Quality
6. Connection: Wired 100MBs, Connection Quality: High
7. Compression: Minimum
8. Check decode as fast as possible

Library
--------
1. Add a folder that only contains .MKV files and set it to transcode to: Only when needed!
2. Add a folder for MP4 or WMV files, and set the transcode option to: N/A

Buffering Issue
------------------
The buffering issue is mainly because it can;t transcode fast enough to stream the converted .mkv file to .wmv. Unless you have a super computer buffering will always occur. Howver, I found a work aroudn that allows you to watch a movie all the way though with out having the 2-4 min buffer thoughout teh film.

1. Start a .mkv movie. It will buffer for about 10-15 seconds.
2. As soon as you see the movie play, immediately Pause the movie. Then goto the pc that it is streaming on.
3. Open TVersity and select the Status Tab.
4. You will see to lines, one for Streaming and one for Transcoding.
5. keep the movie paused until the Transcoding percentage is at least 5% greater than the Streaming percentage. I usually leave a 5-10 percent buffer but you can mess around with that depening on your machien speed, you may need a bigger buffer.
6. Go back to your Xbox 360, and un-pause.
7. You will now be able to watch the movie without any buffering.
8. Buffering my occur 30 or 40 mins into the movie and if so, just repeat steps 2 - 5
DONE!!!

This method is not 100% perfect as it does require you to initially puase the movie and wait until the movie has tiem to pre-transcode. I'd say it is still a heck of a lot faster than converting your .MKV files into MP4s!

Let me know if this helps.

[acme64]

converting to mp4 isn't even an option for me, i dont wanna reduce the audio to 2.1 And i haven't found an aac encoder that can even do aac 5.1 for the mp4 container. SUPER says it can make them, but all the audio ends up on the right channel

[KsE]

Newbie to Tversity and I have had no problems streaming .MKV files. I think mainly it comes down to hardware. My setup is similar to ravex911 except I have Quad-Core 2.66 and im only running a resolution of 1024x768 because my tv is a little old and that's its max res. I have a very short buffer at start and have had no interruptions.

I've been able to watch any .MKV file 720p/1080P. My resolution is set to 1280 X 1024 as well. My system is a Quad-Core 2.4 with 3 gigs ram. Here is what I have installed on a plain Windows XP SP2 system. Follow this guide and you should be able to play anthing with no or very little buffering interuptions.

Requirements
------------------
1. Start with a fresh install of Win Xp. If you can;t do that, make sure you uninstall any and all CodeEx you already have. Then make sure to reboot.
2. Install dot net 3.5
3. Install TVersity (the newest version 1.0.0.4 RC4) and Install the included Codex but make sure you Do NOT install the FFDshow.
4. Install FDDSHow (ffdshow rev 2079) seperately, make sure to grab the newest version you can find, there should be a 2008 Release for either Aug or Sept of 2008.
5. Install the Haali Media Splitter
6. Install Media Player 11
7. Reboot Machine

Tversity Configuration
---------------------------
[General Tab]
1. set the playbay Device to Xbox360
2. Max Disk Space to use 16000 MB
3 Leave everythign else in general as default

[Transcoder]
1. When to Transcode, Set to Never
2. Resolution 1290 X 1024 is fine you can adjust if needed.
3. Enable to user Directshow for windows media encoding
4. Windows Media 8
5. Optimize for Quality
6. Connection: Wired 100MBs, Connection Quality: High
7. Compression: Minimum
8. Check decode as fast as possible

Library
--------
1. Add a folder that only contains .MKV files and set it to transcode to: Only when needed!
2. Add a folder for MP4 or WMV files, and set the transcode option to: N/A

Buffering Issue
------------------
The buffering issue is mainly because it can;t transcode fast enough to stream the converted .mkv file to .wmv. Unless you have a super computer buffering will always occur. Howver, I found a work aroudn that allows you to watch a movie all the way though with out having the 2-4 min buffer thoughout teh film.

1. Start a .mkv movie. It will buffer for about 10-15 seconds.
2. As soon as you see the movie play, immediately Pause the movie. Then goto the pc that it is streaming on.
3. Open TVersity and select the Status Tab.
4. You will see to lines, one for Streaming and one for Transcoding.
5. keep the movie paused until the Transcoding percentage is at least 5% greater than the Streaming percentage. I usually leave a 5-10 percent buffer but you can mess around with that depening on your machien speed, you may need a bigger buffer.
6. Go back to your Xbox 360, and un-pause.
7. You will now be able to watch the movie without any buffering.
8. Buffering my occur 30 or 40 mins into the movie and if so, just repeat steps 2 - 5
DONE!!!

This method is not 100% perfect as it does require you to initially puase the movie and wait until the movie has tiem to pre-transcode. I'd say it is still a heck of a lot faster than converting your .MKV files into MP4s!

Let me know if this helps.

[maxd]

I've been trying to get MKV files to stream to my 360, with no success. I have my system set up as above, with all the correct codecs installed and TVersity set up as suggested. My machine is a beast and can easily handle the transcoding. I can open and play the file in WMP11 with no problem, but as soon as I try to stream to my 360 the 360 just pauses at a black screen. Hitting the info button shows the correct duration for the video, but it is just not playing.

Checking the "Server messages" in the status of TVersity shows me the following:

2008-10-19 18:28:39 - Starting/resuming transcoding of "<filename>"
2008-10-19 18:28:44 - Aborted transcoding of "<filename>".

Sadface.

Anyone have any suggestions, which don't include transcoding the file manually?

Max

[Marzetti]

TVersity will stream MKV fine.

Hardware needs to be top notch.

I'm running Server 2008 (S08 is 64bit) w/ an AMD Athlon 5000+ (64bit x2 Dual Core CPU) w/ 4GB of memory.

Consider that you're running CPU intense applications plus working with LARGE files, and you will realize that you need allot of power to properly transcode.

A light OS like S2003 or S2008 also helps. If you must stick with XP (Can't find at least Server 2003 on torrent), run XP PRO, then follow a guide that helps you tweak XP to run bare bones. This will help you properly utilize your hardware resources. Also keep in mind that a dedicated server is always the best option. Trying to use your day2day desktop as your media server will lead to heartache.

[jeetwebplayer]

Hey guys,

I'm from DivX and just caught up with this thread and we've been working on a solution for this. I wanted to point out a way to stream .mkv to Xbox 360 using Windows 7 and DivX. checkout the DivX Plus Tech Preview. it's a free install and lets you to play MKV on Windows 7 and stream mkv to your Xbox 360.

DivX has been doing a lot lately around .mkv streaming, including .mkv through a web browser, checkout the DivX Plus Web Player if you're interested.

[Deviation]

Not sure what the DivX guy was talking about. I don't see anything free that lets you stream those files to your Xbox.

You can try out what I did: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=45750

As Marzetti said, the hardware needs to be quality.

[natjen]

It works fine from Windows Media Centre to stream direct to Xbox 360 Windows Media Centre with nothing more than the latest DivX installed, as long as you have Windows 7 with Windows Media Centre.

I have it setup at home now and it works perfectly fine.

This is what the guy from Divx was talking about.

[natjen]

Not sure what the DivX guy was talking about. I don't see anything free that lets you stream those files to your Xbox.

You can try out what I did: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=45750

As Marzetti said, the hardware needs to be quality.

See here

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r229225 ... -Windows-7

and here

http://www.divx.com/en/windows-7