X264 .MKV file on VLC... cannot play, help MAC NOOB!!

[TheAminator]

Hey guys, sorry but i'm a brand new MAC user, and recently D/Loaded some torrents...

There is a specific file which is giving me a headache, it has a . MKV or matroska extension, i have tried absolutely everything to get it to play, VLC just won't do it... any suggestions?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[timmybomb]

Why isn't anyone responding to this? I discovered that VLC stopped playing .mkv files about 4 weeks ago. Up to that point, it played these files beautifully. In fact, those files were the reason that I used VLC. I can't figure out why people aren't talking about this problem.

Because the VLC community isn't paying attention to this problem, I have decided to use a different program. I'm now using a plug-in called "Perian" (a codec collection), which makes it possible to play .mkv files inside of Quicktime. It's not the best solution (each movie has to load for several seconds before you can play the file), but it's the only solution that I have found. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Cheerio.

[LeChuck]

Noone's answered probably because they haven't found that issue.

I use the latest version with x264 mkvs. I have tried Perian with Quicktime. It also seems to play it just fine. I wanted to see if playback didn't have some of the choppiness that happens from time to time with VLC but didn't get around to testing. I'm not sure but if Perian uses FFMPEG for playback of those files, why would it be any different than VLC. Wondering if Perian + Quicktime would make better use of a dual-core processor.

What I did notice though is that CPU use is higher with Perian and the fans in my Macbook kick in and go high very quickly. They don't with VLC. Once agin, no idea if it's because Perian has a slower decoding or if it's because it can use more of the CPU's power (the second core) and therefore can push it higher.

[timmybomb]

Interesting...I have no idea why my VLC suddenly stopped playing these files if others are not experiencing the same problem. I'm not very happy with the Perian/Quicktime combo. I too have noticed that my MacBook Pro heats up very quickly when using Perian. I also have very choppy video sometimes, which is stupid because I've got plenty of processing power and RAM. Perhaps I'll try VLC one more time, but if it doesn't work I'd rather have choppy high-def than .avi

[johnnym26]

I have the same problem. I have ripped one movie with Handbrake and played it with VLC. I got a choppy sound and thought that my rip failed. Then I played with QT and it was OK. Other mkvs I played so far were ok.
I hope developers will fix it really soon.

[nunocantao]

The stupidest thing ever happened to me! I used to be able to play some 720p mkv's that i had downloaded, they played really nicelly with vlc, no complaints, but it's been 3 days and I can't seem to get my mbp (c2d 2.4ghz, 2Gb of RAM, nvidia 8600mgt 256MB) to play those old mkv files on vlc, or on any other player for that matter, i mean they all play it it's just that they choke a lot on them :S vlc freezes every 2 seconds, mplayer plays the file really slowly and quicktime + perian chokes a lot too :S I started to think, if VLC uses mainly cpu for decoding those mkv files, and i used to be able to play them just fine, and now it's impossible, is it possible that i've lost processing power?! please guys, i'd really appreciate your help! :S

[jbpounders]

Same problem here, .mkv just randomly stop playing on my MacBook.. They worked perfectly for a long time now I can barely watch 2-3 minutes. Any solutions is welcomed.

[NumbGreenThumb]

I now have the same problem as well. Before upgrading to 0.9.2 I was able to play 720p MKV files without any issues. Since upgrading I can get almost completely through a movie but then it just stops with about 20-30 minutes left (before the exact same movie would play fine). No error messages, no crash, no nothing...just the video dies. It's getting very frustrating.

[donniedarko]

Same thing here. I am new to bittorrent and have found latest Anime are in the H.264 codec, as it seems. Playback is pretty poor
9.3 actually made it better but still unwatchable.

Any thoughts or help?

Not all negative thank you for making VLC, great app!
Thanks

[The DJ]

It's quite simple though. x264 encoded video is simply CPU intensive to decode. If you cannot, don't whine, but buy a faster computer or don't play the videos (/seek alternative versions).

[donniedarko]

It's quite simple though. x264 encoded video is simply CPU intensive to decode. If you cannot, don't whine, but buy a faster computer or don't play the videos (/seek alternative versions).

I find that a tough sell. I have a Mac that is not that old, and totally optimized. Secondly other H.264 movies on the Quicktime platform and via iTunes play with no issue.

[heffeque]

Same problem here. The problem is usually with big mkv files. If they are HD but short (20-30 minutes) there's no problem. When they're long, like 2 and a half hours long, then the problems occur, specially when there are several audio and subtitle tracks involved.

I'm in a new MacBook Pro.

Edit: I went back to 0.8.6b and most of my problems with playing those mkv files were gone:
http://download.videolan.org/pub/videol ... -intel.dmg
Remember to delete preferences before downgrading. Using the free software called AppCleaner is a good option.

[heffeque]

I wanted to ask a small question. I haven't tried 0.8.6 c, d, e, f, g, h or i because I remember that I had the mkv problems with the latest 0.8.6 ones so I just jumped to one I remember that worked ok (probably c works ok too, but I'm not in a mood to try).
The thing is. I'm planning on using VLC 0.9.3 for everything except big mkv files (4 GB and above). Is it possible to have two VLC installed? Will it be a problem if I rename the 0.8.6b version to VLCold and install the new VLC as is? Will the 0.8.6b still work even if I rename it? Thanks in advance. I'd hate to have to delete the 0.9.3 version and install the 0.8.6b one every time I want to watch a long HD movie in mkv (and most movies I watch are HD in mkv). HD series in mkv aren't a problem for 0.9.3 because they are not long enough for 0.9.3 to crash, but still... I do watch movies every once in a while.

Thanks in advance.

[donniedarko]

Same problem here. The problem is usually with big mkv files. If they are HD but short (20-30 minutes) there's no problem. When they're long, like 2 and a half hours long, then the problems occur, specially when there are several audio and subtitle tracks involved.

I'm in a new MacBook Pro.

Edit: I went back to 0.8.6b and most of my problems with playing those mkv files were gone:
http://download.videolan.org/pub/videol ... -intel.dmg
Remember to delete preferences before downgrading. Using the free software called AppCleaner is a good option.

So we have a high PPC chipset, and then a new Intel Duo chipset with same result.

Please VLC helps us sucka's, my best manga is going unseen

[The DJ]

VLC does not use QuickTime. VLC is an opensource player that uses opensource and Free codecs for everything. Apple is using a proprietary codec and on top of that is probably using some hardware acceleration features of your Graphics card to which VLC has no access (complaints to be filed at the GPU makers). There is no magic wand that makes stuff work out of the blue

[heffeque]

VLC does not use QuickTime. VLC is an opensource player that uses opensource and Free codecs for everything. Apple is using a proprietary codec and on top of that is probably using some hardware acceleration features of your Graphics card to which VLC has no access (complaints to be filed at the GPU makers). There is no magic wand that makes stuff work out of the blue

But you _do_ know that there's the problem with these big mkv files with newer versions of VLC, right? (stability wise, not performance wise) Or are you just assuming that the problem exists only for a very few amount of people that it's not worth correcting. Just asking, because I'd totally understand not wanting to correct a bug that only a very few amount of people may have.

[donniedarko]

VLC does not use QuickTime. VLC is an opensource player that uses opensource and Free codecs for everything. Apple is using a proprietary codec and on top of that is probably using some hardware acceleration features of your Graphics card to which VLC has no access (complaints to be filed at the GPU makers). There is no magic wand that makes stuff work out of the blue

Understood, and do get me wrong you guys do a great job... just wanted to mention the issue, and get some input to ya.

[heffeque]

Ok, for those of you with the mkv problem. I've got a solution.

1. First uninstall VLC (whatever the version is) with AppCleaner (this software is free and a must-have).
2. Download VLC 0.8.6b from here: http://download.videolan.org/pub/videol ... 6b/macosx/
3. Drag the VLC.app (0.8.6b) to the Application folder but don't open it.
4. Rename VLC.app to VLCold.app
5. Open VLC and then close it.
6. Download the latest VLC (0.9.3 today).
7. Drag the app to the Application folder.
8. Open it. It will ask you if you want to delete previous configurations. Say yes.
9. Done.
10. Open all media files with VLC.app and the problematic mkv files open them with VLCold.app
11. The CPU usage of VLC and VLCold is similar (at least in the problematic mkv files that I've tried).

[donniedarko]

Thanks for the tip... Its weird the new versions plays better then the old but still crumby. Its cool, sure it will get fixed.

[Fishcake21]

I've been following on this thread for a while, I also own a Macbook pro, last generation 2.4 ghz 17 inch with Geforce 8600M 256mb

This problem mostly with x264/mkvs, especially the HD 1080p is just how apple's stuff was poorly implimented... let me explain

Perian no doubt is a great tool, but because of the limitations with the Quicktime Player itself, it results in issues with parsing video (the developer explained about it on his homepage), but what is actually worse and its probably the Achilles heel for perian with x264 is that quicktime supports absolutely no hardware acceleration with h264, thus it all relies on CPU power, and as much as perian tries (Dunno about apple's native drivers how they work with their own h264), it chugs especially on scenes that requires more bandwidth. Part of that problem is all on OSX and how quicktime uses resources for h264.
On a side note I think perian 1.0 runs x264 better than the latest version, and it also doesn't penalize Apple Quicktime Movie trailers 1080p/Apple TV

I guess on how Videolan and the other players work, they rely on CPU power as well, though Videolan is the best program I can try out to play the videos remotely sastifactory....
One option i set up so i can get the video to play back smoothly is to go to VLC's preferences, click on input/codecs, go down to other codecs, then to FFMPEG, click on advanced tab (located at the bottom left) to open more options, go to skip the loop filter for h264, i set it to nonkey, and so far its working fine, you can play with it around, just note that on all the quality turns to crap

Strange consider how stuff like WMVHD 1080p even runs fine with OSXplayer and quicktime using their drivers.

Some examples, most 720p plays fine with quicktime or videolan, 1080ps usually have the problem cause they chug alot on scenes that takes up high bandwidth.

The only solution i can find with my macbook pro, unfortunately is to install windows using their klite pack, because this has the geforce 8600 use graphics acceleration, and thus i get no drops at all even with 1080p and faster seeking with WMP, sucks I know, but all i could think of.

But another problem I got with windows WMP with klite is how there's screen tearing and vsync issues when outputing from DVI port to my TV set :/ oh well i guess there is no end to sastifying someone who wants to view these formats.... conversion anybody? I never done the MKV to mp4 but I'm this close to try it out due to fustrations :>

[heffeque]

One option i set up so i can get the video to play back smoothly is to go to VLC's preferences, click on input/codecs, go down to other codecs, then to FFMPEG, click on advanced tab (located at the bottom left) to open more options, go to skip the loop filter for h264, i set it to nonkey, and so far its working fine, you can play with it around, just note that on all the quality turns to crap

That helps with performance, not with stability. Some of us don't have the performance problems but do have stability issues.

[ffooky]

Fishcake21, have you tried Plex? Extremely unmac-like interface but it's my first port of call when there are problems with 0.9.* VLC and it handles 1080p x264 MKV files very well.

[sandeepg]

I've had similar problems with all of my 720p .mkv's. At different points during playback always near the end of the film - sometimes 10 minutes from the end, sometimes 40 minutes and variations in-between - playback ends without any error message but VLC still open. For the time-being heffeque's suggestion of using 0.8.6b works perfectly for me.

Fishcake21, have you tried Plex? Extremely unmac-like interface but it's my first port of call when there are problems with 0.9.* VLC and it handles 1080p x264 MKV files very well.

I've just given Plex a go and you weren't kidding when you said it was very unmac-like huh? It has a lot of problems, one of the main ones being you can't seek within a file. I think until there's a better alternative, using an older version of VLC is the only solution right now.

Also, I hate to rock the boat, but just using 0.9.3 and 0.8.6b on the same machine, has anyone noticed that seeking through a file is much, much slower on 0.9.3. My dual-core cpu spikes to 90-110% for about 30 seconds when seeking at any point in a .mkv whereas 0.8.6b handles it instantly - no spike at all. Weird.

[heffeque]

Also, I hate to rock the boat, but just using 0.9.3 and 0.8.6b on the same machine, has anyone noticed that seeking through a file is much, much slower on 0.9.3. My dual-core cpu spikes to 90-110% for about 30 seconds when seeking at any point in a .mkv whereas 0.8.6b handles it instantly - no spike at all. Weird.

True... very true...

[The DJ]

Let me get this straight. almost all files with which we have seen this issue have been made with OLD mkvmerge versions. We can play them if we ignore the SeekHead, but that's not really right (you loose chapters, attachments and all that sort of stuff). I have had 0 problems with mkv files created with mkvmerge versions post-April 2008.