Matroska? Hardware support?

[NeD tHe OnE]

Well... Does Matroska files has hardware support?!

I have recently started ripping my DVD's into MKV ... because it is the best container!

Does it worth it? :confused:

[Selur]

No, atm there's no hardware support besides MediaPC&Co for matoska.

[Suchy]

PC (of course) and modified Xbox

[multicone]

This company is probably your best bet :

http://www.z500series.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=119&hl=matroska

Also i read in the matroska IRC channel that Corecodec has interested companies to license TCPMP for hardware players, including matroska support. This could be the much better alternative IMO.

[Zero1]

I could suggest MP4 (yes, I know you want to use MKV, but hear me out). MP4 is also a great container, but unfortunately(?) it does not have as wide scope as Matroska. This does of course mean you will have to transcode the AC3 (maybe you transcoded it anyway), but the good news is that AAC supports multiple channels.

What with the Nero/KiSS player talks a while back (and Nero selling software that can create .mp4 files), I would say it's highly likely that at least Nero/KiSS players will support MP4 (Think about it, it's a selling point for both the software and hardware). In fact I hate to make such an assumption, but I wouldn't be surprised if MP4 was supported by default by most if not all HD/Bluray players (Kind of like how (some/most?) DVD players also play MP3 files burned as a data disc, and also (S)VCDs & Photo CDs).

The reason MKV players are scarce could be because it has such a wide support. It's common to see different subtitle types, different audio types and different video types contained in MKV. This would require a lot of functionality for the hardware player (which in turn would maybe require a larger ROM or EEPROM and then up production costs). DVD is a well established standard, the players only have to cope with a few formats and the way they are contained. As you know, MPEG-4 Visual encodes produced by XviD and DivX (and others) and their different versions have different fourccs, for example (reading from the FFDShow config) XVID, XVIX, DIVX, MP4S, MP4V, M4S2, DX50, BLZ0, DXGM (there may be others), which all basically describe the same thing, an MPEG-4 SP or ASP stream, known as MP4V.

Add to that, the various hacks required for MPEG-4 ASP in AVI (more to the point, VfW), and you can see that it's down to the non conformity of these things that make it difficult to successfully implement MKV (in hardware at least).

The other thing is patents, copyright and the likes. Whilst MKV is free of such itself (AFAIK), the formats it's capable of storing are, or may not be. This means that as well as it being a pain to implement in numerous hardware decoders, it's also a patent minefield. And what about the authors of open source stuff? I don't know the process if people want to commercially use their code, or if it's allowed.

[Hellworm]

A mkv hardware player does not need to play any vfw video content
It only needs to play the native mkv formats, wich are quite enough. But then again, I don't think it needs to play every single of this formats.

[Zero1]

That's fair comment, I was just thinking about the amount of people you would have whining, "I can't play X format, or Y encode. Z's video stutters" etc etc.

[Hellworm]

That sure will happen. On the other hand you already have to know what you do if you want anything to play on a given device.

But if the hardware would support the basic formats like mpeg1,2,4(avc,asp) and perhaps theora for video and ac3, mp3, ogg and aac for audio you'd make most of the people happy and hardware wise this should be no problem.

So theoretically quite possible to make a mkv-player. It just has to be done.

[bond]

basically hardly anyone uses native mpeg4 mkv because the matroska team never really managed to get their tools to enforce it
instead the vfw mode is used, which defacto is a big mess and makes it hard to support on hardware than if native mpeg4 would be always used

with avc people use native avc mkv already most of the time (unless they encode with x264 to mkv in virtualdubmod of course) so this makes it easier to support

[GodofaGap]

I don't think not having native MPEG4 would really be a problem since, well, the majority of players that support MPEG4 also support AVI. Of all problems getting hardware support for Matroska this would be just a little one, if one at all.

[Teegedeck]

basically hardly anyone uses native mpeg4 mkv because the matroska team never really managed to get their tools to enforce itExcuse me but I think this is not strictly true. You can mux ASP natively with mkvmerge anytime,* it just hasn't been declared default behaviour because of backwards-compatiblity to the old splitter and because it doesn't really yield big advantages (at least Mosu thinks that it doesn't).

*= go to the 'Muxing' menu, select 'Add commandline options', choose '--engage native_mpeg4' from the dropdown-menu.

[bond]

Excuse me but I think this is not strictly true. You can mux ASP natively with mkvmerge anytime,* it just hasn't been declared default behaviour because of backwards-compatiblity to the old splitter and because it doesn't really yield big advantages (at least Mosu thinks that it doesn't).

*= go to the 'Muxing' menu, select 'Add commandline options', choose '--engage native_mpeg4' from the dropdown-menu.sorry teegedeck, but its not possible to create correct native mpeg4 from all the f*ed up avi files with the option you mentioned (packed bitstream and co) and i am also not sure that it works correctly with not packed ones (mosu is also not claiming that it works)
also i have told mosu that currently native mpeg4 creation from correct mp4 files is also not working correctly as my tests have shown

the matroska team simply decided to not push native mpeg4 because there are already so many vfw mode ones around
still its good that they push native avc

[jellysandwich]

What are the chances for vfr support (assuming hardware support for mkv comes out at all)?

js

[foxyshadis]

ChristianHJW and robUx4 are probably the only ones who can answer that, if they even know. Try asking on the matroska forums at corecodec.com.

[zambelli]

I think Matroska hardware support isn't going to happen until some entity (corporation?) starts lobbying and pushing for Matroska support in the CE world. Let's face it, if DivX hadn't been made "legal" back in v4 with the founding of DivX Networks, there wouldn't have been nobody out there to lobby for DivX support with CE makers. I think everyone needs to understand that the CE industry doesn't start supporting new formats until there's a huge outcry for them (i.e. MP3) or a corporation makes a lucrative business proposal (i.e. DivX, WMV). The CE industry doesn't operate on good will and kind hearts.

Until MKV starts making some significant noise on the Internet (which it hasn't - just find me one popular website that offers MKV downloads and nothing else), or until some big players gets behind it - hardware support ain't gonna happen. Cheapo Chinese CE manufacturers don't count.

[robU*4]

CoreCodec is going to push Matroska support in the CE world. TCPMP will be the entry point and it can work on almost any device and almost any OS.

For the hardware manufacturers, it's another story. I believe the demand will make the market. But we need to have one manufacturer start for the others to follow. Maybe we'll have to build our own ;)

For native MPEG4, last time I checked there was a bug in mkvmerge. It wouldn't play well in VLC.

And for VFR, given most STBs are built with MPEG2 in mind, VFR should work because it's only based on timestamps. Now the refreshing rate of your TV is not a multiple of some framerate, so it's suboptimal...