Proper MKV Format for Playback on A Media Player

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

Here is an MKV conversion, by a friend of mine, of one of his KF DVDs ... which when I tried to play it on my Netgear EVA9100 (it is a Media Player like WDTV player) ... it had No Sound and the Subtitle would Not playback.

Now from my readings here I realize that MKV is just a Container that can handle various Video and Audio Formats in it ... but ...

I was wondering what is the "Proper" Format for an MKV so it can be played back on a Stand-alone Media Player ... such as "Netgear EVA9100" or a "WDTV HD Media Player"!?!?

Most of the time my problem of playbackis due to ...

A) Audio does not playback ... No Sound?

Q1: So, what Format should Audio be in? Does the Sampling matter?

B) No Subtitles can be seen?

Q2: What format is the best!?!? It seems IDX sub can not be seen.

Also, each time I use MKVMerge (from MKVToolNix) to make my New MKV file ... the darn File does NOT play back on the media player ... and I have to go in and fix the HEADER.

Q3: Can someone tell me why this Happens? and how to make MKVToolNix work properly?

BTW FYI, here is MediaInfo of the MKV file ... I had to convert the Subtitles from IDX/SUB to SRT and convert my Audio from AAC to MP3 so it can work (converted to MP3, since I did Not have a AAC to AC3 freeware converter handy).

General
Unique ID :
Complete name : G:\TDK.mkv
Format : Matroska
File size : 623 MiB
Duration : 1h 22mn
Overall bit rate : 1054 Kbps
Movie name :
Encoded date :
Writing application : mkvmerge v2.4.0 ('Fumbling Towards Ecstasy') built on Oct 11 2008 20:13:15
Writing library : libebml v0.7.7 + libmatroska v0.8.1

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 22mn
Nominal bit rate : 1 000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 304 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.35:1
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.152
Writing library : x264 core 98 r1649 c54c47d
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=1000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=50000 / vbv_bufsize=50000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00 / nal_hrd=none

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : HE-AAC / LC
Codec ID : A_AAC
Duration : 1h 22mn
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz / 24.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Title : 国语
Language : Chinese
Text #1
ID : 3
Format : VobSub
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used
on DVDs
Title : 繁体中文
Language : Chinese
Text #2
ID : 4
Format : VobSub
Muxing mode : zlib
Codec ID : S_VOBSUB
Codec ID/Info : The same subtitle format used
on DVDs
Title : 英文
Language : English

Thanks,

G!

[aedipuss]

media players are all different. you. need. to. read. the. f. manual. to see what it can play.

[jman98]

I went to the Netgear website and I was stunned at how truly terrible their documentation is. I honestly don't know WHAT it will play. Wow. A new low for sure in product documentation.

gonwk - Since it's impossible to know what the damn thing will play because the documentation doesn't say, you'll have to go to the official Netgear forum for the player and ask there. The subtitles may be required to be in a separate file with the same name as the MKV file. For example, if you have IDX subtitles and your video is called MYVIDEO.MKV, then the IDX subtitle file has to be called MYVIDEO.IDX.

AAC audio may not be supported, but again, I have no idea what it will play since they don't even tell you that.

[gonwk]

Hi aedipuss & jman98,

Thanks for your replies.

Actually I got the MKV file working ... by converting my Audio and Subtitles ... made the Audio MP3 and Subs to SRT.

I have played other freinds MKV files ... just as they are and the Media Player did fine ... I was trying to figure out which Format is the easiest on the Media Player ... I thought there is a LOW Standard that "any Machine" could play back.

BTW, can you folks tell me if you have experienced some glitches with MKVToolNix (MKVMerge) ... when reMuxing a "Working" MKV file!?!? You know the thing would play first ... then when I converted some components and remux it again ... now it chokes on playback!?!?

Thanks,

G!