How to play MKV files on my LG television

[kaligula]

Hi All,

Having a very annoying problem with being unable to play mkv files on my new LG 32LD490.

Salesman gave me a blanket "yes, it plays mkv videos" response when I enquired, but haven't had any luck getting it to play any of the ones i have downloaded, now LG tell me that none of their TVs support mkv videos, which seems a little contradictory. Also, I've seen plenty of talk online of people able to play mkv's on other model LG televisions with some playing around, so despite what LG say i'm still a little hopeful.

Seen some threads that advised getting MKVToolnix remoxing with some changes, in particular I've tried changing the (header?) compression to none on all the video and audio tracks and remuxing, no joy. SOmeone mentioned they had some success with a plasma LG tv using an older version of MKVToolnix (4.0.0) which I also tried. Also tried removing all bt the video track with the old version, again to no avail.

I can't seem to find anything on LGs site about exactly what file formats or codecs this tv can play, and guy i spoke to had no idea if any updates were going to be made to correct the problem any time soon.

Attached screenshot of tracks from mkvtools.

Can anyone suggest anything else i can try?

Thanks!

[dylz]

Yeah alot of people have trouble with media on tvs, is there any logos on the tv like divx divx plus or MKV, if not look in your tv manual under supported formats and tell us the supported formats etc....

[kaligula]

Can't see any logos, but this was in the guide under supported formats:

Movie(*.mpg/*.mpeg/*.dat/*.ts/*.trp/*.tp/*.vob/*.mp4/*.mov/*.mkv/*.dvix/*.avi/*.asf/*.wmv/*.avi(motion-jpeg)/*.mp4(motionjpeg)/*.
mkv(motion-jpeg))supporting file
Video format : DivX3.11, DivX4.12, DivX5.x, DivX6, Xvid1.00, Xvid1.01, Xvid1.02, Xvid1.03, Xvid1.10 beta-1/beta-2,
Mpeg-1, Mpeg-2, Mpeg-4, H.264/AVC, VC1, JPEG, Sorenson H.263
Audio format : Dolby Digital, AAC, Mpeg, MP3, LPCM, HE-AAC, ADPCM, WMA
Bit rate : within 32 kbps to 320 kbps(MP3)
External Subtitle format : *.smi/*.srt/*.sub(MicroDVD,Subviewer1.0/2.0)/*.ass/*.ssa/*.txt(TMPlayer)/*.psb(PowerDivX)
Internal Subtitle format : only, XSUB (It is the subtitle format used in DivX6 files)

[kaligula]

Just to clarify I do own the bluray of district 9, just want to have all my films on my home media server

[dylz]

I assume the only way your playing these are via usb does it say whether it supports NTFS or FAT32 drive(or) Both?, my BD Player plays from both but tvs are weird that way...

1st thing I would do is test with different mkv files to see if it's the encoding on that specific mkv if that's not the prob then with mkvtoolnix open the mkv in it go [File>Options>Tick Disable Header compression].

If that don't work it could be the avc level is too high, can you view and select them and they just don't play or can't you see them at all? if you can't see them i'd guess it's the usb not supported and you have to reformat but if it just won't play then download tsmuxer open the mkv select change AVC level too 4.1 or 4.0 then tick demux as it doesn't have mkv option, open the h.264/avc and audio in mkvtoolnix and mux back using the original framerate.