MakeMKV Streaming Not Working With Blu-Ray Source

[WB5AGF]

I have the feeling that the problem I'm having has an 'obvious' source but I can't figure it out.

(I'm running Windows 7 (64 bits) with an old quad core Intel processor (Q6600) and have 3 GB of RAM.)

In the past, with an earlier version of MakeMKV, and using a temporary BETA key, I was able to stream Blu-Ray discs to VLC.

Now, with a newer version of MakeMKV, and having purchased a permanent registration key, I can't get MakeMKV to stream to VLC.

But .... here is a curious set of symptoms :

VLC starts to 'try' and play the Blu-Ray disc but it as though the data to it is running at a fraction of the necessary speed. If I wait long enough what look almost like still pictures will show up on the screen and about every 20 or 30 seconds there will be a few seconds of audio.

If I click on the link that MakeMKV shows it triggers my Web Browser (I use FireFox) and from the FireFox screen I can click through the various URLs being presented to it until I find the 'real' one with the movie data (by looking at the run time).

Then if I tell FireFox to invoke the Windows Media Player (instead of VLC) .....

AND if I then click on the 'Cancel Stopsign' on the MakeMKV Window .....

the Windows Media Player will briefly begin to play the movie ..... but of course I've already hit the 'stopsign' on MakeMKV.

Is it my imagination of does this sound like a buffering problem in MakeMKV ..... where the 'cancel' command allows the MakeMKV buffer dump a little data out (which then is why the Windows Media Player runs for a few seconds) ?

I'm going around in circles trying to make sense of this.

- Paul (WB5AGF)

[WB5AGF]

(UPDATE)

In the early hours this morning I went back to the hard drive with Windows XP on it (it's still available - I long ago learned to never mess with, or delete, a piece of software that works. When something new comes along you use up a bit more disk space by giving it its own directory .... but you leave the old stuff alone) and located my earlier versions of MakeMKV.

What I found is that MakeMKV version 1.8.5 (64 bit) streams Blu-Ray disks just fine .... even the 'bar graphs' work correctly (when trying to run version 1.9.1, 64 bits, the 'bar graphs' never showed any activity when trying to stream video).

So .... either there is something wrong with release 1.9.1 (64 bit) of MakeMKV or there is some sort of incompatibility between it and my computer environment .... in either case it won't stream disks for me.

My 'solution' was to create a link to the old version 1.8.5 of MakeMKV (on my XP hard drive) and stick it into the 'music es DVDs' quick access folder that I have situated in my Windows 7 TaskBar.

- Paul (WB5AGF)

[WB5AGF]

(and yet another update)

Though it seemed more of 'a solution in search of a problem' (i.e. why would I actually want to do this?) last night I became curious as to what would happen if I tried to 'stream' using a .MKV file as the source (the .MKV file being one that I'd previously created using MakeMKV 1.9.1) ?


(For my 'test cases' I used the saved .MKV file of the great old sci-fi movie "Forbidden Planet".)


Trying to stream the .MKV file using MakeMKV 1.9.1 .... nothing happened - the same thing as when trying to stream using a Blu-Ray disc (no bar-graph activity .... no 'nothing').


When I switched to the old version of MakeMKV (1.8.5), the one that successfully streams directly from a Blu-Ray disc, I didn't get the movie playing on VLC but at least there was some activity showing on the MakeMKV window .....

Line-after-line saying :

Error 'Internal error - AV transform failed (336)' occurred while reading 'J:/DVDs es BluRay/BluRay - read files/Forbidden Planet/Forbidden_Planet_t04.mkv' at offset '0'


So here we have the fascinating situation where the old (vers 1.8.5) MakeMKV streams directly from the Blu-Ray disc (I checked a few minutes ago just-to-be-sure that what I'd previously observed hadn't been a freak situation) just fine but when I tell it to stream from the saved .MKV file (of the same movie) it gives a screen's worth of a repeating error message (repeating dozens of times).


Hmmm .... Perhaps I should stop now .... after all what's the practical application of streaming from the .MKV file when I can directly access the file from VLC without invoking MakeMKV's streaming server? (I haven't checked yet but the thought occurred - I wonder if my 'smart TV' can 'read' MakeMKV's streaming server ?)

- Paul (WB5AGF)

[magi1]

Hi WB5AGF,

did you manage to get any further in tracking down the cause of this problem?
I believe I am encountering the same issue.

I was just checking into the current status of MakeMKV as I wanted to check if it is able to stream from Bluray media directly to my Samsung Smart TV via UPnP.
The UPnP server gets picked up just fine but playback keeps freezing and buffering.

At first I thought the TV or connection might just not be fast enough to stream full bitrate Bluray content (although it's a wired ethernet connection), however I tried streaming to VLC on the same machine (so no network involved) and the same issue occurs.

I found this last behaviour especially strange, because it's a use case I clearly remember successfully testing a few months ago on the same discs. Sadly I do not remember specifically which version I was using back then.

The symptoms on the MakeMKV (1.9.1) side are pretty much the same you describe: the buffer bar never fills.

Happy to carry out further tests if it can help track down the problem.

All the best

[magi1]

Hello,

just an update: I tried version 1.9.2 just now and this is still a problem for me.
Same behaviour as described above.

I noticed I did not specify this before: running on Windows 7 x64.

Again, I am available to help track down the issue with further information if necessary.

Cheers