Black Screen On Playback On Extender

[godbodian 54]

Anyone experience this? I'm running MBS (3.0.5031.21343) & MBC (3.0.72.0 B9-20.1) from my HTPC and although I've had it set for transcoding, I receive a black screen in playback of certain MP4's and MKV's. I have set UNC paths and set the configurator for trancode360, but this still takes place.

 

The weird thing is I don't believe it's a codec issue because if I'm connected directly to the HTPC the same movies work. But if the movie is watched through an extender there's the same issue. The sound always comes through though.

[ebr 14897]

(moved topic and improved title)

 

This definitely sounds like a codec issue with the 360.  Transcode 360 has been abandoned for a few years now and I'm not sure it works 100%.

[JeremyFr79 228]

I use Shark's codecs and they work fine, just make sure you have it set for "alternate extenders" otherwise everything looks like crap when playing.

[skidmarks 188]

Yes, same exact issue here as well.  I have found no solution other than rebooting the XBOX.  If that doesn't solving it then a reboot of the server and the XBOX does (99% of the time),  I have a few movies that just wont play period on the extender (plays on the client fine).  When i get some time away from my music project i think a re-encode is in order for them.  I am not using transcode360 at all.

 

Sorry i have no solution!

[leedavies 301]

Yes, same exact issue here as well.  I have found no solution other than rebooting the XBOX.  If that doesn't solving it then a reboot of the server and the XBOX does (99% of the time),  I have a few movies that just wont play period on the extender (plays on the client fine).  When i get some time away from my music project i think a re-encode is in order for them.  I am not using transcode360 at all.

 

Sorry i have no solution!

 

MKVs on the Xbox 360 are a nightmare. If an MKV isn't playing or is stuttering or freezing and it has subtitle tracks embedded in it, remux the MKV using mmg without the subtitle tracks and it will play fine.

 

Header stripping on an MKV also prevents Xbox 360 playback.

 

Do yourself a huge favour... dump MKV and instead use TS or M2TS format (native BluRay container).  It has a few less features than MKV, but they always work on the Xbox 360, so IMHO, that outweighs any unused baggage features in MKV, which is just very badly supported on the Xbox 360.

 

Get yourself these free tools / donateware:

 

http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo   tells you all you need to know about streams inside an MKV/TS/MP4 etc container

 

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR    converts an H264/DTS/AC3/SUBS MKV to TS or M2TS to play perfectly on Xbox

 

http://shark007.net/tools.html   MetaFox - fantastic tool that fixes all sorts of stuffed up nonsense in an MKV

 

 

And as already stated, you DO NOT need Transcode360.  Leave it turned off.

[jonathan_w_brown 0]

I use Shark's codecs and they work fine, just make sure you have it set for "alternate extenders" otherwise everything looks like crap when playing.

 

This worked for me.  I was having horrid pixelation and sound stuttering problems when playing content from XBox 360 extender. CPU on the WMC host was pegged whenever I played a video so I think it was an issue where hardware acceleration wasn't being used.  All the issues I was having with my mkv files were resolved as soon as I toggled this option from 'XBox 360' to 'alternate (CPU usage is down to about 15% as well).  

 

Anyway, thanks for that comment because I was about ready to throw in the towel and start re-encoding more files than I care to think about.

[christoph86 12]

MKVs on the Xbox 360 are a nightmare. If an MKV isn't playing or is stuttering or freezing and it has subtitle tracks embedded in it, remux the MKV using mmg without the subtitle tracks and it will play fine.

 

Header stripping on an MKV also prevents Xbox 360 playback.

 

Do yourself a huge favour... dump MKV and instead use TS or M2TS format (native BluRay container).  It has a few less features than MKV, but they always work on the Xbox 360, so IMHO, that outweighs any unused baggage features in MKV, which is just very badly supported on the Xbox 360.

 

Get yourself these free tools / donateware:

 

http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo   tells you all you need to know about streams inside an MKV/TS/MP4 etc container

 

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/tsMuxeR    converts an H264/DTS/AC3/SUBS MKV to TS or M2TS to play perfectly on Xbox

 

http://shark007.net/tools.html   MetaFox - fantastic tool that fixes all sorts of stuffed up nonsense in an MKV

 

 

And as already stated, you DO NOT need Transcode360.  Leave it turned off.

 

I have to say, the direct conversion to TS and M2TS has worked like a charm.  So after ripping Blue ray Monsters University with MakeMKV and doing direct conversion to M2TS played flawlessly on XBOX.  I will be doing this going forward as MKVs have been a constant hassle on extenders.  I just have LAV installed and used without the transcode.  Has worked on several other conversions I've used as well.  Thanks a bunch for the TS muxer software link, I hadn't seen that one before.

[Andy298 0]

Had same issue with MKV through 360 also. Very blocky and stuttering films, even when I'd remuxed them. Using Shark codecs with Shark's recommended settings. Canned those, changed the extender to alternate and set LAV to use NVidia hardware acceleration. Worked for me anyway.