A Small Technical Question about MKV Files

[ukbobboy]

Dear Technically Minded Forum Members

I have a white Now TV box and from time to time (well, daily) I stream my audio album (MP3) files, via my media server, to my TV's sound system, it's the only way I play my CDs/albums nowadays.

Anyway, I was wondering if  the box can handle MKV files as easily as it does MP3s?

Any answers or advice will be gratefully received.

UK Bob

PS. No skool like the Old skool 

[Anonymous User]

The Roku boxes are built to be great at playing video, the earlier models (including the NOW TV white box) are only let down when GUIs need more omph.

Not sure what you are using to play the MP3, but if it can handle video to you should be fine.

[commanda6]

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@Anonymous User wrote:

The Roku boxes are built to be great at playing video, the earlier models (including the NOW TV white box) are only let down when GUIs need more omph.

Not sure what you are using to play the MP3, but if it can handle video to you should be fine.

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Hi @ukbobboy

That's a good point actually, what are you using to play the MP3 files on the white box? 

I should point out that I remember reading somewhere that the MKV container format will only be supported by Roku/Roku-based devices. If you're using the MKV container format with H264 video codec

[ukbobboy]

@commanda6

Hi, you can see in my reply to @Anonymous User that I'm using Plex, which is installed on my media server the ReadyNAS Duo v2.

It's not powerful enough to handle transcoding but it can "direct play" MP3 & MP4 files to the white smart box, I was just wondering if MKV files can be directly played as well?

UK Bob

[commanda6]

@ukbobboy I can't see any reason why MKV files couldn't be played

[ukbobboy]

@commanda6

I'm gonna give it a go, probably tomorrow.

(Listening to Earth, Wind & Fire)

UK Bob

[Anonymous User]

H264 on commericaly sold products only play files that obey H264 MPEG profiles...

MKV encoders programs commonly Ignore  the rules and do what they want for PC play back only...

When these programs break h264 rules they break support..

The roku boxes are still limited in decoder power... So Plex will likely have to transcode High quality BD rips to lower profiles...

Most H264 decoder chips are set to Level 4.1 or 4.2 for BD quality feature sets in there firmware...

Bad encoders enable level 5.1 - 6.1 features of h264 incorrectly disabling playback... 

If the level flag is incorrect expect plex to use up PC CPU engaging the transcoder... 

[ukbobboy]

Well Guys

I found out today that VLC, the all purpose media player, can convert MKV files to MP3s or MP4s, I am testing this out of the moment. 

UK Bob

[SeeMoreDigital · Accepted solution]

When testing the capabilities of the 'black' box back in late August 2015, I was able to confirm playback of the following media formats via USB: -

MPEG-4 AVC video with 5.1Ch Dolby Digital audio placed within the .mp4 container

MPEG-4 AVC video with 2.0Ch AAC audio placed within the .mp4 container

MPEG-4 AVC video with 5.1Ch Dolby Digital audio placed within the .mkv container

MPEG-4 AVC video with 2.0Ch AAC audio placed within the .mkv container

MPEG-4 AVC video with 5.1Ch Dolby Digital audio and SRT (UTF-8) subtitles placed within the .mkv container

MPEG-4 AVC video with 2.0Ch AAC audio and SRT (UTF-8) subtitles placed within the .mkv container

Sufficed to say, it's very rare for MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer-3) audio streams to appear within .mp4 or .mkv contained files...

Cheers

[Anonymous User]

Hello Forum Watchers,

Is there a recommended MKV Application? I want to put my father's DVD Collection on a USB Device connected to his NowTV BlackBox (he can't handle "fiddly little disks" anymore).

Thanks in anticipation.

[Anonymous User]

Don't use MKV and then the issues get less and compliance becomes a lot easier to manage due to MP4 being more supported than MKV ....

but if you insist on doing the MKV....

Use "handbrake" with MKV. Use the Presets of left hand side then change the file type to MKV... untill you research more...  https://handbrake.fr/

It forces Compliance to standards so is required to go SLOWER than Remuxing and stitching encoder apps you may have seen that brake encoding rules... 

[ukbobboy]

@Anonymous User

Well, I'm using Plex (PMS) as my media software and it can stream MP4s, MP3s and some FLV files directly to the white box which are then played flawlessly on my TV.

As you can see from my first post on this topic, my main love is my Old Skool tunes (which I am listening to at the moment), but I just really want to find out if MKVs will give me any trouble or will they play flawlessly.  However, I have my doubts because MKVs have DTS sound embedded in them.

I guess I'm gonna have to give it a try and see what happens.

Cheers

UK Bob