calenatar 0 Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Hey guys, first off, love the new MB3. updated to 3, and installed the classic app. Now the issue I'm having is that I use the extender to the xbox 360 to stream to my TV, and the Video quality is crap compared to if I play it on the PC, or even on the regular xbox video app(not WMC). on either of those its super clear HD, switch to MB3(it did it in 2 as well) and its watchable, but very low quality in comparison. Any Idea's where to start? I know I'm not giving a ton of info that you guys probably want, but I'm new to this and I dont know the process. The PC rendering the video is very capable, If I use MB3 and watch it on my pc theres no quality drop, so I dont know if the issue lies with codecs or what? but I would love to be able to utilize MB3 without losing video quality. Thanks a ton. sorry for noob questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stixx2002 1 Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 What type of files are you trying to stream? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calenatar 0 Posted January 12, 2014 Author Share Posted January 12, 2014 sorry forgot to mention that. mkv's are what I use Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustEric78 23 Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Had the same problem here as most of my library is MKV. I stopped trying to even watch through my xbox and instead started using an old bluray player that sits there just for this purpose. I havent even tried since switching to MB3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stixx2002 1 Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 I have never had issues with mkv's ripped from DVD's, but ripping from Bluray always gave me problems. It seems that the 360 simply cant keep up with bitrates above 15. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calenatar 0 Posted January 13, 2014 Author Share Posted January 13, 2014 I have never had issues with mkv's ripped from DVD's, but ripping from Bluray always gave me problems. It seems that the 360 simply cant keep up with bitrates above 15. whats weird to me though is if i watch it through the standard xbox video player they're perfect, yet blurry in MBC or WMC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC101 31 Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 @@calenatar : the standard xbox video player doesn't support mkv container as far as I know. That's why you needed to setup an xbox 360 extender then connect to Windows Media Center server to play those. I don't know, my media comes out of the xbox360 clear as can be. The only issue I've seen is with compressed headers but the xbox360 won't play those at all (black screen). And that's easily fixable. For example, I played Cloverfield.1080p.Bluray.x264-1920 through MB3 to the xbox360 no problem, the server does no transcoding that I can see (low low CPU) and that movie's bitrate is 12.8Mbps I don't have any movies that go over 12.8Mbps (Cloverfield is the highest) so I can't attest to that issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stixx2002 1 Posted January 13, 2014 Share Posted January 13, 2014 @@calenatar : the standard xbox video player doesn't support mkv container as far as I know. That's why you needed to setup an xbox 360 extender then connect to Windows Media Center server to play those. I don't know, my media comes out of the xbox360 clear as can be. The only issue I've seen is with compressed headers but the xbox360 won't play those at all (black screen). And that's easily fixable. For example, I played Cloverfield.1080p.Bluray.x264-1920 through MB3 to the xbox360 no problem, the server does no transcoding that I can see (low low CPU) and that movie's bitrate is 12.8Mbps I don't have any movies that go over 12.8Mbps (Cloverfield is the highest) so I can't attest to that issue. Yep - that bitrate seems to work just fine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maudite 7 Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 I have this problem if I don't get the media splitter setup correctly on my MBC system. I tend to use the Shark007 stuff as I can get er done without any config. However this goes with a caveat, I use older version 3.9.7. I have not tried the latest releases of Shark's pack, because I did have problems with some of the 4.x.x versions, so went back to what I knew worked. And if it's not broke don't fix it. It may be hard to find a download of this older version, but it's worth a look. I simply install this on my media center server, and using Shark's recommended settings, streams to my 3 x360 extenders works no problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calenatar 0 Posted January 15, 2014 Author Share Posted January 15, 2014 I have this problem if I don't get the media splitter setup correctly on my MBC system. I tend to use the Shark007 stuff as I can get er done without any config. However this goes with a caveat, I use older version 3.9.7. I have not tried the latest releases of Shark's pack, because I did have problems with some of the 4.x.x versions, so went back to what I knew worked. And if it's not broke don't fix it. It may be hard to find a download of this older version, but it's worth a look. I simply install this on my media center server, and using Shark's recommended settings, streams to my 3 x360 extenders works no problem. I'll look into that. I have the newest version of the shark pack on it now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14924 Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 Or just install LAV and be done with it . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moviefan 184 Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 Or just install LAV and be done with it . Completely off topic I know (sorry OP) but just wanted to ask since ebr brought it up again.... I am also in the boat of users still using Shark007 because it works and havent switched to just LAV yet. Does anyone know if there are specific limitations I would face if I transitioned to LAV only? This seems to be the recommendation I keep seeing from Luke and others here but I just haven't taken the time to test it out. Any subtitle issues with LAV only? Does it support all audio codecs? etc? Anything else anyone would recommend watching out for? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harthenry 0 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 (edited) Or just install LAV and be done with it . I installed LAV tonight (latest version), and I am still getting blurry vision on my XBOX 360 (all MKV). I understand that MKV is just a container for whatever video might be in it, however, I have a ROKU 3 that works perfectly. Just trying to clean up the number of boxes I have to have near the TV to watch stuff. Was hoping to put the ROKU to bed, however, looks like the Xbox just can't handle the job. I will look at tweaking some of the LAV filter settings -- if you have any ideas, I am all ears! Thanks, HH --- update --- I noticed that the only running (or encoding) during XBOX playback is Media Foundation Protected Pipeline EXE. I thought I would see something regarding LAV in task manager -- additionally, I selected "enable system tray icons" and I never see the icons during Xbox playback. Is the Media Foundation thingy actually taking precedence over LAV? Edited February 23, 2014 by harthenry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14924 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 The xbox hates mkv. Most people avoid that container with the 360. However, if you search around you may find some tweaks to help. I believe you can disable the media foundation stuff in the lav settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stixx2002 1 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I am sure there is a better solution, but I have simply gone the path of ripping my Blurays to mkv and then to MT2S. For some reason I can never get the sound to work if I rip straight to MT2S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macburp 109 Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 I've installed the Haali splitter, which enabled me to play MKVs on my Xbox extender, but the PQ was crap - worse than SD. So I gave up on MKVs and now re-encode to MP4 instead, which the Xbox plays well. I used to do this with Handbrake, but always thought that re-encoding just to change container was too much. Then I found MKVtoMP4, which can process an MKV file in 4-5 minutes as well as normalising the audio and tagging for iTunes - works well. Re the comments on bitrate, I read long ago that extenders struggle if the bit rate is above 4Mbps. I ran into this recently trying to play some files with bit-rates in the 7-8Mbps range, the Xbox playback was blocky to the point of unwatchable. Re-encoding (using Handbrake) to 3.5Mbps solved the problem. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyFr79 228 Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 I've been running an Xbox360 for quite some time playing MKV's without any real issues, occasionally (and this has been rare so far) I run into a random problem (subtitles, bitrate etc) I've been using sharkcodecs to play MKV's and the picture quality is fine, the sound tends to play quiet (haven't figured that one out yet seems to have started with newer shark releases). Here are some things I've found when I ran into this issue in the past. 1.) When using sharkcodecs, click on the "MKV" tab and check "Alternate Extender Support" I know this doesn't make sense but trust me it immediately corrected my blurry issues. 2.) Again when using shark codecs, make sure on the same "MKV" tab under "Extender Audio Support" "direct - no conversion" is checked, again makes no sense but the audio works better for me setup this way. 3.) Lastly if your using Shark, and the above 2 don't work, you can also disable the DIVX Foundation in Shark and this is known to fix many issues with MKV on 360's In my situation I run a dedicted VM to feed my 360, the reason being is that I need to keep codecs very simple in my theater room to ensure the correct color space and best picture quality through the chain to my projector and so I only run LAV Codecs and Win7FilterTweaker to make sure of this. LAV is actually pointless on Win7/Win8 without filter tweaker. You can learn more about that at this great thread here on the MB Forums.......http://mediabrowser.tv/community/index.php?/topic/4305-mbc-and-codecs-understanding-the-media-foundation/&do=findComment&comment=65156. Without FilterTweaker Windows will only use LAV "when it needs to" otherwise you're still using MS's crappy h.264 decoder. FIlterTweaker allows you to change this and much more. These things will never get you 100% MKV playback on 360 but they will help ALOT! Lastly once I get some free time I'm going to try LAV on my VM and see if I can get it to stream MKV's to my 360 without needing Shark at all, if I can get this up and running with GOOD picture quality and Sound, I'll post up and let you know how I did it. Note this may take a week or so, so please be patient with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyFr79 228 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Yeah so I played around with it tonight since I had some free time, Shark seems to be the best and only solution to playback MKV "reliably" on the 360 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MediaManXL 3 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 I'm the guy who reported some issues to Shark to get that "Alternate Extender Support" added to the Codec pack. It had to do with the version of the DiVX Media Foundation used. You can see the conversation thread here: http://shark007.net/forum/Thread-MKV-playback-on-extender-issue-with-4-13-and-4-15 I'm posting it because if you look in the thread you can see some specific versions of his codec pack that worked better than others. There's also a thread related to the issue I started here: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1475249/ceton-echo-and-h-264-video-frustration In that one there is some good information from some of the posters who replied about remuxing the video and other things to make it work better on the extenders--but I tend not to want to mess with that. I don't have an XBOX, I only have the Echo, but I've heard from other people that the "Alternate Extender Support" actually works better on the XBOX as well. It's made the Echo almost usable for me, but it's still not quite there. If it weren't for the Echo, I'd probably switch to using just LAV, but I've found that I need the Shark pack to make a higher percentage of my MKVs play back on the Echo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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