Oingofan wrote:You guys all

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September 14, 2011 at 10:21 pm #5614
umdivx

     

    [quote=Oingofan]

    You guys all make good points.  Prior to using WMC, I used XBMC.  XBMC allowed me to play .MKV, Video_TS, and .ISO files (which I have all) out of the chute.  [/quote]

    You have to realize that XBMC is open source, they have zero restrictions on codec support, licensing, ect… Because Media Center is a pay for product, you have licensing and other things to deal with, so virtually nothing will work out of the box unless it isn’t licensed. One thing you will note is that in the early days of Media Center (2004, XP, and Vista) .AVI files didn’t even play unless you had codecs installed. 2004 and XP Media Center didn’t even have AC3/DD/DTS decoders or even an Mpeg2 decoder.

    So if you wanted to record and play back TV shows in XP Media Center days you needed to install a third party mpeg2 codec.

    [quote]

    Now that I’m moving to display TV (Ceton), I need to use WMC, but found it is really nitpicky on the types of .MKV’s that it’ll display and won’t play my Video_TS or .ISO files. [/quote]

    Because Media Center is part of windows, there is no easy way to play back an .ISO image without mounting it first. So if you want .ISO playback you’d need to

    have an APP like virtual clone drive, or Deamon Tools to be able to mount the .ISO image.

    Then Media Center doesn’t have a way to tell Virtual Clone Drive or Deamon Tools to mount the image so then you need a Media Center plugin like My Movies or Media Browser to tell those apps to mount the .ISO image, make sense?

    [quote]

    If Shark007 solves all of the .MKV issues…I still have problems displaying them all through my extender (which gives me a “this video format is not supported…” error).  [/quote]

    Extenders DO NOT support .MKV’s period. There was “some” and I mean that in the loosest of terms, support for .MKV playback with extenders, that came in the terms of Media Foundation, built into Windows 7. Divx Corp developed a Media Foundation splitter, the issue… The .MKV file could ONLY be h.264 and AC3. If the .MKV was DTS, or another video format inside of the .MKV container you were out of luck.

    More on Divx Tech Preview: http://labs.divx.com/mkv-on-Windows-7-tech-preview

    So the ONLY way to get reliable .MKV playback in Media Center is ONLY when playing back the content locally on the PC itself.

    [quote]

    I thought if a file type wasn’t supported, it would convert it to a streaming format that would be supported (without an error).[/quote]

    Unfortunately no it wont. Simple as that. There are Media Center Plugins, that would do transcoding to have pseudo support. Read up on Transcode 360 for more info, great concept, but slow and buggy at most.

    [quote]

    I have my temporary WMC setup in a separate room without being connected to speakers or a TV.  Funny enough, when I go to play the Video_TS or .ISO files on my XBox 360 extender, it won’t allow it because the WMC errors out that it doesn’t have speakers connected.  I’m sure that is all configuration based.  This shouldn’t matter too much soon as I’m moving to a dedicated HPTC running WMC that will be connected to my TV and receiver.[/quote]

    Once you have a dedicated HTPC connected directly to your display and surround sound setup, most of these issues will go away.

     

    As far as extenders go, for support, what i’ve done is converted all my .MKV’s to .M2TS, Extenders natively support .M2TS but again they still have to be h.264 and AC3 audio, can’t be DTS audio.

    Also Extenders only support lower bit rate video. Don’t even think about trying to play back a full 20mbps 1080p blu ray rip on a Media Center Extender, just won’t happen.

    12mbps 720p is about max you’ll see for smooth playback on an extender.

    [quote]

    OK, enough of my bickering issues.  I know WMC can do all of these things that I have used in XBMC…and that is just the issue.  It would be great if there was an overall guide that would show what to load and how to configure it for the basics:

    • .MKV file playing[/quote] I Will have a guide eventually, maybe in the next week or so. [quote]
    • .ISO file playing[/quote] Again that more so depends on Media Center plugins that you want to run. Find the one you want, and they will have instructions for that. [quote]
    • Video_TS file playing[/quote] Media Center will play back Video_TS folders natively via the Movies section, this is trivial, but again this is something that is PC based only, doesn’t support Extenders. [quote]
    • Recommended/minimum codecs required (and where to get them)[/quote] Sharks Codecs, see above about .MKV, will be coming soon. [quote]
    • Correct folder layout for the basic WMC – forget Media Browser for now[/quote] This I am confused about, there is no “special” folder layout you need. Add a folder or directory to the Media Library and you are done. [quote]
    • TV setup – although this is already well explained with the Ceton guide[/quote] Follow the Ceton guide, any tv setup is pretty straight forward, nothing else to explain, the setup by step wizard that Media Center has is all you need. [quote]
    • Any other small tweaks[/quote] Look at the tips and tricks guides we have. Most of that is already there.

    -Josh