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MKV muxing issues, wrong QuickTime duration

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:29 pm
by xyankee
Issue 1

I am using the Deux Six Quatre preset. I was having problems playing my rips on certain systems. A guy who knows a lot about these things took a look at the rip and said:

"There seems to be something funny with the way it's muxed as well... I can't extract any streams using the commong methods such as mkvtoolnix and virtualdub. And MediaInfo doesn't recognize the audio stream's bitrate. How did you mux it?"

These rips are often crashing VLC, or playing with stutter in other players (mostly on Windows systems).

More on issue 1:

"There was definitely something wrong with your muxing, as Haali would not parse your rip properly. I was able to remux with mkvmerge, fixing the problem, but you should definitely make use of mkvtoolnix in future."

So I used mkvtoolnix on it and asked if that would fix the issues (audio, at least), the reply I got was:

"Remuxing should fix the mux problems, but having just tried it in mplayer there is something quite wrong with the video stream as well. CoreAVC doesn't exhibit this problem, but mplayer (and I assume VLC too) jaggs like crazy.

Not sure what would cause this, or whether it's fixable without re-encoding. Maybe go ask on doom9."


Issue 2

Another issue that I have seen: I am also ripping to x264 Main Profile. Settings are similar to the iPod Hi-Res preset, but with Main Profile and some audio changes (44.1KHz 128 AAC Pro Logic II).

QuickTime is reporting incorrect time for these rips. For example, if I use iPod Low-Res, the rip is properly recognized in QuickTime as having a runtime of 0:02:23:12.00.

If I rip with the above Main Profile settings, QuickTime reports the file has a runtime of: -2:50:23:12.00 (yes, that's negative). Obviously we can see where some numbers overlap, but there is clearly an issue going on here.

This happens consistently with every movie I rip with that preset.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:09 pm
by hawkman
1. Chapter markers and mkv don't mix in 0.9.0. It's been a widely reported problem (that's a subtle way of saying, "Use the search function!" :) ), and was fixed some time ago. Pretty certain that's your issue.

2. I understand this is a QuickTime issue, although not one I've ever experienced.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:51 pm
by xyankee
Thanks for the reply, Hawkman.

Re: 1 -- I know about the chapter issue. This isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the actual successfully encoded output, there is something definitely awry in both the audio/video muxing with Handbrake and the video itself. More info from my friend:

"I think that problem too is/was caused by weird muxing, since there is no way an encode can be that messed up from using bad settings... It's like the video player displays one frame, skips 3 (b-frames maybe?), and then jumps back and plays the skipped frames making it appear to stutter."

This problem presents itself with all the Deux Six Quatre rips I've done (and I've done a lot, since I didn't notice it as QuickTime/Perian play them fine, and apart from VLC crashing (a lot) VLC could usually handle them ok on my Mac, too).

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:19 pm
by hawkman
Fair enough. The preset has chapters on by default, at least in svn, hence my assumption. I don't have a lot of experience with mkv, I usually avoid it; jbrjake probably uses/knows it the most.

VLC crashing with mkv is quite common for me too, and not just with HB's output.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 3:30 pm
by xyankee
Yea, I long ago turned chapters off after I tried it with the preset, got the muxing problem, searched the forums, and got my answer ;)

If you could gently prod jbrjake in the direction of this post when you/he has a chance, that would be terrific. thanks!

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:37 pm
by jbrjake
Err...the mkv muxer is saintdev's, not mine.

As I recall, the issues are with how VLC parses mkv -- what saintdev is doing is fully within mkv spec. I don't use Windows, and the mkvs work fine in Perian and in VLC 0.8.6c and in MPlayer on my Mac, so I don't feel the problem is in any way HandBrake's...

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 9:32 pm
by xyankee
I hate to keep playing telephone, but this is the latest from my friend after I relayed this post:
That sounds weird to me, since VLC is the only player than can play the file without extreme problems. Zoom Player doesn't even try to play it, but merely gives me an error message about a corrupted stream.

What makes it even more strange is that I can't extract streams from or remux the file. On the other hand, the team working on Handbrake is very talented, so one would think they know what they're doing.

Is there any way for you to come to the irc channel? It would make troubleshooting, testing and sending files much easier. If not, please try to mux a short clip without audio and see if that works better.

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:04 pm
by xyankee
FWIW, these problems persist with 0.9.1... :?

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:59 pm
by xyankee
Can anyone on the HB team tell me if these issues are being looked into? Thanks!

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:20 pm
by remyhelsinki
I'd also love to know. I'm sure Saintdev is busy and I don't want to harass anyone, but if else knows a bit about mkv and could offer an explanation as to why these problems may be happening it would be informative.