Ed Andersen

Software Developer and Architect in Japan

“Native” HD MKV playback in Windows 7

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Ed Andersen
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Windows 7 has been out for a few days for MSDN members and the public beta is due soon. One of the best new features is native DivX, AVCHD and mp4 video support. With the codec framework completely changed (as explained by Long Zheng here), usual MKV splitters for Windows Media Player no longer work and viewing HD MKV files now definitely requires VLC for now.

image On my travels I found an application called TSMuxer on the doom9 forums – this has the ability to very quickly convert HD video files between formats with no quality loss whatsoever. This works by changing the container formats but keeping the video and audio streams the same.image

The screenshot above shows the settings I used to convert an episode of Heroes into an AVCHD .m2ts file. The process took about 2 minutes and resulted in a file that plays natively in Windows Media Player 12, Windows Media Center and even better – streams and plays in HD to an Xbox 360 Media Center Extender. No stupid codec packs and no dodgy DirectShow filters. Lovely.

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Hi! 👋 I’m a Software Developer, Architect and Consultant living in Japan, building web and cloud apps. Here I write about software development and other things I find interesting. Read more about my background.

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Comments

7 responses to ““Native” HD MKV playback in Windows 7”

  1. Rich Green Avatar
    Rich Green

    Great find, if only it could be automated.

    Reply
  2. Danb Avatar
    Danb

    “usual MKV splitters for Windows Media Player no longer work and viewing HD MKV files now definitely requires VLC for now.”

    I have to say, this isn’t my experience – I have the build 7000 leak, and with the MKV reg hack (to recognise the files as video), FFDshow (although I’m not certain this is needed, as I put it on before Haali) and the Haali splitter, all MKVs are working fine in W7MC.

    Reply
  3. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    I have MKV playback working fine under build 7000 with the new free DivX 7 bundle (http://www.divx.com) that has H.264 and MKV support. It is still DirectShow, but playback works fine in WMP.

    Reply
  4. Charles Avatar
    Charles

    Thanks for the tip much appreciated 😉

    Reply
  5. Nico Avatar
    Nico

    Just install CCCP which should include everything you need. However, I find .mkv playback a bit choppy and laggy in Media Player Classic-HC… Does anyone else have this problem?

    /Nico

    Reply
  6. Marc Avatar
    Marc

    Ed,

    When I try to stream .m2ts content via Windows 7 MC to my Xbox 360 i get the spinning disk for approx 30s. then nothing. It looks like it’s going to start, but there’s no video or sound.

    Did you encouter similiar problems? If so, how did you get around them?

    Cheers,

    Marc

    Reply
  7. Rasmus Avatar
    Rasmus

    Hi Ed

    Do you know if this is only possible in the final version of windows 7.
    I have made a clean install of windows7, and converted some of my files using the tsmuxer.
    Windows7 MCE does show the file, but when i select it, my mediacenter stops responing.

    Reply

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