UHD, MKV, VLC and PDVD – Getting ready to play but have MKV issues.

[testiles]

The PDVD18 demo won’t let me run the UHD MKV.

That sucks.

I'd be shocked if the fixed anything from 2017 anyway. Google shows and number of MKV issues over the years.

One can hope.

Believe it or not, I paid for an upgrade to PDVD 18 in August and as-of-yet have not installed it.

As I have a new Desktop, I plan on installing 18 on it.

So I should be able to test it out soon.

I can’t even get the CPU and motherboard I want because you need to get an Intel CPU with iGPU HD630 or greater. What a bummer.

Yeah it is.

I guess I can look into an NVIDIA Shield or something?

If you go that route, please let me know if it's really as easy to implement UHD-playing as it seems "on paper" with Shield...




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[James]

I guess I can look into an NVIDIA Shield or something?

Good idea! Or an OSMC Vero 4K.

 

[testiles]

@Tanquen

I played 3 UHD .mkv's and an HD .mkv that I made yesterday and they all played flawlessly!

In fact, it's kind of impressive that .mkv files are so close to playing the original disc.


I didn't actually watch all 4 movies through but put each on, looked at it a few minutes, let it run and did other things, then came back and watched 30 minutes later at the very least. Some I checked an hour and a half later.

I did not see any audio sync problems at all.


These .mkv's are created with Original Video and Audio. Not sure if you're doing that or even if it would make a difference for your issue.


EDIT: Played .mkv's with PDVD 17


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[testiles]

@Tanquen


Yesterday, I neglected to specifically state that the .mkv's I watched were created with CloneBD.


Checked some today that I made with makeMKV and they did not fare as well.



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[Tanquen]

Are you using the PowerDVD hardware acceleration?

Also, the UHD being washed out made me think of HDR. I don't have an HDR display so maybe that is why the UHD MKVs are washed out?

I'm also using a AMD card and years ago it had issues with a 0-255 color setting of some kind that caused a washed out image.

 

[testiles]

Are you using the PowerDVD hardware acceleration?

I'm not sure what PowerDVD hardware acceleration is.

If you mean CloneBD hardware acceleration, because I created the .mkv files with Original Lossless Video and Audio, no transcoding was necessary and no h/w acceleration was involved.

Good thing too because this GPU doesn't do h/w acceleration for HEVC.

Also, the UHD being washed out made me think of HDR. I don't have an HDR display so maybe that is why the UHD MKVs are washed out?

Yeah, that's it.

I mentioned that earlier --

-- If for any reason your TV/monitor doesn't have a UHD/HDR-compliant set-up (and this includes HDMI cable, HDMI connection on TV and the TV itself), then colors will look washed out and the picture will look dull.

My PC monitor is not UHD/HDR compliant, so when I work with UHD material, "washed-out" is what I see all the time.

When I'm ready to really "watch" the UHD material, I use the 4k TV that is, ofc, fully UHD/HDR-compliant.

Believe me, there is a WORLD of difference!



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[Tanquen]

Yeah, that's it.

I mentioned that earlier --

-- If for any reason your TV/monitor doesn't have a UHD/HDR-compliant set-up (and this includes HDMI cable, HDMI connection on TV and the TV itself), then colors will look washed out and the picture will look dull.

Oops. I totally missed that. I wonder if there is a setting for that in PowerDVD as the UHD movies look correct in the built in Windows 10 media player. ??? I even reinstalled Windows 10 as I gots a new 1.8TB NVME drive and MS removed the codecs and you have to pay 99 cents to get them back. So dumb, I found an OEM link that lets you install them for free. Thats my 99 cents MS!

I got the UHD Passengers and it has the same issue. There are a lot of MKV players out there, just need to find one that passes everything if needed and plays UHDs well. Stinks that the one I've buying over and over all this time is so stinky at it.

 

[testiles]

There are a lot of MKV players out there, just need to find one that passes everything if needed and plays UHDs well. Stinks that the one I've buying over and over all this time is so stinky at it.

I notice you're using PDVD 17.0.1801.60.

Try upgrading to the latest version. Maybe you'll have more success.

I'm at 17.0.2316.62.


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[Tanquen]

The color is still not the same but with the 17.0.2820.62 version the black bars are black now so that is something. Audio sync seems to be ok in the little testing I did. I thought it also add the show info for MKVs but its just the HD MKVs not the UHD ones.

 

[testiles]

The color is still not the same but with the 17.0.2820.62 version the black bars are black now so that is something. Audio sync seems to be ok in the little testing I did.

The color is never going to be the same.

That's just the result of HDR to SDR conversion.


But more importantly, it seems like your audio sync issue may be resolved! Excellent. 'Cause that's a real bug.

I thought it also add the show info for MKVs but its just the HD MKVs not the UHD ones.

Guess we'll have to live with no "Show Information" for UHD .mkv's a little longer.



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