Which HD Multimedia Player

All these players suffer from a bug where MKV files with compressed headers cannot be played back (usually 720 and 1080 MKVs use compressed headers). ANY and ALL players based on Realtek chipsets are vulnerable to the bug. Pretty much all players use the RealTek chipset.

Can confirm that the following suffer from the bug:
WD TV - My brother has one but there are threads about it on their forum
Mede8er - Confirmed from their Forum
A.C Ryan Playon HD! - Confirmed on their Forum. A beta firmware has been released to fix the problem.
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I have the AC Ryan Playon HD mini and have had no issues playing any MKVs at all.
 
zolly said:
I have the AC Ryan Playon HD mini and have had no issues playing any MKVs at all.
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*sigh* I'll say this again, since you seem to have an inability to READ. On MKV files with COMPRESSED HEADERS. I even added that it is mostly 720p and 1080p MKVs that fit into that category.

Furthermore a firmware update was added by AC Ryan forums to fix the bug. So might be that you have firmware where the bug was fixed.

It has not however been fixed on the WD TV or Mede8er far as I know.

It isn't specific to player, the RealTek SDK provided to vendors contained the bug because they did not follow the Matroska specifications. Newer release of the SDK provided to vendors by RealTek apparently fix the problem.
 
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Gnome said:
*sigh* I'll say this again, since you seem to have an inability to READ. On MKV files with COMPRESSES HEADERS. I even added that it is mostly 720p and 1080p MKVs that fit into that category.

Furthermore a firmware update was added by AC Ryan forums to fix the bug. So might be that you have firmware where the bug was fixed.

It has not however been fixed on the WD TV or Mede8er far as I know.

It isn't specific to player, the RealTek SDK provided to vendors contained the bug because they did not follow the Matroska specifications. Newer release of the SDK provided to vendors by RealTek apparently fix the problem.
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so if I "MEDIA INFO" my MKV and it says MKVMERGE, would that automatically mean it has compressed headers?

if so, then I have had no problem on my WDTV LIVE so that one works fine.

if I had waited till about now to buy a media player, I would have however gone with the Mede8er, especially seeing as Incredible for one now has a 'special' where you get the player+1TB+dongle for about R2700 which I wouldn't mind paying since I use AVI's and MKV's downloaded regularly.
 
Off-The-Chart said:
so if I "MEDIA INFO" my MKV and it says MKVMERGE, would that automatically mean it has compressed headers?
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No, I see how you can make that assumption after reading the blog post. Just solidifies to me how little these people (From Playon!HD) actually know about the various formats.

The specification for Matroska is very wide, the problem is they (RealTek) didn't follow the specifications which ALLOWS the header of the Matroska file to be compressed (to save space). MKVMerge, the newer version, by default may compress the header. But MKVMerge is just a tool for the editing of the Matroska containers. It says nothing about the fact that the header may be compressed.

Both MKVMerge and MKVToolNix were written many years ago by people actively involved in the open source codec community, it is constantly updated. Similar to how Windows and Photoshop have gone through multiple versions. Using the MKVMerge info tag as a indication of compressed headers is idiotic to say the least. It just indicates the possibility. I find it quite humorous since those are the tools everyone uses (MKVToolNix is "THE standard matroska creation and editing tool"), yet they imply that it is somehow the blame of those tools .

That said my brother has a WD TV Live, he in actually made me aware of the compressed headers problem. WD TV has the bug (all models). No question about it.
 
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Guys, I'm looking at the specs of the WD TV live and I don't see any AC3 support. Can anyone confirm this for me please?
 
The WDTV definitely supports AC3, havn't had any issues with mine. The latest firmware also adds quiet a bit of new features, mostly for the US market but the Facebook and USB keyboard support could be quite useful.
 
Veyron786 said:
The WDTV definitely supports AC3, havn't had any issues with mine. The latest firmware also adds quiet a bit of new features, mostly for the US market but the Facebook and USB keyboard support could be quite useful.
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Cool, thanks :) I was just reading the release notes on the latest firmware update :)

Do you watch your stuff via USB?
 
mercurial said:
What time are you going there today? I would like the WD TV live :D How much do you charge? When can I get it? :D
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Cost price + R50 petty money :D = R1050.

I'll be going to them at about 13:00 (Mont Gardens) > Oranjezicht > Sea Point > Rondebosch. We could cross paths.
 
PostmanPot said:
Cost price + R50 petty money :D = R1050.

I'll be going to them at about 13:00 (Mont Gardens) > Oranjezicht > Sea Point > Rondebosch. We could cross paths.
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I need a HDMI cable as well. How much will the total be? I'm in Cape Town. Could you pop around when you are in Sea Point?
 
ok reading about all this drama with the MKV files is putting me off now....

If one manufacturer can update their player, surely the other ones can aswell...

?? :confused:
 
HTC_guy said:
ok reading about all this drama with the MKV files is putting me off now....

If one manufacturer can update their player, surely the other ones can aswell...

?? :confused:
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I should probably have posted: You can get around the bug by remuxing the file using MKVToolNix and deselecting header compression. After which it will play again. It is just annoying to have to remux to play.

Why not just get AC Ryan Playon!HD download latest firmware and problem solved?

But yes, it is possible for it to be fixed. However I question if it will be fixed. WD TV I suspect might still be fixed because they used to do regular updates to their firmware. Don't know about Mede8er but looking on their forum I didn't see much mention about any firmware updates but then again I didn't look for very long.
 
@Park@82:

Seems you may be correct. I did a quick search online. There is at least already beta firmware that fixes the problem on the WD TV Live (well I didn't see the firmware but I saw mention of it). Not sure however if non-beta firmwares already implement the fix.

Earlier versions of the WD TV players are apparantly End of Life and WD refuse to fix it as they say it is not their fault MKVToolNix changed the way it works (LOL, once again, their arrogance is astounding to me).
 
HTC_guy said:
ok reading about all this drama with the MKV files is putting me off now....

If one manufacturer can update their player, surely the other ones can aswell...

?? :confused:
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Sounds like hot air to me. Never had a problem playing any downloaded mkvs on Mede8er
 
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