Support for WTV files? Microsoft Windows Media Center recording format

smee204 Wrote:I find XBMC will play only part of the .wtv file. I started watching a recorded film and it played the first 15 minutes then stopped. I also noticed that the time bar was incorrect. It did not know how long the .wtv file was so displayed that it was at the end all the time. Here is part of my log file if it helps.
[..]

Check your xbmc build/version? Builds prior to ~April 2011 exhibited this problem.

If you have a more recent build, then there may be something special about your .wtv file that ffmpeg does not support. Please consider uploading the *complete* .wtv file per instructions here http://ffmpeg.org/bugreports.html.

Thanks for the quick reply.
I was using a nightly build 20110827-702ed8c-master
It seems to be the same problem for all my .wtv files which is weird. the files play fine in windows media center and player but I guess that is using a microsoft codec. Do you know any other programs I can test it in that use ffmpeg to check if it is xbmc or not?

Thanks

Simon

Test your files with ffplay.exe, which is part of ffmpeg.

Win32 builds here: http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Works fine using ffplay.exe from the website you provided. Maybe it is my pc/setup?

fd4ec3d7dc88 Wrote:Test your files with ffplay.exe, which is part of ffmpeg.

Win32 builds here: http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

There could be a problem in the way xbmc uses ffmpeg. I rule this out because wtv files play perfectly here on Linux.

It could be that xbmc-for-windows does uses the WTV support built into Microsoft Windows directshow. Do your files play back correctly Windows Media Centre? If they do then you can rule out this hypothesis. [edit: disregard, your xmbc.log indicates that its using ffmpeg]

The symptoms you describe (lack of seeking, playback stopping after ~15 minutes) existed in ffmpeg between Dec 2010 and April 2011. Its more likely that you have an older version of the ffmpeg libraries installed and that they are being used by xbmc. Lots of applications bundle the ffmpeg dlls and dump them into \windows\system32. Search your system for *avformat*.dll, and uninstall/update the offending software. _OR_ try testing your wtv files on another computer.
[edit: look for the LoadDLL lines in your xbmc.log, they will tell you where *avformat*dll is being loaded from]

Looks like the dlls are taken from a xbmc folder. Can anyone verify that version 52 is the correct version of avformat? I have tried playing back lots of .wtv files and seeking works for smallish files but the duration is never correct. The only file I can correctly play is the sample .wtv that ships with media center but it is only 10 seconds long!

Okay. Did some investigating. The problem is that xbmc for windows is compiled using the copy of ffmpeg which is embedded in the xbmc git repository. This version is old (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...rmat/wtv.c), and exhibts the problems I mentioned earlier. The latest WTV demuxer looks like this. http://git.videolan.org/?p=ffmpeg.git;a=...25;hb=HEAD Notice the dates.

Put simply, the version of ffmpeg bundled with xbmc needs to be updated. You might be able to achieve the same thing by downloading the 'shared' version of win32 ffmpeg binaries (http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/), and cpying them over the existing avformat, avcodec, avutils, avblah dlls found in the xbmc folder.

smee204 Wrote:Looks like the dlls are taken from a xbmc folder. Can anyone verify that version 52 is the correct version of avformat? I have tried playing back lots of .wtv files and seeking works for smallish files but the duration is never correct. The only file I can correctly play is the sample .wtv that ships with media center but it is only 10 seconds long!


17:58:05 T:3832 DEBUG: CDVDDemuxFFmpeg::Open - av_find_stream_info starting
17:58:05 T:3832 DEBUG: ffmpeg[EF8]: [dvbsub] Invalid extradata, subtitle streams may be combined!
17:58:05 T:3832 DEBUG: ffmpeg[EF8]: [wtv] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate

Good spot!

I tried copying them over but looks like xbmc looks for the specific version it was compiled with as I could not get it to work by replacing the dlls.

Has this problem been reported/fixed in the xbmc git?

Thanks for the help!

smee204 Wrote:Good spot!

I tried copying them over but looks like xbmc looks for the specific version it was compiled with as I could not get it to work by replacing the dlls.

Did you try some older ffmeg dlls from ffmeg, say those from May 2011? http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win32/shared/

smee204 Wrote:Has this problem been reported/fixed in the xbmc git?

The bundled ffmeg is infrequently updated, because newer FFmpeg tends to break other things.

I tried various versions but no luck.
I will just have to wait I guess or switch to linux!