can't play MKv x264 files

[richard1980]

As is already discussed in this thread, no codec packs are required.

[John Galt]

Easiest and cheapest is shark codec, uninstall bing toolbar, go into the settings in admin and go to audio and set it on the right to pass throughh all of the hd formats. If youre x64 youll need to go into the lav settings and check off all of the dts formats.

At that point all formats will work with 7.1 hdmi sound AND xbox 360 extenders will work and play all files properly.

A few notes: if you change the mpeg4 from ms to ffdshow (without messing eith the ones for live tv) youll get better quality. If you further change to the mchc (i thnk) and check off dvxa youll get gpu acceleration which seriously helps with decode and transcode.

You can help yourself if you want to use xbox 360 extenders by doing a repackage which is very fast from mkv h264s to .mp4 with level 4.1 or lower and no pyramidal b frames. Takes less than 5 minutes for a 1080p bluray, is the same size and ALWAYS works. I say this because the defaults for high profile in handbreak just changed and dont work without the settings above.

Hope that helps people get this stable. I messed with all of the sbove and this is the only one where everything icluding 7.1 sound actually worked all of the time without issues and allowed a dual core 2.8ghz core2 processor to handle 4extenders and itself playing video and recording tv and comskipping at the same time without having jitter and stutter.

[Gish]

Nice. Will give this a try.
A lot of the sites I get videos from are pushing x264 as a standard format rather than xvid so need to get on top of this issue.

[kalex]

Easiest and cheapest is shark codec, uninstall bing toolbar, go into the settings in admin and go to audio and set it on the right to pass throughh all of the hd formats. If youre x64 youll need to go into the lav settings and check off all of the dts formats.

At that point all formats will work with 7.1 hdmi sound AND xbox 360 extenders will work and play all files properly.

A few notes: if you change the mpeg4 from ms to ffdshow (without messing eith the ones for live tv) youll get better quality. If you further change to the mchc (i thnk) and check off dvxa youll get gpu acceleration which seriously helps with decode and transcode.

You can help yourself if you want to use xbox 360 extenders by doing a repackage which is very fast from mkv h264s to .mp4 with level 4.1 or lower and no pyramidal b frames. Takes less than 5 minutes for a 1080p bluray, is the same size and ALWAYS works. I say this because the defaults for high profile in handbreak just changed and dont work without the settings above.

Hope that helps people get this stable. I messed with all of the sbove and this is the only one where everything icluding 7.1 sound actually worked all of the time without issues and allowed a dual core 2.8ghz core2 processor to handle 4extenders and itself playing video and recording tv and comskipping at the same time without having jitter and stutter.

Awesome info. Thanks. 2 questions:

1) is there any guide with screen shots to get this done (shark codec stuff)

2) what program are u using to repackage files? i think its better way for me to go. For now I use WMC for live tv/dvr and xbmc for downloaded content which comes in mkv files. If it takes 5 minutes to convert I rather do that and use just one program instead of switching. Any info you can provide would be awesome

Thanks

Alex