Windows 7 Media Center : Setup Guide, Knowledge Base & Support - Page 117

Well. Right now I primarily rip to BluRay folder structure (main movie only) using AnyDVD + Clown_BD. This allows me to capture forced subs with ease and has been most compatible with the various players I use.

As far as mkvs, I actually am still a little bit old school and use Clown_BD + mkvmerge

However, I think BluRip is probably one of the best solutions out there (requires AnyDVD)

MakeMKV is great and free as of now (it decrypts without the need for ANyDVD). The only thing I don't like is it doesn't set the forced flag for forced subtitled.

Here is a list of the various mkv articles I have written

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/tag/mkv/

Hope that helps

Thanks for the tip, I will try metabrowser.

At last my slim DVD/BR drive came in, completing my new little HTPC. It works great when I play a DVD (no BRs to test it with yet) in Windows Media Player or Media Player Classic, but when I attempt to play it from within Windows Media Center one of two things occurs:

Most common: VIDEO ERROR
Files needed to display video are not installed or not working correctly. Please restart Windows Media Center or restart the computer.

Less common: The DVD actually plays but looks horribly pixelated. It looks like a 640x480 feed being blown up to fill the screen.

Googling around I see that the "Video error" thing can have to do with HDMI audio. But this doesn't always happen.

Get a free BR movie rental from RedBox, here some codes - http://www.hotbuzz4u.com/redbox-free...l-promo-codes/

I've been using XBMC as my primary player for TV and movies but have MC7 set up as a PVR using an Infinitv card. I've been using the MC EZ Sort script combined with MCEbuddy as an archival tool for old shows to get them into XBMC but have been running into lots of problems on the conversions.

I'm interested if anyone knows of an alternative method of batch transferring recordings over from MC7 to XBMC. Commercial skipping isn't that important to me as most of the shows being recorded don't have any. Preserving metadata and putting season and episode number into the file name is more important.

I just started playing around with MKV containers and WMC7, and I cannot get MC to play any MKV's. I was following the guide at the beginning of this thread and got the Shark codecs (and the 64 bit components), installed as directed with UAC enabled, etc. but still no go.

From what I understand, WMC should be able to handle the MKVs with just the Shark codecs correct? Not sure what I am doing wrong...

Video Error Files needed to display video are not installed or not working.

I had this problem when playing recorded TV in 7MC. Turning off transition animations and playing sounds when navigating Windows Media Center seemed to help in my case. You can find these settings in Media Center's Tasks - 'Settings', 'General', 'Visual and Sound Effects'.

If you have a Radeon ATI/AMD video card, try disabling any of the advanced quality settings in the Catalyst Control Center.

DVD PQ very bad with fresh install of 7MC.

In my case the setting that caused the most problems was 'dynamic contrast'.

Press [Reset All] and then on the Help TAB of Settings Application, use the button [Windows Filetype Associations]

I had already tried the sound effects setting. Animations as well seems to have done the trick. Very strange, thanks.



Intel GPU on an i3. Interestingly enough, it only seems to be the menus that look all pixelated. The movie itself looks fine once playing.

DVRMSToolbox can do what you want. You can create a new policy that will transcode the WTV to a more friendly format, rename it based on your rules and move the file to your XBMC TV Shows location.

Then, using the auto library update add-on in XBMC -- voila.

I really haven't been able to locate a solution to the issue where the blank window appears while browsing your media in Media Browser / Media Center.

It gives you an error when you click on the window that says "We can not maximize this window. It is a known bug with windows 7 and TV pack. Media Browser must be restarted."

I don't actually use WMC / MB for TV shows, just my locally stored movies.

The blank window just appears in the upper right of the screen when I've selected a movie from the cover art stream and the HD poster is showing, along with the synopsis and options to play the movie, etc. I could post a screenshot if that helps.

I searched the MB Community Tracker, but it seems their search function is broken. I looked through the first several pages of the forum, but couldn't find anything relevant.

If you or anyone else knows of a solution to this issue, I would really appreciate some tips.

Hey everyone,
I'm wondering about a little problem I've encountered with my setup. When I'm watching an OTA broadcast I w7mc, I have noticed that the picture is zoomed in slightly. I can tell because the little station logo ( most noticeably Fox) will be slightly cut off at the bottom. If I switch to my tv which is getting the same feed, I can see the whole channel logo. I know the tv is set at a 1:1 ratio as when I close w7mc, I get the full desktop. I have verified that the zoom function in w7mc is off, and I think my video card settings are ok because, once again, the desktop looks great when w7mc is closed. I would also note that when I'm in w7mc, all of the menus and everything else appear in the correct places. I'm also pretty sure this only is happening with live or recorded OTA broadcasts; it's hard to verify with movies (encoded as mkvs) but I'm pretty sure I'm getting the whole picture with them.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Does anyone have a walkthrough they could link for setting this up? I installed Media Center Master but it looks like it does an awful lot that I don't need/want. I already have a script running on my media server (where all my downloading is done) that moves and renames files, etc.

I really just need to store my metadata locally is all. MediaBrowser is losing it every other day lately.

You can find my MetaBrowser writeups here:

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...n-the-horizon/

http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011...-at-whats-new/

I installed Media Center Master and ran a fetch on all of my movies. It found everything quickly (multi-threaded fetching is pretty cool). However, MediaBrowser isn't using any of its artwork or anything. It's still just refreshing (slowly) on its own like it always does when it loses its data. Is there a setting somewhere that I can point it to what Media Center Master has downloaded?

Try shutting off in media browser the option to grab metadata via online (this should force media browser to either local metadata or if not present nothing at all)

Do I really need Shark's codec pack if all I want to watch is the following types of files in 64 bit WMC?

MKVs rips from DVD and Blu-ray
M4V files made with Handbrake

Is there just one plugin that can handle those files?

No. You will need to install a splitter for your mkvs (haali, lavsplitter, matroskasplitter). If you want to bitstream HD Audio you will also need to install ffdshow.

Granted, I just simply have mpc hc launch via Media Browser for my BluRay mkvs and don't have to worry about any codec packs or additional hacks.

If you want to use the internal WMC player why not try Sharks pack?

I'm just using Media Browser to launch all my files stored on an external drive. I've installed Sharks pack but it just seems like overkill for the few amount of file types I'm playing.

My setup is going to be Media Browser handling all my stored files and TMT5 handling actual Blu-ray and DVD discs.

You don't need to install anything additional for mp4/m4v. Why don't you just try installing a splitter first and see if that covers all bases. If not then I would recommend either just using MPC HC for mkvs or going with Shark

Sounds like a plan. Thanks.

LAV is showing to be superior to ffdshow (for me anyhow).

Another question, another answer. You guys are awesome.

And now one more...

MediaBrowser has taken to crashing on me during playback. This typically happens in the first five minutes or so of whatever I happen to play. Everything will be fine one second and the next I have a program has stopped responding, restart, debug, blah blah blah.

Interestingly, when I hit restart it takes me back to the Media Center home. When I try to enter MediaBrowser it immediately crashes again, this time only giving me the option to close. Once I do this and open WMC back up MediaBrowser behaves for the rest of the video. It could be happening only after the PC has slept, but I'm not sure of that yet.

Anyhow, below is what I found in the logs (trimmed for readability):

Can someone explain to me about RGB and YCBCR on HTPC. So my question is when play MKV or Bluray movie by selecting YCBCr in the video card menu, does the PC convert ycbcr->rgb->ycbcr or does the video handle it without converting like a BLUray player ? Since Bluray are encoded YCBCr 16-25 color space. ?

Yet another issue. When playing AVIs (AVIs only, MKVs are fine) in Windows Media Center I get video speed-ups every few seconds. Some seem to be worse/more noticeable than others. When I play these same files through Windows Media Player outside of Media Center they play fine.

This has just started in the last few days and I can't recall making any setting changes or installing anything at all. Have tried rebooting already. Any suggestions?

Edit: I might should explain a bit better what's happening here. Every 3 to 5 seconds the video speeds up for a few frames. So if you're watching a fan spin slowly on the screen every 5 seconds or so it will make two revolutions very quickly then slow back down to normal speed. Audio seems to stay in sync, which is very strange because I'm not seeing any comparable slowdowns at any point. It's not slowing down then speeding up a few frames to catch up or anything. I'm at a loss as to why it's only happening under Media Center but not in WMP stand-alone.

I have my MKV ripping as shown at the start of this thread. I did not do option 3. linkhttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...2#post18654022 The video is fine on all of my rips, but on some movies I only get the core audio. Avatar plays in DTS HD MA, but Iron Man 2 plays in Dolby Digital. What am I doing wrong?

Sounds like a TrueHD issue (Iron Man 2). So you are using Sharks Codec Pack, correct?

Yes, the problem seems to be with TrueHD. I am using Windows 7, 64 bit and I am using Sharks Codec Pack. I have it configured just like it is shown in the link I posted above, stopping at optional step 3.

And you have FFDSHow Audio ticked off as well as using the Gabest splitter in place of Haali?

I am not sure if SHarks codec pack comes installed with MPC HC, but if so I would try playing through that and not WMC to see if TrueHD works. This should at least help narrow the issue down.

Also, I believe Shark monitors this thread so hopefully he pokes his head in with some advice as well.

I have it set up like these are.
http://postimage.org/image/28lk2mqdg/
http://postimage.org/image/28lk2mqdg/