mkv playback with DTS-MA and TruHD update (1 Viewer)

[misterfrog]

A little over a year ago I found a bluray solution that I was satisfied with and haven't changed my MP installation since. Basically, I'd rip blurays to mkv like this:

1) AnyDVD
2) eac3to to extract the streams
3) eac3to to convert DTS-MA to flac and core dts or TruHD to flac and ac3
4) convert subtitles to pgs with bdsup2sub
5) Merging everything together with mkvmerge

This worked beautifully and allowed for seamless integration into MediaPortal with Moving Pictures and the only real sacrifice for me was not using high def audio but this didn't seem possible at the time. Now, it's more than a year later and it seems that the obstacles to high def audio have been overcome. The mkv container supports truhd and dts-ma, eac3to can extract the streams, mkvmerge can put them together (and makemkv integrates all of that) plus there is hardware that supports bitstreaming.

One thing I can't figure out (after searching the forums for a number of hours) is whether MediaPortal supports playback of mkv files that have truhd and dts-ma audio. I know that in the AVS forums the Windows 7 Media center install guide gives clear instructions on how to get truhd and dts-ma bitstreaming working in windows media center 7 but the install guides for MediaPortal seem to be the same as they were a year ago.

Is this now a trivial affair? If I get a radeon 5xxx card and install the latest ffdshow and mediaportal and register the mpc-hc services will I be able to get mkv files to play high def audio relatively easily?

A year ago I made the assessment that the best and easiest integration (for me) of high def video was using the mkv container (for example I didn't and don't want to actually get off the couch and stick in a bluray). Should I go another route now (ts or m2ts containers now?).



tom

 

[Bagal]

I've got an ATI5450 card and until the recent 1.1 release of MediaPortal I've been using Windows 7 Media Center, I got bitstreaming working in Media Center by following the guide here: Guide: Setting Up Bitstreaming With Your Windows 7 HTPC – PART II ? MediaSmartServer.net

I installed 1.1 of MediaPortal the other day and it automatically picked up and used the FFDshow codecs that I'd previously setup with the above guide and bitstreaming worked perfectly first time, haven't had to make any config changes and I'd also say that it appears to be much more stable with MediaPortal, sometimes with MediaCenter when starting a film I'd get no sound and end up having to restart MediaCenter.

All of my Blu-Rays are ripped and stored in MKV's using MakeMKV.

 

[dbone1026]

I've got an ATI5450 card and until the recent 1.1 release of MediaPortal I've been using Windows 7 Media Center, I got bitstreaming working in Media Center by following the guide here: Guide: Setting Up Bitstreaming With Your Windows 7 HTPC – PART II ? MediaSmartServer.net

I installed 1.1 of MediaPortal the other day and it automatically picked up and used the FFDshow codecs that I'd previously setup with the above guide and bitstreaming worked perfectly first time, haven't had to make any config changes and I'd also say that it appears to be much more stable with MediaPortal, sometimes with MediaCenter when starting a film I'd get no sound and end up having to restart MediaCenter.

All of my Blu-Rays are ripped and stored in MKV's using MakeMKV.

Great to here the guide worked for Media Portal. When I wrote it I only tested on W7MC. I just download the latest Media Portal to give a test, so hopefully everything will carry through. Up until now I found W7MC's internal player to unstable, so I have just been using MPC HC launching from W7MC (Media Browser) to get bitstreaming. Ideally, no matter what Front End I use I would prefer to stick with the internal player.

 

[Bagal]

Many thanks for writing the guide in the first place!
W7MC's internal player has worked for me most of the time, it's just the odd occasion when it decides to play up and not give me any sound, restarting MediaCenter usually resolves the issue.

When I installed the latest MediaPortal a few nights ago I tried out multiple Blu-Rays intermingled with a few DVDs in quick succession and I had no problem with playback whatsoever, it was rock solid, if I'd have tried to do the same in MediaCenter it would probably have lost sound after only a couple of files.