The second video in my “Customizing Media Center” is up and going….so lets talk about it.
In the Last video I talked about setting up Media Browser, but this time I wanted
to go over MKV support. Now there are many ways to do this. If you’re relatively new to installing codecs you might want to consider installing a codec pack. One of the most simple ones to use, that also includes 64-bit support is shark 007’s Windows 7 codec pack. You can find this a www.shark007.net/win7codecs.html
Another method of getting MKV support is by installing Haali’s Media Splitter. You can get the 32-bit download by going to www.haali.net/MKV. If you use this method though, this just installs the splitter, you will still need to install any other codecs you might need to play audio or other video formats. Remember MKV is just a container, you still need other codecs to get the audio, video, and subtitles to function properly. Just as a note, there is a beta of the 64-bit version of Haali’s media splitter and I’ll put a link to it in my blog at nulltie.wordpress.com.
One thing that I didn’t mention in the video is that Divx-labs is working on an MKV plug-in as well. If you are interested in it, head on over to http://labs.divx.com/mkvwin7preview. They offer 32 and 64 bit support, the only downside is that the projects is still in beta and subtitles are not supported. Which isn’t a bad thing because once they do, I guarantee that their plug-in will be the best on out there.
If you want to learn more about Media Center MKV support, either drop me a line
at my blog or check out the friendly people at www.hack7mc.com. See you next time!
Nulltie's HTPC Blog 
I loved your videos and explanations thanks for the help. I’m a long time XBMC guy just recently switched to MB with WMC7 x64 and am going to add a 360 extender. I’ve got MKV to work in WMC7 but can’t get subtitles to work. I watched video pushing pausing and mimicking your movements with shark007 but vobsub didn’t work for me. I tried .srt files they were named and located directly and nothing. Also what about built in subtitles. I would be willing to do just about anything to get them to work. I have even thought about changing all mkv to mp4 but not sure if that will help. Also most my mkv’s are 720p @ 4.1 and just started to make 1080p @ 4.1 thanx to wmc7 and DXVA this is working, but do you think the 360 can handle the 1080p? Also I have installed the divx tech preview thing to for mkv if that helps. This is the first time I have ever posted anything to a forum or blog so be gentle. I read them all the time but am getting the feeling that it is impossible to get subtitles working in wmc7 with dxva?
Alright, so first lets talk about the Subtitles problem. If you have the Divx Tech preview installed and Shark007 installed, Divx is going to take priority. Because of that, you subtitles won’t work. Sadly, right now the Divx tech preview isn’t supporting subtitles. So try unistalling the Divx, then go through and mess with the subtitle options and see if you can get it to work. If not, let me know. Your Xbox will be able to handle it just fine, where the proble may lie is going to be in the computer. In my initial tests, it seems that the Xbox picks and chooses what resolutions it’s going to display the video at. Basically, if it like the codec it will display it beautifully in perfect resolution, if it doesn’t like it, it will display it but it will have pixelation. To be honest I’m still testing out a lot of things, and learning how the Media Foundation pipeline actually works, so as find new things I’ll be posting it up here. One thing though, I don’t reccomend turning your MKV’s into MP4 because from what I know, MP4 doesn’t support anything more than stereo audio. So if you have video with surround sound capabilities, you’ll loose it. Another thing to do it check out hack7mc or thegreenbutton. These websites have A TON of information a codecs to help get your Media Center where you want it. One final thing though, is that subtitles don’t work on the Xbox 360, which is really sad for me cause I have a ton of anime…lol.
So I hope this helped in some way, Let me know what hapens with your subtitle setup, especially if it doesn’t work, or ig you have any other questions.
NullTie
Thank you for the reply and the info. I did as you instructed and uninstalled Divx Teck Preview, subtitles inbedded and .srt worked perfectly, thanx. Very dissapointed to here about no subtitles in any way on 360 extender. I have a lot of foreign films. I will also be trying to find some kind of remedy for this and monitoring forums all over. Basically if I can get the media center to play a file the 360 extender will play it as well, but no subtitles no matter what, and if it doesn’t like the format it will transcode to 360? With Shark007 pack mkv work well with subtitles and DXVA in WMC7, besides subs, I wonder if 360 will work on mkv nativley with media foundation on the 360? Back to first question, if WMC7 plays it correct will 360 extender follow suite or does it depend on what files 360 can support? I guess you can see extender is the big question…
If you can play it in WMC7, you can play it on your Xbox360, the only exception to the rule is that, like we talked about, no subtitles, and you can’t switch audio tracks if it has multiple one. With that said, even though the Xbox will play them, at least with my tests, the Xbox for whatever reason degrades the quality of some MKV’s. I’m not really sure what causes this but I’ve noticed it on a few of my movies. According to a few of the reports that I read, Media Center should be getting a huge update in December causing it to work with MKV’s natively. They didn’t talk about what it was going to include but I hope it includes subtitles, chapters, and audio track support. So back to the first question, Yes. If WMC7 can play it, the Xbox can to, just sometimes it plays it at lower qualities but I’m not sure why yet. I’ll be looking into it and if I find anything I’ll post a blog about. Hoped this helped!
Ah!!! at last I found what I was looking for. Somtimes it takes so much effort to find even tiny useful piece of information.
Nice post. Thanks
nulltie, thanks for your clear and concise explanation of the ways to play MKV on WMC7. After reading your post I decided to use the Divx Tech preview since I wasn’t that interested in subtitles. I installed the preview on a new Win7 Pro x64 installation but I cannot get WMC7 to play my MKVs. They play fine in Media Player 12 but I keep getting the following error when I try to play the same files in WMC7.
“Windows Media Center cannot find the specified file. Be sure the path is typed correctly. If it is, the file does not exist at the specified location, or the computer where the file is stored is offline.”
I’m browsing directly to the file through the Video Library of WMC7 so I’m pretty sure the file is being located or it would not show up in the library. Have you ever run across this? From the research I’ve done I don’t think it’s related to the Divx Tech Preview as this has affected others who are using other codec packs. Any ideas?
This usually means that whatever is within the MKV container can’t be played. Make sure to download an application like G-Spot or Mediainfo to help you figure out what type of codecs are required to play your media. Now if it’s not working at all, the I’m not sure what could be going on. Sometimes, additional codecs like FFdshow help play most media. There is a large update coming soon to Media Center, from what I hear at least, that will enable Media Center to play MKV natively. So, don’t worry if you can’t get it tok work right a way, or if you really do want it to work, I would just install Shark007, it’s a really simple install and best of all it’s really easy to uninstall. I hope this helps in some way.
NullTie
Nulltie- I’m watching your videos on Win7 MC with great interest as I’ve just built a new HTPC after having used an early media center software called myHTPC for years. The learning curve with MC is pretty steep for me, and I’m a bit overwhelmed. Anyway, right now I’m focusing on getting mkv files to play properly. I installed the Shark007 codec pack, and the mkv files do PLAY, but they are choppy. I don’t think it’s a hardware issue as a ripped bluray will play smoothly and looks great. I suspect mkv files are not using directx acceleration through my graphics card, but that’s just a hunch. Any idea which settings to play with in the Shark007 config? There are so many checkboxes and buttons that I don’t know where to begin! Thanx
HEY Karl!,
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to you but If you still need help, go ahead and message me and I’ll try and help you. With regards to shark007 I’m not to sure what the best setup for your rig will be. Right now, I don’t have shark007 installed because I setup my codecs and filters individually. Sadly, right now I’m waiting for the December update of Media Center in hopes that we won’t have to mess with all these things, hopedfully Media Center will be able to run MKV natively using the full graphics support that your machinge is capable of. If you are still running into problems though let me know and I’ll try to see what I can look up for you.
NullTie
Hey Nulltie,
I managed to get my mkv files to play smoothly in MC, although I can’t remember exactly what I did. I think it involved disabling ffdshow as I read somwehere that it has no dxva support (?) I definitely need to make use of my GPU (Radeon 4670) because my CPU is not quite up to the task. The trick for me is always getting dxva working and it seems very few codecs actually support it. You spoke about Divx tech preview earlier. I may give that a try..
Do you know if that December update includes support for DTS wav playback? If so, I’m anxiously anticipating it, because I’ll be able to playback everything in my catalog at that point. I have a few DTS surround CD’s that I’ve ripped using dBpoweramp and I can play them back in Media Player Classic, but not in Media Center (i.e. WMP). This is supposedly because new architecture inside Windows Media player (‘Media Foundation’) prevents the use of filters such as AC3Filter, which I’ve used successfully in the past to playback dts wav files. I’m currently investigating hacks, but if Microsoft fixes it on their own, then maybe I won’t have to.