Black screen on some H.264 -- codec or renderer problem? (1 Viewer)

[cheer]

OK, this one has me ready to pull my hair out.

I have a certain subset of files that, when played in MediaPortal, give me no video. I do get audio. It is some (but not all) of the DVD rips that I've made personally from my own collection. All files are in MKV containers, with H.264 video, AC-3 audio, and .srt subtitles. I have some files in exactly that format that play fine, however.

Now here's what's really weird:

• It happens on more than one machine. It was happening on my current HTPC, and after 10 minutes I figured it was a stupid codec problem and walked away, as I was planning to replace it with a better machine anyway. But I just built the new machine fresh and it's doing the same thing.
• It does NOT happen in WMP (i.e. WMP plays the files fine). It also does NOT happen in MPC (and yes I've disabled MPC's internal splitters and filters).
• When I first built the machine, all I installed for codecs was PowerDVD, Quicktime, ffdshow, the Matroska splitter, and the Quicklooks filter for Quicktime. When I played the file in either WMP or MPC, I got the taskbar icons I expected to see (Matroska, FF-V, FF-A).
• I uninstalled PowerDVD, ffdshow, the Matroska splitter, and Quicklooks. Then I installed SAF6. No change.
• It doesn't matter which H.264 codec I set MediaPortal to; I still get no video on those select files.
• If I change to VMR9 (from EVR), the videos DO play. But then if I stop the video, I get all sorts of artifacting in MP (and I presume that's because VMR9 isn't compatible with Win7).

I'm attaching my MediaPortal log and my evr.log from when I tried to play the file. I also opened one of the files in graphstudio and am attaching a screenshot. If anyone has any ideas of where I should look, I'd be grateful. And if it's a problem in the files themselves, I can always re-rip them, but I'd sure like to know WHAT the problem is.

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.3.0
MediaPortal Skin: Blue3Wide
Windows Version: 7 Home Premium (32)
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
HDD: 250GB IDE
Memory: 4GB DDR2
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H (1.0)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 240
Video Card Driver: 275.33
MPEG2 Video Codec: MPC - MPEG-2 Video Decoder (Gabest)
MPEG2 Audio Codec: LAV Audio Decoder
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow DXVA Video Decoder

 

[Owlsroost]

Can you post logs for a file that *does* work please (for comparison) ?

Tony

 

[cheer]

OK, turns out that uninstalling everything and installing SAF6 broke a lot more. So I uninstalled SAF6, and re-installed the Matroska splitter and ffdshow-tryouts. I now attach logs for BOTH: the file that does not work, and the file that does. I also attached graphstudio screenprints for both.

Thanks very much for taking a look.

 

[tourettes]

Please run MediaPortal in windowed mode and then connect with the GraphStudio to the running graph - at least it looks like you are using graph that GraphStdio has generated (video renderer instead of the EVR is used).

 

[Owlsroost]

The only thing I can see in the logs that looks a bit odd is the aspect ratio data in evr.log:

14-08-2011 18:48:27.201 [cd8]New format: 720x576, Ratio: 158735:116074

but I don't know if this would cause a problem - as far as I can tell video frames are reaching the evr presenter, but MP isn't rendering anything - hence the black screen....

158735:116074 is 1.368:1 (4:3 is 1.25:1, 16:9 is 1.78:1)

Tony

(To do a 'connect to remote graph' with GraphStudio you may need to register 'proppage.dll' - see https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-1-2-0-beta-540/livetv-blank-screen-no-sound-client-video-sound-works-server-97836/index2.html#post762325)

 

[cheer]

Thanks, guys. Soon as work wraps up I will give that a go.

 

[cheer]

OK, I am attaching two screengrabs: one of the "working" video and one of the "not working" video (file names are pretty self-explanatory).

Thanks for looking at this!

 

[Hogan77]

I have the same problem with some files that has been encoded with a SAR value. To me it's a bug in MP, because I can play the files perfectly in GraphStudio.

Specifies the input video's Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR) to be used by the encoder in width:height. This in conjunction with frame dimensions can be used to encode an anamorphic output by determining the Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) via the formula: DAR = SAR x width/height.

 

[eetaylog]

Me too. I think its something to do with subtitles mkv's because movies that i have which dont have forced subtitles work fine. I read on another thread that its a bug in MP1.2 which is being looked at...

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-subtitle-renderer-mediaportal-freezes-99050/

 

[Hogan77]

Me too. I think its something to do with subtitles mkv's because movies that i have which dont have forced subtitles work fine. I read on another thread that its a bug in MP1.2 which is being looked at...

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-subtitle-renderer-mediaportal-freezes-99050/

No it's not the same problem/bug. With this bug MP doesn't freeze, instead you get a black screen but you can still hear the sound and stop the playback to return to MP menu. I'm 99.99% sure it is related to videos encoded with a SAR value.