Tanamur 53 Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Hi MB3-Community - The Good: Since it 'tis the season to be jolly I just want to say how happy I am that MKV (video & audio) and FLAC (audio) files are playing in Windows Media Center (WMC)/MB3-Classic on my HTPC and Extender for the first time ever thanks to installing Media Browser Theater (MBT)! The Bad: However, MP4 audio to accompany perfect MP4 video still evades me in 2013 on the Extender/MBC (see here). It has always worked fine on the HTPC. Does anyone have any suggestions for LAV settings for MP4 audio for the extender....please? What I Did: With a bit of time over the holidays I thought I would install the LAV filters based on the tutorial here. Unfortunately, the server that hosted the turtorial has not been able to restore it. So I decided to install MBT with the default LAV configuration as suggested. Needless to say I was surprised when it was the solution to MBC on my extender for so many items. Nice work dev team. If anyone has any suggestions that have not been covered in the topics below please feel free to join in. NOTE: When I attempt to check the codecs that are installed by clicking on the link in the Help>About screen in Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12), it just hangs and has to be killed. This is a new situation since installing MBT/LAV. See FAQ: How do I tell which codecs are installed on my computer? Example MP4 video/audio file with a dump of Mediainfo information. The audio is reported as AAC which is supported by my Extender. General Complete name : \\Video\TV-Example\Click (2000)\Season 2013\Click.(2000).S2013E01.mp4 Format : MPEG-4 Format profile : Base Media Codec ID : isom File size : 176 MiB Duration : 24mn 6s Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 1 024 Kbps Season : 2013 Movie name : Click (2000) Album : Click (2000) Part : 1 Genre : Documentary Recorded date : 2013 PRODUCER : British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) ACTORS : Spencer Kelly TRACKNUMBER : Cl Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : High@L3.1 Format settings, CABAC : Yes Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames Codec ID : avc1 Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding Duration : 24mn 6s Bit rate : 890 Kbps Maximum bit rate : 4 800 Kbps Width : 720 pixels Height : 404 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 25.000 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.122 Stream size : 153 MiB (87%) Title : Video Writing library : x264 core 129 r2230 1cffe9f Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / 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=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00 Encoded date : UTC 2013-01-05 11:40:01 Tagged date : UTC 2013-01-05 11:40:03 Matrix coefficients : BT.709 Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Format profile : LC Codec ID : 40 Duration : 24mn 6s Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 125 Kbps Maximum bit rate : 141 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel positions : Front: L R Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 21.5 MiB (12%) Title : English Language : English Encoded date : UTC 2013-01-05 11:40:02 Tagged date : UTC 2013-01-05 11:40:03 References: Windows Media Center internal player, MB Classic, and LAV filters guide. http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/726-windows-media-center-internal-player-mb-classic-and-lav-filters-guide/ Help with LAV filters and AC3 http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/1805-help-with-lav-filters-and-ac3/ Extender: Troubleshooting Audio Playback http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/3015-extender-troubleshooting-audio-playback/ Extender & MBC: Audio in MP4 Container Not Playing http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/2583-extender-mbc-audio-in-mp4-container-not-playing/ FAQ: How do I tell which codecs are installed on my computer? http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/3086-faq-how-do-i-tell-which-codecs-are-installed-on-my-computer/ Install specs in signature file. Thanks in advance for the help and Happy Holidays, Tanamur
ebr 15331 Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Yeah, LAV is definitely the simplest route to the easiest playback for most items. Sorry, I can't help with the audio issue.
Cheesegeezer 3095 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 Have you tried using graphstudio? If you open the program and drag n drop your video file into the big grey are it will tell you exactly what filters are being used to decode the audio and video and in which order they do it. It may help you to understand better why the audio is not working. If you need anymore help just shout and we can try and get to the bottom of this. @@BAS how do you cope with mp4 and aac on your millions of extenders
Tanamur 53 Posted December 30, 2013 Author Posted December 30, 2013 Hi @@Cheesegeezer - Many thanks for the reply and I promise not to take too much of your time. I have not tried GraphStudio or GraphStudioNext. Based on your suggestion I downloaded both from the developer's home pages. Since they are both standalone executables there was nothing to install. However, when I try to run either of them, the application opens and immediately hangs (not responding). This is the same as when I try to use Windows Media Player 12 Help link to display what codecs are installed. Task Manager can't "End the Task" or "End the Process" associated with any of them. All of this is not good news I am sure however, MBC and MBT solidly play everything thrown at them on the server. Any other thoughts come to mind with this behaviour?
Cheesegeezer 3095 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 Hi @@Cheesegeezer - Many thanks for the reply and I promise not to take too much of your time. I have not tried GraphStudio or GraphStudioNext. Based on your suggestion I downloaded both from the developer's home pages. Since they are both standalone executables there was nothing to install. However, when I try to run either of them, the application opens and immediately hangs (not responding). This is the same as when I try to use Windows Media Player 12 Help link to display what codecs are installed. Task Manager can't "End the Task" or "End the Process" associated with any of them. All of this is not good news I am sure however, MBC and MBT solidly play everything thrown at them on the server. Any other thoughts come to mind with this behaviour? No probs fella, the fact that graph studio hangs indicates issues within you system. What i would suggest is to uninstall all your codecs in programs and features, and maybe try a different approach. Using Ffdshow guide in the tutorials section. Then try graphstudio and see what happens then
CBers 6930 Posted December 30, 2013 Posted December 30, 2013 No probs fella, the fact that graph studio hangs indicates issues within you system. What i would suggest is to uninstall all your codecs in programs and features, and maybe try a different approach. Using Ffdshow guide in the tutorials section. Then try graphstudio and see what happens then This is the FFDSHOW Guide @@Cheesegeezer was referring to: http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/1096-setting-up-codecs-using-ffdshow/?hl=ffdshow
Tanamur 53 Posted December 31, 2013 Author Posted December 31, 2013 Thanks @@Cheesegeezer and @@CBers - Give me a couple of days with the festivities over the New Year and I will come back to you with an update after applying your suggestions. Cheers, Tanamur
Tanamur 53 Posted January 1, 2014 Author Posted January 1, 2014 No probs fella, the fact that graph studio hangs indicates issues within you system. What i would suggest is to uninstall all your codecs in programs and features, and maybe try a different approach. Using Ffdshow guide in the tutorials section. Then try graphstudio and see what happens then HNY @@Cheesegeezer - I am beginning to think there is a realistic chance of making all of this work because I was listening to AAC audio from a MP4 container on my extender just now. I was able to access an old server I pulled out of storage I used to use for My Movies and MB2. I can system restore the OS easily on it after tinkering unlike the primary system. First, GraphStudio opens on this other Win7/64 system with no problem. What a useful and clever application. Next, I took a shortcut and installed Shark007's 32 & 64 Advanced Codecs. I realize there is more there than I probably need or definitely understand but by accepting the default settings followed by changing one thing, I was listening to AAC audio with the video on the extender. I changed one setting in the SWAP tab to use FFDShow's codec for AAC audio (see red box). That was all it took to prove that it is possible for that extender to still work. So, in short the next steps are to do a clean install of the OS on the old server and follow the FFDSHOW Guide as you and @@CBers have pointed me to earlier. I will give you an update on the results when I have them. Many thanks to both you and @@CBers for pointing me in the right direction. Progress! Cheers, Tanamur
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