Problems playing "HD" files (1 Viewer)

[thebalance]

I've been struggling to get HD files to play - I've only downloaded samples to work with and for some reason everything except mediaportal handles my HD files perfectly. All other codecs appear fine.

I've PowerDVD 8 installed and working (so have hardware acceleration working - have not needed to install FFDSHOW yet).

However, just spotted that imedian appears to show the encoding along with the filesnames - & I have some which show up as WMV3 / WMA3 and others that are L264 / PCM - can anyone point me in the right direction for telling Mediaportal what to do please? PowerDVD is set for the H.264 decoder whilst MPV decoder filter is set for mpeg-2.

Any pointers much appreciated.

 

[jo16v]

I've been struggling to get HD files to play - I've only downloaded samples to work with and for some reason everything except mediaportal handles my HD files perfectly. All other codecs appear fine.

I've PowerDVD 8 installed and working (so have hardware acceleration working - have not needed to install FFDSHOW yet).

However, just spotted that imedian appears to show the encoding along with the filesnames - & I have some which show up as WMV3 / WMA3 and others that are L264 / PCM - can anyone point me in the right direction for telling Mediaportal what to do please? PowerDVD is set for the H.264 decoder whilst MPV decoder filter is set for mpeg-2.

Any pointers much appreciated.

Are you using PowerDVD 8 ultra codec? This works for me on 1080i HD TV (BBC HD) and on 1080p movie clips downloaded from Apple (quicktime .mov files) and Windows media showcase (.wmv files).

 

[globaldonkey]

You didn't actually specify what the problem was with your HD files, nor what sort of files they are.

Maybe try using graphedit and the option to connect to remote graph to see how MP is playing the file and how other players are playing the file. Settings in MP can be overridden by other filter settings, particularly splitters. Use filmerit to check all your dshow filters are registered correctly.

System specs would be helpful too.

 

[thebalance]

System specs would be helpful too.

Good points, apologies, was posted in utter frustration, I'll find out the specs tonight but in general terms I'm using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H with XP Pro SP2, 2Gb RAM, PowerDVD 8 Ultra (I thing 8021 but not sure) and V1 RC2 of Media Portal (I'll find out the exact build later).

My problem is I have downloaded some sample HD files to try to check playback is fine and in mediaportal all I get is sound & a black screen, on most of the files I get the first frame before the screen goes black.

PowerDVD 8 works perfectly (with and without hardware accelaration - I guess that is largely irrelevant at this point) and my HD files now play in PowerDVD, imedian & media player no problem - I cannot see a graph for PowerDVD (and have forgotten to check for the others) but encoding appears to be either WMA3 / WMV3 (from memory) or L264 / PCM (according to imedian anyway).

I've tried changing the codecs on Movies player for Mpeg 2 (I only have the PowerDVD 8 option for h264 files) but none of the names were meaningful and made no difference so I left it on the default (something else I need to find out - MPV possibly?). Tried fiddling with the settings in directshow with no luck (VMR9 still in use, the alternative fails).

I've tried graphedit and that says it is using WMA Decoder - but I cannot identify what to do about that or any further details as the are no filter properties to display and if I try to put a new filter in and remove that it blue screens the machine (yes, it was probably dumb trying as it was actively using the filter atthe time).

I've run filmerit but I am really fumbling around in the dark as I don't know what I should be changing from and to as this is all something completely new to me (although that did identify a string of codecs that had problems so something has been fixed).

I've got no media splitters in place at present and I've also not installed ffdshow yet - I was hoping to get everything working with mediaportal before adding additional software as I know the machine works and I suspect adding more software will just make life more complicated.

So my conclusion is I'm clueless and probably a danger to myself, luckily my wife keeps sharp implements away from me!

 

[dlisalde]

Power DVD have two codec: Codec H264 for BD and HD-DVD, and Codec for DVD movies.

Do you try with H264 codec of Pw 8 delux edition?

 

[globaldonkey]

thebalance

OK, that's a bit more helpful then.

It looks like you are missing the Windows Media splitter from your graph. Would be good if you could post a jpg of the actual graph. You should see a WM ASF Reader splitting the audio and the video. I'm not sure why that is not happening, but I don't think it is anything in MP's configuration that would do that. Have you got WMP V11 installed? Make sure you have all the recommended software and patches installed. https://www.team-mediaportal.com/manual/GeneralRequirements

What sort of results do you get with AVI files or MKV/MP4 with h.264 content?

Given that you're running a MB with the 780G chipset, I would assume you are running the ATI Catalyst software. I have read in numerous posts here that one of the versions of Catalyst is problematic, so you might want to check that out (ie black video). I think the latest release (8.9) is ok.

Check out this post, as it does seem to have some useful info for your specific chipset (don't be put off by the title)

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...ning-780g-chipset-mobo-bad-solution-mp-43361/

As you seem a bit lost, I would also go to the codec section of the wiki first to get a good intro on what you need for MP to play most containers and codecs:

UserGuides/codecs_and_containers - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation

The above link is more focused on ffdshow and isn't focused on getting HA going though.

The link below has a codec pack, based on PoweDVD and MPC HC that gets you going with HA. Be aware that there are some limitations with using HA and MPC HC, which is what this pack of filters is based on. Specifically, MP's ts splitter does not play well with the MPC HC decoder. There are details in the thread.

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/offtopic-57/stand-alone-filters-htpc-44614/

Finally, As you try some of this out, it would be best to uninstall any codecs or codec packs you already have installed. In essence:

1. Get your Catalyst drivers up to date
2. Get all the MP pre-requisites such as WMP 11 installed.
3. Install your codecs.

 

[thebalance]

Thank you - this will give me some more to go on, I made a bit of progress yesterday (snatched moments between childminding and stopping said child configuring mediaportal all on his own - he may have more luck than me) - I tried downgrading to Catalyst 8.5 on someone's advice - suddenly most files work, however, performance was appalling (frame by frame display rather than smooth and jumping sound) so have gone back to 8.9 as I'm sure it is mediaportal that is the problem as all other software works fine - I'll read the given advice properly over the weekend and see if I'm sorted.

Thanks again - will let you know how I get on.