X.264 Playback Issues and Converting

[Dschultz]

First of all, thank you very much for reading my post. I appreciate your time.

My problem is this. I've got some .MKV files (x.264) that playback horribly on two separate computers. The main PC I'd like them to work on is a newer PC I've custom built. It's running Windows Vista Ultimate x86 and it's a Personal Video Recorder for my HD LCD TV. When playing these MKV 1080i (x.264) files, they either A> run with choppy audio B> run like they are in slow motion or >C run out of video/audio sync. Now, I do have a few 720p DivX6 / AC3 files that run great and the 5.1 surround sound is fantastic not to mention the beautiful video quality. No choppy problems.

So I have 2 options at this point.

A. Convert all my current and all future MKV x.264 to another High Defition format to maintain:
- High quality sound 5.1 surround
- High Definition video 720-1080i

or

B. Figure out a way to get these files to run smoothly on my Vista Ultimate x86 Media Center.



of course... option B would be the best. I'd prefer that my PVR box was able to handle any format of video I throw at it. Any ideas gentleman? I've done some Googling and I see that many people have problems with x.264 files or MKV files. I don't know if it's the MKV that's a problem or the x.264. Any help here would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!!

-Dave

[Baldrick]

What decoders are you using? Try ffdshow for h264 and for the audio use ac3filter.

[Dschultz]

What decoders are you using? Try ffdshow for h264 and for the audio use ac3filter.

Okay, I updated to the latest FFDShow and AC3Filter decoders as you've suggested. I went and had a look at my installed programs list and found "CCCP - Combined Community Codec Pack" installed. It's 1-24-2008 on the build. Is that okay?

After installing the suggested decoders, I am still unable to play the X.264 / MKV file. It's in slow motion and the video/audio is choppy or seems to pause. The only file I have here at work to test this with is an 8gb x.264 MKV file. (movie: Terminator). I'll need to test this at home on the PC in question but it didn't fix the problem on my laptop here at work. (Acer Aspire 5100 / 1gig ram / AMD Turion64 x2 1.6ghz / ATI Radeon Xpress 1100).

I am playing the file off of a 2.5in External HDD enclosure running across USB 2.0. Is that a problem? Should I move it to my local HDD? My local C: is a 7200rpm HDD and the external is a 5400rpm HDD. I figured 5400/USB2.0 would be quick enough?

[Dschultz]

Sorry for the double post. I actually have a 70MB x.264 .MKV video file on my local HDD which I played and had the same problem with. Freezing/slow motion. Audio out of sync. Freezing begins about 10 seconds into the video.

All playback is in Windows Media Player 9.0. Should I upgrade to 10?

Is this common with the x.264 or MKV formats/standards?

[jman98]

It's actually two issues. The first issue is that X.264/H.264 take a LOT of CPU horsepower for processing. This has nothing to do with the MKV container format. Unfortunately at present video cards are not really able to offload the processing for H.264/X.264 video, so that means that the CPU has to do 100% of the work. For best results, you should not be using your PC for any other jobs while playing back these videos. Vista is NOT helping you at all, but you might have problems under XP too. Vista is definitely not making this easier though.

Secondly, the resolution is important too. 1080p H.264/X.264 takes a lot more resources than 720p H.264/X.264 video does.

You might consider installing and using the free VLC Media Player to play these files. I can actually get good results out of 720p H.264/X.264 playback on my old single CPU PC using VLC Media Player. Many have found that it enables them to play files successfully that otherwise won't play.

[Dschultz]

It's actually two issues. The first issue is that X.264/H.264 take a LOT of CPU horsepower for processing. This has nothing to do with the MKV container format. Unfortunately at present video cards are not really able to offload the processing for H.264/X.264 video, so that means that the CPU has to do 100% of the work. For best results, you should not be using your PC for any other jobs while playing back these videos. Vista is NOT helping you at all, but you might have problems under XP too. Vista is definitely not making this easier though.

Secondly, the resolution is important too. 1080p H.264/X.264 takes a lot more resources than 720p H.264/X.264 video does.

You might consider installing and using the free VLC Media Player to play these files. I can actually get good results out of 720p H.264/X.264 playback on my old single CPU PC using VLC Media Player. Many have found that it enables them to play files successfully that otherwise won't play.

Okay so this is making sense. I'll need to work on my vista install to reduce the number of services and stuff running on the system. Having Windows DreamScene running in the background probably isn't helping

I can't go to VLC because the entire idea is to use Windows Vista Media Center to play all of my movie files / pictures /dvd's / music / TV... etc. I like VLC too but it's a pain to exit Vista Media Center and start up VLC using only a VMC channel changer

Resolution, it works good with 720p but not 1080p, that explains it. Thanks.

So basically I'd have to update my CPU which... wasn't top of the line 1 year and 3 months ago when I bought it.

I do have a 64bit proccessor but am using a 32bit version of windows vista. Do you believe that doing a fresh install of Vista x64 would better utilize my CPU and therefore it would perform playback of these files better? Are these codecs and such compatible with Vista x64?

Thanks!

[Baldrick]

Have you checked the cpu usage in the task manager while you play? But yes 1080p is probably too much. On my 1.8gz C2D can I play most 1080p h264 fine using latest versions of ffdshow and if I use coreavc it works even better.

[Dschultz]

With your help I solved the problem!!

Here is what I did:

1. Greatly reduced CPU usage by turning off a bunch of stuff in Windows Vista that made it all look pretty but run shatty. (Including Dreamscape / Services / iTunes / Trillian Chat application)

2. Changed settings in CCCP (Core Community Codec Pack) so that FFSHOW no longer decodes H.264 files.

3. Installed CoreAVC Professional which comes with Haali Splitter.

4. Uninstalled any other codecs I had installed.

Now the 1080p files playback way better but only when I have NOTHING running except for Vista Media Center. My CPU has gone from 95-100% usage prior to the steps above, it is now 78-90%. 90% being the moment I begin playing the file but 78-85% during normal playback.

Thanks for all of your help!

[jman98]

Glad we helped, but you screwed up by not telling us to begin with that you were married to Vista Media Center and unless we found a way to make that work, we were just wasting our time. That was kind of important and you really blew it by not telling us that. We thought you just wanted playback to work, not that it was only acceptable to you that one specific solution worked for you.

[Dschultz]

Glad we helped, but you screwed up by not telling us to begin with that you were married to Vista Media Center and unless we found a way to make that work, we were just wasting our time. That was kind of important and you really blew it by not telling us that. We thought you just wanted playback to work, not that it was only acceptable to you that one specific solution worked for you.

"So I have 2 options at this point.

A. Convert all my current and all future MKV x.264 to another High Defition format to maintain:
- High quality sound 5.1 surround
- High Definition video 720-1080i

or

B. Figure out a way to get these files to run smoothly on my Vista Ultimate x86 Media Center. "


Those are the two options quoted verbatim from my OP. Maybe my choice of words weren't *strong* enough to make it clear that this is a solution for VMC. If that's the case, I apologize. Nonetheless the combined (community) advice did help me work through the problem. The only thing I would be wondering at this point is if Vista x64 with my 64 bit processor would improve the CPU's utilization and ability to work with these large 1080p X.264 files. Thanks for all of your help.

[Ghostinthechocolate]

jman98 doesn't know what he is talking about. As the most recent batch of video cards offload the entire decoding process of h.264 from the cpu to the video card. Bringing cpu usage down to under 20% on old P4's and virtual zilch on newer systems. You will need to look at cards that support ATI's UVD or Nvidia's second version of Purevideo HD.
Here are a couple links to get you started:
Tom's Hardware's comparison between AVIVO HD and PureVideo
Anandtech's comparison between Avivo and PureVideo