Long loading time when playing back MKV movies

[Dandier]

I'm back on Matroska format after a while. I had posted a few months ago that I was unable to playback MKV files featuring subtitles. It's became OK after updating to DirectX 9. So I was pretty happy and I muxed all my recent movies into Matroska instead of OGM. Everything was really working great, except a 30-60 seconds loading time when playing back the movie on the HD.

Then I've decided to record my movies to CD in order to free some space on my HD. The loading time has then turned into more than 5 minutes. I could bear it for a 1 CD movie, but for a 2 CDs rips it's just very annoying.

My guess is that the movie is parsed all over before starting playing back. Is that true? In that case, is there a way to disable this parsing and to start the playing at once as with the OGM format? Is there another tip to make the playback start more rapidly.

Otherwise I will just have to throw my CDs away and to come back to that dear old OGM!

FYI I've tested this on the two following configurations with the same outcome:

1) Athlon XP 1600+; AIW-9000 Pro; RAM 512 MB; Acer CDRW 20; DVD Sony
2) Notebook Dell Latitude; PIV-M 1.8; Mobility Radeon 7500
The Ultra DMA mode is activated in both configurations. And as a matter of facts, it takes a similar time to engrave the CD than starting playing it back! I use the TCMP V4 RC4 player.

All my movies have 2 sound (OGG vorbis) and subtitles (SRT) tracks.

Thanx for helping.

[frodoontop]

Could it be you've installed the Matroska Shell Extension? Disable in the configuration the creation of thumbnails and see if it helps.

[alexnoe]

Seems like you use an antique matroska splitter or MPC version with newer files.

[ChristianHJW]

I guess frodoontop is correct, he has an old version of the shell extension installed. Update to 2.2 from http://downloads.corecodec.org/downloads/cdl , and deactivate thumbnail loading in the configuration window ...

[jcsston]

I use the TCMP V4 RC4 player

It's not the Shell Extension slowing it down but the Matroska CDL. v1.6 Should have this problem fixed.

[Eric B]

I've exact the same experience as Dandier and the same problem.

I've made many mkv movies in august, with VirtualDubMod 1.5.4.1. Movies that I burned into DVD+R (video track + 1 AC3 audio track + 1 or 2 ogg vorbis audio tracks + chapters + tags in a 1-2GB file !!).
And I've just remux one movie with actual version of mkvmerge and its GUI v0.7.2. The muxing process is working well and I appreciate all the goodies of the format.

I've made some tests on my computer (xp1600+ + 512Mo RAM + DVD LTD163 + HDD 120GXP) with TCMP RC4 b44 and MPC 6.4.6.7 (the 6.4.6.7 french version is the 6.4.6.5 !).
As adviced, I've installed CDL 1.6 and Shell Extension 2.2 despite it does not change anything.

1.4GB on HDD with TCMP : 30 s
1.4GB on DVDR with TCMP : 4 min
2GB on DVDR with TCMP : 6 min 40s !!
1.4 or 2GB on HDD or DVDR with MPC : 1s !! It is possible, Gabest just did it I now want the same reactivity on TCMP !

BIG edit: I've updated the matroskafilter to 1.0.0.8 and mkxds.dll to 0.5. That is the key. My big files are now loaded in less than 5s in TCMP. 5s instead of 400, that is 80 times faster !!
Thanks again all the teams that work on matroksa !

[Dandier]

Thanx for all that quick answers!

Following all your messages I've made the following tests:

- Installed Matroska Shell Extension 2.2: no change
- Remove thumbnail creation: no change
- Installed Matroska CDL. v1.6: no change
- Installed Matroska Playback 0.6 (previously installed was 0.5): playback starts at once, but I can no longer select my sound track nor browse my chapters.
- Installed Matroska MP4 Pack October 12: same as above
- Installed Matroska Playback 0.6 and then Matroska Splitter 1.0.1.8: comes back to the initial situation with a perfect playback but a long loading time
- Installed Matroska Playback 0.6 and then mkxds 0.5: playback starts immediately, all the Matroska features seem to be available but the subtitles mess up when we browse the chapters or when seeking in the file. After a while I got up to 8 lines, with subtitles picked up from different scenes of the movie...
- I've tried to install both Matroska Splitter and mkxds, but it seems that only the last installed filter is taken into account.
- Everything works OKay with MPC. This could be an intermediate alternative, but I would really prefer to use TCMP, especially because of its better Remote Wonder support.


Conclusions:

Everything seems to be some kind of youth problems. My problem seems to be temporary, since it does not appear with some filters / players. So I can keep my CDs, which is very good news!

Generally speaking the Matroska team has really made a great job. The format allows muxing nearly everything we need in a single file, the seeking is quite fluent (contrary to OGG). I really like it.

I just wonder why there exist so many filters (at least 2 as I understand: Matroska Splitter and mkxds). I feel that it would have been more efficient to concentrate the effort on a single playback solution. Besides I am really lost in the Jungle of Matroska filters. The Matroska download site only gives links to the available playback solutions, but there are few explanation - if any - on which combination should be used. So I really wonder which filter or Playback pack, I should use in order to read my movies (DivX 5.1, multi track OGG Vorbis, multi track SRT, chapters).

Once again, many thanx to your answers!

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Dandier I just wonder why there exist so many filters (at least 2 as I understand: Matroska Splitter and mkxds). I feel that it would have been more efficient to concentrate the effort on a single playback solution.

mkxds.dll is currently not developed further, as Gabests splitter is currently much better than it, and we have no developer caring about it.

We had no influence on Gabest's decision to make his own splitter, so its him to blame about not looking at cooperation efficiency .... but i dont think he will react to that ....