Matroska Packs v1.0.3 released

[Nibor]

Heya!

The new Matroska Packs v1.0.3 are out! :)
Get them from the normal place, http://packs.matroska.org...

What's changed:
- It now has the newest ffdshow built in, but a decoding only version ( If you want to have encoding functions too, just install your ffdshow after the installation of the pack )
- TTA decoding and encoding filters are included
- Matroska Pack Full detects if a RealVideo decoder is installed and gives a notice at the end how you can install one.
- Of course, the newest versions of every filter
- The installer looks better ;)
- A whole lot of other things I can't remember :)

Filters and versions:
MatroskaSplitter v1.0.2.4 (2004-08-16)
MatroskaMuxer v1.0.0.9 (2004-08-21)
MatroskaProp v2.6 (2004-02-18)
VSFilter v2.33 (2004-08-13)
MMSwitch v0.99 (Matroska edition) (2003-12-30)
CoreAAC v1.0b9 (2004-07-09)
CoreVorbis v1.0b6 (2003-12-15)
CoreFLAC Decoder v0.4.0.46 (2004-08-17)
TTA (2004-08-11)
AC3Filter v0.70b (DCoder fixed version) (2003-08-18)
MatrixMixer v0.30b (2003-10-06)
ffdshow 2004-08-21 (decoding only) (2004-08-21)
RealMediaSplitter v1.0.0.9 (2004-01-25)

Feedback is always welcome!

Have fun :)

- nibor -

[Liisachan]

Great, really great!

Especially I like this new ffdshow.
In 1.0.2, there was an old ffdshow from 2003, which decodes XviD 1.0.x
wrongly, fps being downed like 66%. That could give one a wrong impression that MKV container would kill fps.

I like the new splitter too. The skippy-audio-around-35-sec bug that was really annoying, is now fixed, or at least workaround-ed.

With 1.0.2 pack we had to assume that MKV was still beta, unadvisable for general use; 'wrong fps' was such a fundamental bug, plus that skippy audio was also too betaish...
but now the both has been fixed in the official Packs. Good news anyway.

I also founded that the splitter in 1.0.3 = Gabets's 1.0.2.4;
which i suppose is also a prudent choice. Altho the alt filters are really promissing (especially, OGM-like trayicon-based multiaudio switching...that has been really needed), and alatho the alt filters have been improved at the surprising speed, it is not too stable atm.

Thanks again anyway smile.gif :)

Edit: Haali's splitter does have its forte.
In ffdshow's 'info' box, Gabest's 1.0.2.4 reports fps=25 even if it is not 25.0, like 23.976. I'm afraid 1.0.2.4 still has some potential problem... Haali's filter reports the fps correctly.

[robUx4]

Heh cool.

We have very high hopes on Haali's filter. And we are already planning to release a 1.1.0 pack when his filter becomes stable and the menu feature is done.

Edit: Yes, we preferred to use known filters for this release and not use general users as beta testers :D

[jk888]

FINALLY! I've waited so long for this it seems, I've been getting annoying emails from people who watch my video encodes but didn't install the codecs I included properly. I had Matroska Pack 1.02 and the new ffdshow included, and had specific instructions to install Matroska first then the new ffdshow.

But end users are just too dumb to understand it all, then some don't even know english, so they install them wrong and complain my video sucks!

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!!

Adding the decoding version only of ffdshow is great, I didn't realize you could separate the encoding and decoding parts.

[SeeMoreDigital]

According to the Matroska web site, the 'Pack Lite' is specified as follows: -

Matroska Pack Lite v1.0.3 - 2004-08-21
Download (0.73 MB / 768'931 Bytes)

Reduced to the max, this pack contains only the very basic stuff needed to play Matroska files with Vorbis audio and Subtitles on DirectShow players, so in order to be able to play all your files you need the right video and audio decoders installed already. Also coming with it is the Matroska muxer filter, allowing you to create Matroska files from DirectShow based muxing and capturing applications, such as ATV2000 or VirtualVCR_Matroska. Is there anywhere on the web site that can provide more detail as to the type of filters, dll's etc in this new pack?

If there's no info on the web site can somebody list the information here please?


Many thanks

[[Toff]]

Originally posted by Liisachan
Edit: Haali's splitter does have its forte.
In ffdshow's 'info' box, Gabest's 1.0.2.4 reports fps=25 even if it is not 25.0, like 23.976. I'm afraid 1.0.2.4 still has some potential problem... Haali's filter reports the fps correctly.
Yeah, I've fixed this bug, but I've sent several different version to Gabest and looks like he missed this fix :)
Though, I think that this fps value is only used if the splitter and the codec doesn't set timestamps on frame, which should not be the case with Matroska.

[Nibor]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Is there anywhere on the web site that can provide more detail as to the type of filters, dll's etc in this new pack?
If there's no info on the web site can somebody list the information here please?
You've probably already downloaded Matroska Pack Lite to see what's inside, but here is what it contains:

MatroskaSplitter v1.0.2.4 (2004-08-16)
MatroskaMuxer v1.0.0.9 (2004-08-21)
VSFilter v2.33 (2004-08-13)
CoreVorbis v1.0b6 (2003-12-15)

We could add a link to the ReadMe of each pack to the download page, well, I'll suggest this :)

Regards,
nibor

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Nibor
We could add a link to the ReadMe of each pack to the download page, well, I'll suggest this :) Not a bad idea Nibor :cool:

Such information might be quite useful to some of us people who don't want filter clashes ;)


Cheers

[Liisachan]

Originally posted by Nibor
VSFilter v2.33 (2004-08-13)

Technically, VSFilter is 2.33b--2.33 modified so Haali's Splitter can load it.

[Nibor]

Originally posted by Liisachan
Technically, VSFilter is 2.33b--2.33 modified so Haali's Splitter can load it.
Yes, that's true..
It is labelled 2.33 because we can't change the version number without Gabest.
At least the date is new, so you can see it there.

[[Toff]]

Originally posted by Nibor
Yes, that's true..
It is labelled 2.33 because we can't change the version number without Gabest.
At least the date is new, so you can see it there.
As VSfilter has a property page I've modified the about box so it's 2.33b :)
For other modified filters, there is a compilation field in the file version info box that should show "Matroska pack 1.0.3".

[stephanV]

not that i mind or care, but:

why is there an audio encoder included in the pack (TTA), while you always have refused to include a video encoder with it (ffdshow/vfw)?

it seems a bit odd... but perhaps im justing missing the bigger point ;)

THX for the release! :)

[Nibor]

Originally posted by [Toff]
As VSfilter has a property page I've modified the about box so it's 2.33b :)
I stand corrected :) So it was my fault.. It's now corrected and will be right in the next version of the packs.

[Nibor]

@stephanV

The difference is, TTA is open source and does _not_ implement a set of techniques which require a license.
MPEG4 is such a set of techniques and to be allowed to distribute an encoder for it you would have to pay licensing fees to the MPEG consortium.. as long it is not 'educational only' as far as I know ;)

- nibor -

[stephanV]

ok, i understand... i forgot about that MPEG4 licensing stuff for a moment :rolleyes:

[Nibor]

@SeeMoreDigital

Now you can see what's inside each pack by clicking the link "List of components of this pack." on http://packs.matroska.org.
Thanks to robUx4 :)

nibor

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Nibor
@SeeMoreDigital

Now you can see what's inside each pack by clicking the link "List of components of this pack." on http://packs.matroska.org.
Thanks to robUx4 :) Hey, hey, hey!

Thanks you guys... a welcome addition to the web site, I think you'll all agree :D

PS: Earlier today I did a test, inserting an anamorphic 720x576 XviD video stream (with chapters) into an MKV container using AVI-mux. When playing the file back in MPC (and WMP9) using Koepi's proposed new XviD DSdec filter... what more can I say? Perfect auto AR adjustment and playback... very nice :D


Cheers

[Gooberslot]

Unfortunately it looks like vsfilter still crashes under Win98 unless you disable pre-buffer subpictures which makes the cpu usage go through the roof. Guess this is never going to get fixed. :(

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
Unfortunately it looks like vsfilter still crashes under Win98 unless you disable pre-buffer subpictures which makes the cpu usage go through the roof. Guess this is never going to get fixed. :(

Sometimes I think that OS that are seven years old should not be supported anymore... At least I'm not surprised that developpers don't think it's worth their time to fix bugs for systems that old.

(I wouldn't try fix mkvtoolnix for gcc 2.7.x or libc5 either.)

[Gooberslot]

Sometimes I think that OS that are seven years old should not be supported anymore... At least I'm not surprised that developpers don't think it's worth their time to fix bugs for systems that old.
I knew I'd get a response like this. It's nice to know that you have the money to upgrade all the time but not everyone does. And yes there are many people that have computers that are perfectly capable of watching videos but not of running a newer OS due to low memory or incompatible hardware. Even if I didn't run Win98 I still wouldn't support a video format that wasn't cross-platform compatible.

Vobsub 2.23 works fine and there's really no reason that the newer versions shouldn't either except that the developers broke something. Probably something that wouldn't take 5 minutes to fix if they just tried.

[Tuesday]

7 years is an awfully long time in the computer world, and the Home Edition of XP must cost about $40 which isn't really alot of money considering it is vastly superior to '98, not to mention that you can probably get a copy virtually free from school/college/university/your-employer if you ask nicely and thats only if your particularly concerned about having a legal copy, i'm sure there's many places where you could find one for free if you're not concerned for such things.

Hey let's drag out the PII 266 with win95 and see how Doom III plays on it....

[Gooberslot]

What about all those P3's out there that only have 128mb of memory, hell some of them may only have 64mb. Running anything but Win98 would be painful with that little memory. Yet a P3 >=500mhz is perfectly adequate for video playback as long as you're not talking HDTV resolutions here.

Isn't MKV supposed to be an open, crossplatform format? As it stands it isn't.

[Teegedeck]

Welll... Nobody is forced to rely on Win98 these days... I switched to Linux for my serious work on a 400 Mhz PC. In contrast to Windows, Linux is for free (installation-CDs can for example be lend from a friend or university legally), very user-friendly(!) in its popular distributions and while it may not support as many graphic-adapters as XP (as if this was a problem with an old PC) it still is more compatible than Win98 these days... Matroska and XviD run on Linux, too.

Also, Gobberslot, accusing Mosu of being ignorant of the needs of Win98-users is not justified. I've hardly seen any developer more responsive to the demands of users! It is his right to voice his thoughts about Win98. Just ask him nicely if you want something from him, OK?

We've had other developers turning away from the community and from their work for the community because of just such behaviour and I don't want to see that happening again.

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
I knew I'd get a response like this. It's nice to know that you have the money to upgrade all the time but not everyone does.

:) Ok, my response was really BEGGING for the usual OS war. Sorry about that.

My point is that both (you and Gabest or developpers in general) are in the same situation. You don't have the money to upgrade. Developpers don't have the time to fix things every time. See we don't get paid for what we do. And we can't just make a day have 25 hours so that we can fix each and every bug. Bug hunting takes time. Unless it's an obvious bug it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to find one bug. It is especially difficult if bugs happen on systems that we don't even use (anymore).

(This is all general talk. I'm not Gabest, but judging from how reachable he is and that most if not all fixes in the latest release come from Toff I'm not holding my hopes up that your particular bug will be fixed any time soon.)

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
Isn't MKV supposed to be an open, crossplatform format? As it stands it isn't.

Wohooo, hold your horses. Is it open? You bet it is! The specs are all available, almost all tools that handle Matroska files are Open Source.

Crossplatform? Definitely! Matroska tools ( = creation / editing utilities, playback software) are available for several platforms: Windows (98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003), Linux (several distros ship that software precompiled, otherwise you can compile from hand), several BSD variants, MacOS X, even BeOS. You have a problem with one specific filter on one OS version. You can hardly say Matroska isn't crossplatform just because of that...

[robUx4]

No it's not. It won't run on my Thomson TO7 and not even on my mobile phone ! And you claim it is cross-platform ?!!!

;)

[Gooberslot]

Welll... Nobody is forced to rely on Win98 these days... I switched to Linux for my serious work on a 400 Mhz PC. In contrast to Windows, Linux is for free (installation-CDs can for example be lend from a friend or university legally), very user-friendly(!) in its popular distributions and while it may not support as many graphic-adapters as XP (as if this was a problem with an old PC) it still is more compatible than Win98 these days... Matroska and XviD run on Linux, too.
I have Gentoo Linux installed and it is way slower than any version of Windows I've tried. Maybe if you use one of those minimalistic window managers it's faster but not if you try to use Gnome or KDE. Not to mention no matter how hard I try I can't get decent looking fonts but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Originally posted by Mosu

My point is that both (you and Gabest or developpers in general) are in the same situation. You don't have the money to upgrade. Developpers don't have the time to fix things every time. See we don't get paid for what we do. And we can't just make a day have 25 hours so that we can fix each and every bug. Bug hunting takes time. Unless it's an obvious bug it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to find one bug. It is especially difficult if bugs happen on systems that we don't even use (anymore).
I don't think this bug would be very hard to track down. AFAIK, 2.23 is the last version that works right under Win98 so just go back and see what changes happened between 2.23 and 2.24 that could cause this type of bug. There's probably not that much to look at. Of course I'm not a programmer so I could be wrong. If someone were serious about fixing it though I'd be glad to go back and try each version and find out exactly where it breaks.

Wohooo, hold your horses. Is it open? You bet it is! The specs are all available, almost all tools that handle Matroska files are Open Source.
Is vsfilter open source?

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
Is vsfilter open source?

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84359
and
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/guliverkli/guliverkli/src/filters/transform/vsfilter/

[[Toff]]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
Vobsub 2.23 works fine and there's really no reason that the newer versions shouldn't either except that the developers broke something. Probably something that wouldn't take 5 minutes to fix if they just tried.
The main problem is to have win98 installed.
Well, I guess no developper use Win98 as their main system, because it's very fragile, it can crash on any bug you make while you developp a program. It's very boring to have to reboot 3 time a day.

Now imagine if I would like to try to fix this bug.
First i need to install win98, that mean i need to repartition my system, and win98 is picky it wants to be on first partition, so that's gonna put a reall mess.
Then i need to reinstall the whole developpement environnement, Visual .NET 2003 and the DXSDK.
Hmm looks like VC2003 doesn't even run on Win98 : http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/sysreqs/default.aspx

So you see it's not 5 minutes, it's really time consuming and it's a really boring work to do.

Looks like the easiest thing would be to do some remote debugging with vmware or with a second computer running win98.

[thoralf]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
Yet a P3 >=500mhz is perfectly adequate for video playback as long as you're not talking HDTV resolutions here.
Well, when it comes to video playback, about your only choice with this rather old hardware would be mplayer, since all the bloat bundled with windows (directshow etc.) will definitely slow your output down to something like 10 fps or so, depending on your graphics card. mplayer does support matroska, btw.
Even with a PIII/500MHz you are not bound to use microsoft products. Whatever blend of linux will run quite happily on this machine - admittedely, it doesn't make sense to fire up kde or star office, but still, get yourself a decent window manager and your're set ...
Windows 9x definitely isn't a decent OS, and neither gabest nor msou are to blame for that. So it might be a good idea if you look out for alternatives instead of blaming others of not doing enough to satisfy your special needs.

Isn't MKV supposed to be an open, crossplatform format? As it stands it isn't.
That's exactly what I'm talking about ...

[Tuesday]

To add further weight to the anti-98 argument, even M$ no longer fully supports win98, they stopped running the WHLQ certified driver scheme for it some months ago.

Also, WinXP will run quite happily on a PIII 500 and 128mb, especially if you tell it to turn off most of the eye-candy. Okay you may have problems running more than one big application simultaneously but hey, you couldn't even buy that system anymore.

[Gooberslot]

I thought we were done with the OS war; guess not. :)

The main problem is to have win98 installed.
Well, I guess no developper use Win98 as their main system, because it's very fragile, it can crash on any bug you make while you developp a program. It's very boring to have to reboot 3 time a day.

Now imagine if I would like to try to fix this bug.
First i need to install win98, that mean i need to repartition my system, and win98 is picky it wants to be on first partition, so that's gonna put a reall mess.
Then i need to reinstall the whole developpement environnement, Visual .NET 2003 and the DXSDK.
Hmm looks like VC2003 doesn't even run on Win98 : http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/p...qs/default.aspx

I imagine if I were a developer I'd already have a multi-boot setup. Heck, I'm not a developer and I still have 3 OS's installed.

Also, WinXP will run quite happily on a PIII 500 and 128mb, especially if you tell it to turn off most of the eye-candy. Okay you may have problems running more than one big application simultaneously but hey, you couldn't even buy that system anymore.
I disagree. I have a Celeron 900 with 192mb of ram and I feel XP is way too slow and bloated. I'd hate to think of running it with 128mb. Win2k is nice but unfortunately my sound card doesn't sound as good under Win2k so that's really what's keeping me from switching. It's not as if I like Win98. It's especially horrible if you try to do any bittorrenting due to Win98's horrible networking.

I don't understand all the Win98 hate that goes on at these more technically inclined forums. I can understand if you don't like it but no one is trying to force you to use it and I don't understand the need some people feel to insult people who do. Or are completely unwilling to understand that some people have no choice for various reasons. This thread actually has not been nearly as bad as some which can get down right nasty.

[robUx4]

You may have noticed that we are all busy working on Matroska. Many things are hapenning these days. So installing an OS to fix a filter we didn't even develop is not really a priority.

edit: typo, grammar and all the rest

[DKDIB]

Gooberslot wrote:
> I have a Celeron 900 with 192mb of ram and I feel XP is way too slow
> and bloated.

I've got an Athlon (no-XP) 1000 MHz with 256 MB RAM and Windows XP works perfectly (without any themes, of course).

___


Please, stop climbing the mirrors...... :rolleyes:

[Gaia]

I have Duron 900 with 256 mb of memory and XP runs without any problems.

I used to have 98se too but i had change to buy OEM version of XP very cheaply.

[Teegedeck]

...to add (actually repeat myself doing so) my 2 cents to this OT-OS-War stats; SUSE 9.1 (KDE) and OpenOffice run very fluently on my 400, err, 466Mhz-Celeron with an odd 224(or something) MB RAM. Better than Win2K.

[Hiro2k]

I just read a whole page on nothing but OT discuscion and I'm tired of it. No more!

It's the developers choice to program for whatever platform they want. As a user of an open source product you have no rights to complain about something that doesn't work on your system. You didn't pay for it and you shouldn't expect support for it.

[Liisachan]

Originally posted by Gooberslot
So, to get back on topic, is there anyway to get vobsub 2.23 to work with mkv files? What if the subs are external? I don't have win98 now, so I cannot test what Im saying myself, but MPC for Win98 might work better than VSFilter for Win98.

MPC has its own internal sub renderer working in VMR mode (youll need a newer DirectX, and youll need to change settings in options|playback|output). Especially, if you change "Texture Settings" down to 384x288 in the "Options" box, that'll be less CPU-intensive than DirectVobSub is, which might help if your CPU is not too fast. :) (Altho, the sub quality will be compromised.)

as a last resort, like you said, you might want to demux sub files from your MKVs, and try to play them as external files. At least SRTs should play on Win98, because they do play if they are in OGM.

[happy_harry]

YOu should have included the subtitlesource.ax filter from guliverkli!
I'm not able to playback may own beloved mkv files i have created through the last year (xvid+vorbis+vobsub+mkv).:angry:


the 1.0 corevorbis would be nice, too.

[robUx4]

Dunno about the subtitlesource.ax, but CoreVorbis 1.0 will be in the 1.1.0 pack that will include Haali's filter as the default one. We don't have a scheduled date for release. Maybe when the menu feature will be stable...

[happy_harry]

Are there any possibilities regarding a custom (just for me :cool: ) matroska full pack build? :D

[with subtitlesource.ax and corevorbis 1.0]

[[Toff]]

subtitlesource.ax is mainly used for muxing subtitles with graphedit.
Maybe you're mixing up with another filter ?

[robUx4]

Originally posted by happy_harry
Are there any possibilities regarding a custom (just for me :cool: ) matroska full pack build? :D

[with subtitlesource.ax and corevorbis 1.0]

:D
no!
;)

[happy_harry]

Originally posted by [Toff]
subtitlesource.ax is mainly used for muxing subtitles with graphedit.
Maybe you're mixing up with another filter ?

My fault! :(
Unregistered and everything seems fine... :eek:
It seems i've done something wrong, interesting.:confused:


Perhaps my new PSU is the cause :devil:

[Chainmax]

robUx4, would it be possible that you switched from CoreVorbis to CoreAAC in the Lite pack?

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Chainmax
robUx4, would it be possible that you switched from CoreVorbis to CoreAAC in the Lite pack?

robux4 cant answer personally, so i will. We recently considered removing any decoder from the lite pack completely, for sure we wont add CoreAAC, due to possible license problems in some countries.

CoreVorbis was added because Vorbis is the only modern, lossy and patent free audio compression format we know of ( Wavpack to come soon ), and we wanted the lite pack to not only be small, but also to be 'clean' from a legal point of view. CoreAAC, as mentioned above, is not .....

[DKDIB]

Chris wrote:
> [...] Wavpack to come soon [...]

Great news! :D
Thanks a lot! ^__^

[Chainmax]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
we wanted the lite pack to not only be small, but also to be 'clean' from a legal point of view. CoreAAC, as mentioned above, is not ..... [/B]
CoreAAC isn't completely legal? Wher can I read something about that? I browsed this thread and there's no mention of that...

[DKDIB]

Chainmax wrote:
> CoreAAC isn't completely legal?

Only sources are legal because AAC isn't patent free.
If you want to use a compiled version of CoreAAC you might buy a license from MPEG Industry Forum.

[cweb]

Originally posted by Mosu
Sometimes I think that OS that are seven years old should not be supported anymore... At least I'm not surprised that developpers don't think it's worth their time to fix bugs for systems that old.


Bugs are bugs anyway.
I still use win98 and will keep using it until I switch completely to Linux. Linux is more than 7 years old yet it is still supported by many!

[Liisachan]

Originally posted by cweb
Bugs are bugs anyway. True, maybe Gatest will fix it someday. But now I'm afraid Gatest seems to have little time to code, not only for filters, but even for MPC, and now MPC in def settings cannot play MKV from MKVToolnix 0.9.5. So, I'd say theres a long way to go fix the total situation.
On the other hand, Haali is making awesome and audacious alt-alt filters,
http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/
including sub renderes, and I heard he was even going to support USF someday. Thatd be great.

Obviously supporting win98 is preferable, but VSFilter is not the only way. Altho I do hope Gabest will be back working on his filters as he did last year, no one has rights to force him to.

Anyway, plz check haali's filters too, in case you didnt...:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80762

[Hiro2k]

Originally posted by cweb
Bugs are bugs anyway.
I still use win98 and will keep using it until I switch completely to Linux. Linux is more than 7 years old yet it is still supported by many!

Linux is not 7 years old. Please don't tell me your still using a 2.2 kernel! Linux is constantly being updated by the developers. Linux has been around for more than 15 years, but that doesn't mean we still use 15 year old software. Fundamentaly Linux is just the kernel and it is always being updated. I would agree with you if they had never updated the kernel, but that is not the case. IIRC the kernel is currently at version 2.6.8 and 7 years ago it was still on the 2.2 branch.

[Chainmax]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
robux4 cant answer personally, so i will. We recently considered removing any decoder from the lite pack completely, for sure we wont add CoreAAC, due to possible license problems in some countries.

CoreVorbis was added because Vorbis is the only modern, lossy and patent free audio compression format we know of ( Wavpack to come soon ), and we wanted the lite pack to not only be small, but also to be 'clean' from a legal point of view. CoreAAC, as mentioned above, is not .....
Ok then, what about one last release with the newest CoreVorbis then? The version included in the pack is from 20031215 and the latest version is from 20040823...

[cweb]

Originally posted by Hiro2k
Linux is not 7 years old. Please don't tell me your still using a 2.2 kernel! Linux is constantly being updated by the developers. Linux has been around for more than 15 years, but that doesn't mean we still use 15 year old software. Fundamentaly Linux is just the kernel and it is always being updated. I would agree with you if they had never updated the kernel, but that is not the case. IIRC the kernel is currently at version 2.6.8 and 7 years ago it was still on the 2.2 branch.

I'm using a 2.6 kernel! It's still Linux though. It hasn't been called something else or completely scrapped. Different kernels aren't different operating systems (while 98 and XP are different OSes with different philosophies, no doubt about that!). Also, there is an upgrade path between kernels which doesn't have to involve reformatting, or complete system reinstallation.

[Hiro2k]

Originally posted by cweb
Bugs are bugs anyway.
I still use win98 and will keep using it until I switch completely to Linux. Linux is more than 7 years old yet it is still supported by many!

I'm still refering to this post, the way you wrote it sounds like your comparing Linux and Windows98. Linux is still being updated and Windows98 is not. The reason Linux is still supported by many is because it's not a dead OS with no future.

[cweb]

Originally posted by Hiro2k
I'm still refering to this post, the way you wrote it sounds like your comparing Linux and Windows98. Linux is still being updated and Windows98 is not. The reason Linux is still supported by many is because it's not a dead OS with no future.

I wasn't comparing anything. I just replied to your post.
Many people and organisations / institutions still run win98SE perfectly well and have no intention to upgrade to XP because of the expenses involved in updating large numbers of workstations (including in labs). Of course this doesn't count those people who will run pirate copies of XP but that is not legal at all and should not be done IMHO. Hey I got to know of a company still running Windows 95 on its PC's!

Linux is an open upgrade path, it doesn't 'kill' you off like some other OSes and updating can be done bit by bit if you want. No need to start from scratch. Stil, I don't care if you think win98 is dead, so what if it works, it works and those of us who use it will keep using it. I myself will use it probably until I switch everything over to Linux.

I apologise for letting this thread go off course... this has nothing to do with the thread subject and bug reports on all os's ARE on-topic, I may add. And if Matroska is open source as I think it is, it does not matter too much if a developer doesn't have time to cater for win98, if some else will eventually submit a patch/bugfix etc (or someone will have an alternative implementation like the one mentioned earlier in the thread).
Matroska should not in my opinion neglect win98 users because it may make Matroska look less reliable to anyone trying it for the first time (though it isn't!). At least make a warning, "THIS DOES NOT WORK on WIN98" so they don't try to run it. Funny thing is, previous versions worked and still do work. Also, Media Player Classic's built in splitter works perfectly and it's what I use.
Just to make it clear, any site or resource promoting the use of Matroska for its media will have users with problems getting it to work, if they run win98, so it will have to explain to them that they are excluded.

[Mosu]

Originally posted by cweb
Linux is an open upgrade path, it doesn't 'kill' you off like some other OSes and updating can be done bit by bit if you want.

Not really the point. My mkvtoolnix would not run on the Linux software that was current seven years ago (!).

Let's see. I'm using SuSE Linux as an example here. 1997 (back when Windows 98 was released) SuSE's release was... well... I have no clue! Let's ask Distrowatch: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse

Interesting. The oldest release they've included is 5.2 from 1998/03/23 (they've mentioned earlier releases, but those don't include the program versions, so I'll just skip them). It uses gcc 2.7 (yuck), a Kernel 2.0.3x etc.pp. There were no media players, glibc was still libc5 (ancient), no FLAC, no Vorbis, no nothing. So you might get a glimpse why we don't think supporting OS that old is really worth our time if the time spent analyzing the bug includes setting up a sepperate Windows 98 installation, finding your way into someone else's code etc.

And if Matroska is open source as I think it is,

Correct.

it does not matter too much if a developer doesn't have time to cater for win98, if some else will eventually submit a patch/bugfix etc

Well, one thing that is harder than fixing bugs in your own source is fixing bugs in someone else's code. Gabest doesn't have the time to do that, so please don't expect us to fix stuff in OS we don't use anymore ("we" being the Matroska developpers).

We're ALWAYS happy about patches. If someone fixes this bug then you can be sure we'll either try to get Gabest to release a new version with that bug fix included (which he has done in the past with other stuff we've sent his way), or we might release a new build ourselves (which we've done as well).

[Vincent Vega]

matroska 1.02-1.03 mmswitch+WMP10+video with mono audio track= ;-(

seems like there is a lil problem with these. i have some avi and mpg movies with MONO (mp3 and mpg) audio tracks and they do not play properly in the above configuration. i've already mentioned this matter in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82209) of "software players" section thinking it was WMP10's fault but after some experimenting it appears that its caused by matroska mmswitch version. unregistering it solves the problem. btw simply disabling it in the player doesnt, only unregistering.

but i really need mmswitch. and other versions like mmswitch099 original or 097 dont work with WMP10 at all. so i was wondering if its possible for Matroska Pack authors to write a new WMP10 compatible mmswitch version to fix this issue.

PS also i've been always wondering what is this "damaged or incompatible plugin disabled" message appearing in WMP9 and 10 once in while regarding mmswitch099 even in the case of using the supposedly fixed matroska version. perhaps someone could shed some light on this for me too.

thanks a lot in advance

[Chainmax]

I take it that an updated version of the Lite pack with the latest CoreVorbis is out of the question then?

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Chainmax
I take it that an updated version of the Lite pack with the latest CoreVorbis is out of the question then?

Be patient young padawan, be patient :D .....

If we are releasing a new pack, we are currently producing about 250 - 300 GB of traffic / month. Please understand we wont do that just because CoreVorbis was updated ;) ....

[Chainmax]

I wasn't asking for a release but rather a confirmation on wether the newest CoreVorbis would be included in the next release. I'm glad to hear it's being considered :).

[Cyberman]

Originally posted by Liisachan
and now MPC in def settings cannot play MKV from MKVToolnix 0.9.5.

MPC(Media Player Classic, right?) has it´s own MKV splitter, so it´s no wonder it doesn´t work. You have to deactivate it.
Were it the other way around(splitter deactivated by default), many MKV files wouldn´t work.
Matroska isn´t yet at a stage where the typical Windows-Dummy-User can play them without any knowledge of anything at all, IMO.

Originally posted by Mosu
So you might get a glimpse why we don't think supporting OS that old is really worth our time if the time spent analyzing the bug includes setting up a sepperate Windows 98 installation, finding your way into someone else's code etc.

What about Win2K? I understand that Win9X is too old, and, more problematic, a Dos-based system, but Win2K will be considered old sometime(soon?) as well - but I´m quite sure I won´t EVER switch to XP.

[Mosu]

Originally posted by Cyberman
MPC(Media Player Classic, right?) has it´s own MKV splitter, so it´s no wonder it doesn´t work. You have to deactivate it.

Due to guys wanting "sample precision" for audio files in Matroska I chose to make the segment duration a 64bit float instead of a 32bit float. This worked perfectly fine on all Linux implementations of Matroska, but the two Windows only implementations (Gabest's Matroska splitter and his MPC as well as Alex Noé's AVIMux GUI) didn't handle 64bit floats. I waited for both products to be updated with support for 64bit floats before releasing 0.9.5

But still this was a bad decision on my part. First, I didn't think Gabest would NOT find the time to at least update MPC, too, after we've sent him the necessary patches (and those were small!) for the standalone Matroska splitter. Second, it still broke playback for all existing installations forcing users to update.

0.9.6 reverts to 32bit floats and only uses a 64bit float segment duration if the file contains only audio tracks -- because that's where guys want sample precision. Any file containing video created with 0.9.5 should be easily remuxable with 0.9.6 (just add the file in mmg, chose a different output name, hit "start") and work with MPC again.

What about Win2K? I understand that Win9X is too old, and, more problematic, a Dos-based system, but Win2K will be considered old sometime(soon?) as well - but I´m quite sure I won´t EVER switch to XP.

One of the major differences between Win2k and newer and Win9x/ME is that the latter lacks Unicode support. So I guess that W2K support will continue for quite some time as the same splitter is used on XP and 2K. ("Guess" because I'm certainly not the one developping it.)

[Liisachan]

Originally posted by Cyberman
MPC(Media Player Classic, right?) has it´s own MKV splitter, so it´s no wonder it doesn´t work. You have to deactivate it. Yeah, our installer (mainly for lazy anime fans) v0.93 (http://park14.wakwak.com/~flower/mkvinst_093_test7.exe) will automatically deactivate it, so you don't have to tweak MPC's settings manually.

Matroska isn´t yet at a stage where the typical Windows-Dummy-User can play them without any knowledge of anything at all, IMO. True. So the above-mentioned installer is going to automatically associate .mkv and .mka to MPC (if found) or to WMP, so users can play mkv files just by clicing the icon... People are lazy, and I am lazy too (dont want to answer the same questions 1000 times)

[pixolex]

Originally posted by Liisachan
Yeah, our installer (mainly for lazy anime fans) v0.93 (http://park14.wakwak.com/~flower/mkvinst_093_test7.exe) will automatically deactivate it, so you don't have to tweak MPC's settings manually.

True. So the above-mentioned installer is going to automatically associate .mkv and .mka to MPC (if found) or to WMP, so users can play mkv files just by clicing the icon... People are lazy, and I am lazy too (dont want to answer the same questions 1000 times)

Even if the settings from MPC are in the ini file?!

[Liisachan]

Yes. If mplayer.ini is found at the location specified in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Gabest\Media Player Classic
then the installer will tweak that .ini file too.

These are just ad hoc hacks while waiting for a newer MPC.

[Cyberman]

Originally posted by Mosu
One of the major differences between Win2k and newer and Win9x/ME is that the latter lacks Unicode support. So I guess that W2K support will continue for quite some time as the same splitter is used on XP and 2K. ("Guess" because I'm certainly not the one developping it.)

Ah yes, Unicode. Nowadays, that alone would be a reason to switch from Win9X...

It´s good to know that Win2K will be supported for some time, because I fear that future Windows versions will continue the Teletubby interface...
(Which, apparently, cannot be disabled completely, as the "new" icons are used everywhere...)

Originally posted by Liisachan
Yeah, our installer (mainly for lazy anime fans) v0.93 will automatically deactivate it, so you don't have to tweak MPC's settings manually.


I see.
Does it know which version of MPC the user´s using, btw? Because it might happen(in the future) that an old Matroska Pack might disable the newer MPC splitter.

[Liisachan]

Originally posted by Cyberman
Does it know which version of MPC the user´s using, btw? Sure. If the filetime of mpc is newer than the current one, it'll ask you if you want to tweak it anyway.

[goweropolis]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
If we are releasing a new pack, we are currently producing about 250 - 300 GB of traffic / month. Please understand we wont do that just because CoreVorbis was updated ;) ....
Have you guys considered using BitTorrent? It's pretty simple really. It would definitely save bandwidth and it would allow non-programmers like myself to help.

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by goweropolis
Have you guys considered using BitTorrent? It's pretty simple really. It would definitely save bandwidth and it would allow non-programmers like myself to help. .. too complicated for at least 95% of our normal users i'd guess ....

[Hiro2k]

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
.. too complicated for at least 95% of our normal users i'd guess ....

Not that I promote piracy, but 95% of your users get your packs to play videos they get from Supernova or some other P2P program :rolleyes: . I'm sure everyone has heard of BT by now.

I think it would be a good legit use of the technology. I suggest that you at least have the option for BT link available. I'm really sure that it would save your bandwith if you asked people to choose the BT link over the direct link. Aditionaly you could release updated packs and with more frequency.

[celtic_druid]

Could also have a 2d2k link, it is probably already on the network.

[Liisachan]

Just so you know. :)

Originally posted by Nibor
CoreFLAC Decoder v0.4.0.46 (2004-08-17)

This version info is correct. The Pack 1.0.3 has CoreFLAC 0.4, which is very important because CoreFLAC 0.3 has a crtical bug that you cannot rewind the MKV/MKA when reaching the end of the file.

However, the installer says it is going to install CoreFLAC 0.3 beta 4 in the "Choose Components" box. ReadMe (http://packs.matroska.org/Matroska_Pack_Full_v1.0.3_ReadMe.html) says "CoreFLAC Decoder v0.3-Beta4 2003-12-06" too, which is not a correct version info.

In reality, the Pack has v0.4--good working version--so there is no practical problems, but this is confusing especially for users who know that annoying bug in 0.3.

How about at least revising that ReadMe on the website?

[Kurtnoise]

Matroska Pack 1.1.0 is out ;)


The matroska team released version 1.1.0 of their 'famous' playback packs for M$ DirectShow, allowing playback of MKV/MKA files on Windows using such players. It can be found at the usual place at http://packs.matroska.org/

Here a list of supported formats :
* DivX 3/4/5
* XviD
* WMV7/8
* H.264

but the pack also adds playback support for

* Vorbis using FFDShow (for Ogg Vorbis audio files, install also the Ogg Splitter
from Tobias Waldvogel or illiminable, or use MPC's built in splitter )
* AAC and AAC+SBR (HE-AAC) audio, using FFDShow
* AC3 audio, using FFDShow
* FLAC lossless audio, using FFDShow
* Wavpack a great lossless audio codec supporting hybrid mode
(with + without loss) ; installed are wavpack decoder and parser, for .wv files
* TTA another lossless audio codec
* Subtitles, using vsfilter (DVobSub)

The previous version, 1.0.3, was downloaded about 850,000 times, all together we had 1.3 Million downloads since the packs were started with version 1.0.1.

Changes to previous version :

- Haali's matroska splitter is now used, instead of Gabest's splitter, including
* integrated audio stream switcher ( mmswitch.ax has been removed )
* splitter for MP4 and extended AVI container ( to be activated in setup menu )
- CoreVorbis, CoreFLAC and CoreAAC have been removed, ffdshow is decoding
these audio types now also

Have fun

Christian
matroska project admin
http://www.matroska.org

[jk888]

Excellent news! And I almost thought Matroska support had died out! I'm glad playback support has come back strong as ever.

I think this new update deserves it's own separate post!

[jk888]

I am disappointed that ffdshow was chosen as the default decoder for all AVC videos. ffdshow still doesn't fully support Nero AVC, the video quality it noticably shitty when compared to using Nero's own decoder. Things go berserk once you turn on the Postprocessing in ffdshow, the video looks worst than VCD.

Postprocessing is an esstential part of AVC, using it makes a huge difference in quality. That's what makes Nero's decoder really stand out.

Can we have AVC decoding default to Nero's decoder instead? Just until ffdshow can match the same level of quality.

[buzzqw]

afaik only nero showtime can decode avc using nero decode ax

no one player can access nero dshow filters

(if i am not wrong)

BHH

[stephanV]

Originally posted by jk888
I am disappointed that ffdshow was chosen as the default decoder for all AVC videos. ffdshow still doesn't fully support Nero AVC, the video quality it noticably shitty when compared to using Nero's own decoder. Things go berserk once you turn on the Postprocessing in ffdshow, the video looks worst than VCD.

Postprocessing is an esstential part of AVC, using it makes a huge difference in quality. That's what makes Nero's decoder really stand out.

Actually you are wrong: the last thing you should do is using post-processing with AVC. It has inloop deblocking for a reason. If you can post screenshots/sample files where there is a noticeable difference between Neros decoder and ffdshow (without pp FGS) I would like to see them. Decoders should in principle always show the same output, so if there is any its a bug that should be fixed. There is AFAIK no mentionable difference between Neros or ffdshows AVC decoding capabilities.

[niamh]

Pamel has now opened a new thread for the new pack :)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=94628