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Matroska! Wave off the future!

BS!

I have yet to have a single .mkv file EVER open with VLC. In fact, I have yet to have ANY program open a .mkv file. VLC says .mkv it is supported. VLC says there is a codec for .mkv files. Then why can't I get the things to open?

Is there a secret mantra one needs to chant? "You f---ing piece of s---!" has yet to work for me and I say it a lot when I am trying to open one of these files. Hasn't worked yet.

Any help out there?

Share the broken files.

Or tell us exactly what is the problem. (e.g. no video, no audio, slow playback etc.)

In a classic WTF!!!!! moment, I find that the 4.3GB file is mysteriously truncated to 122MB. Might explain why this one doesn't play. I still don't hold out much hope that it will play when it completes which is underway as this is written.

However ...

I have tried other Matroska files and what happens is the files simply never open at all. There is nothing at all.

I try to open the file.

VLC shows the file is correct and it is in the playlist.

The clock shows 0.00/0.00 for about 10-12 seconds and then goes back to -.--/-.--. There is not so much as a blink. No audio, no video, nothing.

This has been consistent with every Matroska file I have ever tried to open. Yes, we know why this one s---s the bed but that doesn't explain others which have also failed to load and play which were complete files.

I will check back after the file is loaded COMPLETELY (duh!) and let you know what happens. It could take a couple of days to download completely from Bittorrent.

Easier to test with
http://matroska.free.fr/samples/matrix/ ... titled.mkv

Okay, that worked ... somewhat.

The video would stall while the audio continued unabated. This stalling -- showing a still picture without motion -- would last for 5-10 seconds and occurred several times during the presentation.

The movie I was downloading has now finished and while the audio is perfect, the video is nonexistent. All that appears is a black screen. The movie has been running for five minutes without any recovery of the video whatsoever.

If I click on the progress bar farther into the movie all I am presented with is a still of the frame where I clicked. The time counts off perfectly second by second as though the movie was playing perfectly.

When I click on the progress bar there is a momentary, ~.1-.2 sec, stutter of motion before the picture goes to still.

By the by ...

HP 504n 2gHz Intel Celeron w/ 1gB RAM,
500GB hard drive @35% used,
XP sp3 Home,
VLC Media Player 1.0.2 Goldeneye

You downloaded videos are HD H.264 (x264) files? In that case you cannot play them with your Celeron if you use VLC (not enough CPU power for that).

Even with my Core Duo T2500 (2.0 GHz), both CPU cores used by vlc, with dedicated graphics, I can't run 1080p H264 .mkv container files smoothly.

You downloaded videos are HD H.264 (x264) files? In that case you cannot play them with your Celeron if you use VLC (not enough CPU power for that).

How do I interrogate the files to find that out?

Even with my Core Duo T2500 (2.0 GHz), both CPU cores used by vlc, with dedicated graphics, I can't run 1080p H264 .mkv container files smoothly.

Perhaps if I had a Cray ...

A Cray in the early '90s had similar power of a Pentium 4 with 2,4 GHz

How do I interrogate the files to find that out?

Tool called Mediainfo will tell you more about media files.

Thanks, found it.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en