Problems converting MKV for PS3 playback.

[dantesEdge-]

Hello,

I have an MKV file that I am trying to convert so that I can play it on my PS3 off of my external hard drive (FAT32). I have done this many times in the past, but something with this file must be different. The method I usually use is simply throwing the file into MKV2VOB, and remuxing the .MKV into .mpg files split at 4.0 GB increments with DTS audio converted to LPCM.

This method works flawlessly for the video, but the audio comes out heavily distorted, and after the first 5 minutes or so, there is no audio at all.

I then tried selecting the AVCHD - USB option and attempted playing it on my PS3. In this case, the audio is perfect, but the video does not play whatsoever. I also tried using TSMuxer to convert to .m2ts, AVCHD, and Blu-ray with similar results (Either distorted/missing audio or missing video)

I also tried demuxing the mkv file, and using eac3to to convert the DTS audio to AC3, but none of the "converters" (can't for the life of me remember the word) worked, not even libav. Attempting to convert DTS to wav (through advice found in another thread here) yields a file that is only 1/3 the length of the video.

ANY HELP at all on trying to get this to work would be appreciated. I could play this on another Blu-ray player, but only the PS3 is hooked up to my surround sound system, and it would more convenient to play the file on the PS3.

Thanks in advance!

[jman98]

Trying to make the PS3 play videos like this is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. Assuming you're not a starving student or a cheap bastard, a more sensible approach would be to just give up using the PS3 for this purpose and buy something like one of the Western Digital media streamers that understands DTS. It would save you a ton of time over having to convert everything. My spare time is valuable and I do have better things to do than convert videos all the time, but many feel differently and place no value on their spare time as they'd rather give up the time and have the money.

If for whatever reason you have to use the PS3, then maybe PopCorn MKV AudioConverter would work better for you. I suggest converting to AC3 rather than WAV. By the way, is your audio really DTS or is it DTS-HD? Usually with DTS-HD you need to extract the "core DTS" file first and then work with that.

[dantesEdge-]

My approach to this: Why spend extra money on something I'll use a couple times a month, when I can spend 5 minutes out of my day to setup the conversion, and have it run in the background on my computer for 20 mins while browsing reddit.

Thanks for the link to the audioconverter though! Will look into that.

[rnb5500]

This shouldn't be a problem with TSMuxer. I stream MKVs to PS3 all the time with PS3 Media Server and it uses to TSMuxer to go to m2ts.

I would check the file with MediaInfo to see if it has header stripping enabled which doesn't play well with TSMuxer.

But the fact that so many tools don't work or throw out distorted, missing or truncated streams points to possibly a corrupted file.

[dantesEdge-]

I'm not streaming, I am playing them from a USB disk.

Also, the file is not corrupt, because I have three different files (3 LOTR movies to be exact) that all behave identically.

Ill look with MediaInfo and see whats up.

[rnb5500]

Now that I think about it some more, I'm gonna take a stab that the LOTR mkv files have DTS-ES audio.

If that's the case, use eac3to to extract the core then remux with mkvmerge and then MKV2VOB.

Or extract the DTS core and convert to AC3 then use TSMuxer. You can convert the DTS-ES directly with eac3to but few decoders handle it properly, ArcSoft I believe being one of them.

[dantesEdge-]

The LOTR Movies do have DTS-ES Audio. No idea how to use eac3to to extract the core, but jman98's suggestion of popcorn audio converter worked perfectly. Thanks!