DivX Connected Server 1.5 BETA is out :) It Plays MKV.
Release notes: http://labs.divx.com/node/7782
The download link is available here: http://labs.divx.com/ConnectedDownload
Give it a shot and let us know what you think :)
[dan]
For the DSM-330, try pressing the "Language" button on the remote during video playback. For the PC Client, try pressing F1 during the video playback.
This hasn't worked for me throughout the whole 1.5 beta cycle and into release.
I have MKV files made with AutoMKV with two audio tracks.
Also, the "subtitle" button doesn't display the subtitles (which are in the MKV, not as .srt files.)
There will be a roughly one month beta period where we will be fixing bugs, some related to music sorting.[/quote]
1.5 is really good but the beta version is quite flakey, I have most of the problems mentioned above (freezes, crashes etc) as well on avi/flv files that played OK using the last 1.4 server and the all-in-one pack extensions.
Any sign of the final release of version 1.5 in the next couple of weeks becauase I am under pressure to go back to 1.4 so the kids can watch their stuff again.??
PS
keep up the good work :)
We are down to a few issues that need to be fixed before we can give the next beta. Hopefully this week.
Can't wait to get my hands on the new beta!
Will the new beta be less CPU hungry than the first 1.5 version?
The CPU usage will be high when transcoding HD video in real time. You may want to convert your favorites to DivX 720p (ASP) to lower the CPU usage during playback.
??
I just installed the beta the other night to test it out. Here's a few things I found.
- Definitely improved performance of the UI at 1080p
- MKV is working great along with clear sound
- However, some files (MKV & AVI) are randomly out of sync with the sound; there is a lag and the video is moving faster than the sound can keep up.
- Also, the server keeps crashing when I try to play random avi files now; basically, it'll play some, and then immediately crash on others... I'm able to get it to work half of the time now.
Hopefully this stuff will be fixed for the final version... had to actually go and watch stuff off of my computer screen because Connected simply wouldn't play any of the AVI's I was trying to watch.
Did it crash or hang during the AVI playback?
It actually never started... I pressed "play" and it would freeze on me and then I would go back to check on the server and I would have to "end program" because it was frozen.
Have been trying again to play various things all day and it's freezing 50% of the time whenever I go to hit "play". If I just open the info screen on a file it's fine, but if I try to play it, it causes the server to freeze/crash.
Instructions are here:
After many many tests, this is my conclusion:
If you wanna play HD MKV files with 1.5 and DivX7 and your computer is older than 2 weeks, you can forget it...
For those like me who have a decent machine, use 1.4 and the kamiwa config file which remains the best solution.
If 1.5 final could be LESS ressource hungry, it would be the best news ever.
Is there a way to remove the "Recently added files" virtual folder?? I kind of sort my media for a reason, not to be strong-handed by another folder that I never asked to be there... At the very least, this virtual folder feature should be optional.
No progress on subtitle quality? I guess I'll be mildly amused if I can turn subtitles on and off during playback, but the quality of the subtitles has always been horrid. For no good reason. Come on, make em sexy!
Navigating files is also still not optimal. When you get to the end of a row, pressing to the right should go to the first file on the left, like any other file browser in existence...
I'm glad the playback stutter issue from 1.4 has been corrected though, now I can finally run the latest version of the software!
A friend and colleague of mine asked about his options for media streaming, other than the noisy XBox of his. I mentioned DivX Connected in passing, because the software has been so completely neglected for months and months...
I hope the development team will bring out the full potential of this box so that I can gladly recommend it to others!
Navigation does not wrap around as you describe because we want to keep the left arrow available to go back to higher level.
There is no short term plan to improve the subtitles.
As far as other improvements, keep an eye on some of the active plug-in developments such Connected JukeBox. This is an example of the best way to get additional features beyond out base set.
What about the Back button? Can't that be used to go back to a higher level. In fact, isn't that what it already does?
I'm gonna wait till this is final release? Any ideas when this will be?
When it is released it will go out an an auto-update so all users will know when it happens.
I like 99% of the people who bought a divx connected device (DSM-330)
got this to enjoy content they got from p2p(xvid,MKV,mp3).
So that being known do some research on the most popular formats being used.(it will only take 10 minutes)
Do you have to pay a royalty to DTS to support their format?? is the dsm-330 capable of dts output through fiber or coax??
Sorry If I come off like an a**hole, but I kinda am!!
This product has so much potential if you can get it to support ALL the most popular p2p file types , it wont be long till these babies start flying off the shelf! and next thing you know no more global financial crisis, and then the world celebrates global divx day!!
think about it divx day around the world. and we can watch the celebrations in stunning HD with crystal clear DTS audio!!!
However, if you already have one the next Connected beta release should work with it as long as you can play it using the DivX7 player. Please let me know if you are still having trouble then and we will look into it.
Oh, that's perfect, I'll keep muxing in DTS into my MKVs now, I was thinking of just dropping them. Knowing that I can probably play them later is good enough.
I'm pretty happy with 1.5.
Just wanted to say a quick thanks
I would like to say a big thank you to the DivX Connected team for the beta release of 1.5. While there are issues that some are complaining about, I think most people would agree that the new features are great and it’s nice to see development progressing. Don’t let some of the negative posts get you down.
Have just noticed someone has raised the issue of folder names appearing wrongly here, apologies for duplication in my other thread.
As a sideline, the 1.5 Beta wont play any of the MKV's I have in an HD test clips folder of mine. All appear with question marks.
The 1.3 server version with Kamimwa's update played them no problems.
We support MKV with h.264 video and AAC, AC3 and MP3 audio codecs. If that is not the issue,
Check out the last part of this post for how to send us files that do not play.
any chance for MKV + DTS Support?
I have some of those files.. they play fine on PC and with DivX Player and also with Connected PC, but no Sound with DSM-330 (even with a "patched" config file)
Or is there any hack to get this work on the DSM-330?
I've been using Beta 1.5 since my post on Wednesday and have noticed that on the Connected device the folder names are being corrupted. In my Video placeholder, I have a folder called Films in which I have 10 sub folders for various the genres and one for TV material. When navigating into the films folder, I get the usual bitmaps flying in but 6 out of the 10 folders have lost their name and defaulted back to "New Folder", which would have been the original windows OS name.
I've noticed a similar thing in my music directories were all of the folder are reverting back to "Copy of Albums A", again referring to the original windows name for the folder when I was setting up the directory structure over a year ago. None of the previous versions of Connected Server have displayed this problem so my conclusion is that it is definitely related to the software.
Has anyone else seen this problem?
Yes, this happened to me just after I installed 1.5. Some of the folders I'd just added to those "watched" by the server came up as "New Folder"
I rebooted the PC and it seemed to fix the problem and it hasn't happened since. Strange one!
I'll keep a watchful eye now that you've also experienced the problem.
Here's a couple of bugs I found out so far with 1.5 :
- While playing MKV files, reverse and fast forward doesn't work. And if you use the number keys to skip scenes, the sound and picture get out of sync.
- You cannot resume MKV files. If you press resume on the menu, the progress bar will indicate where you last stopped the video but the actual file will play from the beginning.
I can confirm the same issues.
Skip Fwd / Back and numbers should work, there is still some debugging being done.
I am not able to duplicate the resume issue. Is is specific to a file, or any MKV file?
So far, the pros and cons of 1.5:
Pros: The picture for MKV files in 720p is perfect, much better than with ffdshow. Also, the menus are faster and more responsive.
Cons: Too CPU hungry! If you wanna play 720p HD files and your computer has less than 4 CPUs, forget about it... I'm using a Intel Dual-Core PC with 2 gigs of RAM and it's STRUGGLING to decode 5.1 sound... The CPU is at 98...
As a convenience feature it is great if you have the CPU power, but if you really want to have the best experience on dual core PC's for Connected, I would recommend converting to DivX 720p HD profile.
Will it be the same quality as the original file though?
You may a difference on 1080p content due to the downscaling to 720p, but otherwise, the quality is great.
I tried to convert x264 MKV to DivX 720p using DivX Converter but files are not supported... Help??
The latest DivX Converter only supports creation of MKV files in the DivX Plus profile. It does not take MKV as an input.
You would need to use some other conversion tool such as Handbrake.
Thanks! I'll give it a try.
That's the conclusion I came to today after ready some of your other posts. I really don't mind throwing CPU at it, but there doesn't seem to be a huge difference, especially at SDTV for me (although the 1080p looks fantastic on my PC monitor.)
All this encoding and decoding has convinced me that I need to get an i7 later on though! :)
EOM
Just installed Server Beta 1.5 and I am pleased to say that the slow menu navigation on HD seems to have improved back to the performance I had when playback was through SD.
The Connected PC is another nice touch but there is still a problem when playing back MP3 files. I'm fairly sure that this came in with version 1.4.
I've also noticed that there is now a new process running in the background - DivXConnectedScanner.exe. Is there a reason that this is now a separate process rather than being embedded as before?
On the whole, it's looking pretty good. Just hope you guys at DivX can sort the MP3 bug to exit Beta.
What's the proper way to report bugs?
* Connected Server scan crashed overnight, it looks like it was processing a ~3Gb mkv file I made with MeGUI. I restarted Connected Server. I have to admit I haven't performed a reboot (I'm running some stuff I don't want to interrupt until it's finished.)
* Connected Server doesn't follow shortcuts (neither does DiVX player, maybe there's a relationship)
* Connected PC has a nice new help screen for keyboard equivalents to the remote, but it seems like some features have been dropped, like changing audio tracks and subtitles. I thought those were I/U and J/K according to an older entry in the user guide
* The ability to change 480/720/1080 is nice, but when you change, any display Info text is not refreshed, so it gets distorted to unreadable..hitting F11 fixes it.)
Kind of a non-bug, I had another MKV file with two audio tracks, one in 5.1 English and the other French Stereo. DiVX Player 7 totally botched playing back the 5.1 and played it very slow, but the stereo track sounded fine. The new connected PC client played it back perfectly.
I can't seem to change subtitles, but I suspect my methodology for creating the videos needs more work too.
Still haven't tried using the DSM-330...
*EDIT*
DSM-330 testing...
Okay, DSM-330 didn't work with two MKV/H.264 videos properly. On one, the audio played fine but the video was not presented except for a couple of scan lines. On the other audio was fine but video had the diagonal skew. Both videos were playing fine on connected PC client though (although one exhibited the diagonal skew problem for awhile.) These videos were created with HandBrake.
Video created with DiVX 6.X (whatever the latest 6.X release was) looked great. I couldn't get the subtitles to work right. They seemed to go on and off sometimes when I pushed the button, but not consistently. They were also presented funny, some kind of bounding box/msk is created but the subtitles were displayed in the lower screen outside the box. I saw that behavior on the DiVX 7 player too so I don't blame connected. VLC doesn't play those .divx file subtitles and alt. audio anyway so i can't test that.
Lastly, I had a film I converted with MeGUI H.264/MKV with high quality settings ("insane") and it looked fantistic. No subtitles or alternate audio, but the picture looked great (sound was good, 6.1, but I wasn't really listening, but everything was synced.)
So I think I need to consider creating video with DiVX 7 now for a fair comparison.
Can you send us a screen shot of this? I am having trouble reproducing the issue
* The ability to change 480/720/1080 is nice, but when you change, any display Info text is not refreshed, so it gets distorted to unreadable..hitting F11 fixes it.)
Thanks for your feedback on the other issues.
If the MKV files play in the new PC client, they should play to the device, but CPU usage will be higher due to the transcoding.
If you can send us the MKV file that is causing the scanner problem the file with language / subtitle issue, we will look into it.
You will need to upload it using either internet explorer or an ftp program such as filezilla or fireftp.
server: ftp.divxnetworks.com
username: divxsupport
password: support
I was able to briefly reproduce it but then the client automatically refreshed. I think it's possible that when I observed it this morning my computer was under the influence of load, plus the fact that I hadn't done a reboot since installing the new Connected Server 1.5 beta.
I tried to get a screen shot of the effect anyway but missed it. Earlier today I got a different screen shot of a different distortion to give you an idea of what I mean. I'll send that, but I'd say it's a false alarm.
What is Connected PC? Is that a client that talks directly to Connected Server? I couldn't determine how to configure it to talk to my other Server (the one I use to drive my DSM-330.)
So now we'll have the Connected PC Client that's configurable (right-hand ctrl), and the hard-wired Connected PC?
Thanks!
I have tried to remain positive over the past few weeks as people criticise the development of the connected server.
Unfortunately I was pinning rather a lot on the latest 1.5 release.
Other forum posters have been hassling divx to find out the features in advance. It now becomes clear that the reason no previews were given is because there were no significant new features to announce.
The only new feature is the integration of the SDK into the server software. I can only assume that given the difficulting in getting manufacturers to adopt divx connected, divx have decided to try and get a foot hold in the media centre market by offering free server software.
I'm concerned that this will not be enough. Other manufacturers are now dedicating more time to this type of product and progress at divx is just too slow.
I'm in the current position:-
1. Many files that play on windows media player will not play on the DSM330. I've tried the various hacks to no avail.
2. Music playback functionality is completely featureless (please try to integrate some of the features in Trebor's Connected Jukebox plugin into the main server software)
3. The system still suffers from numerous bugs such as tracks sort order, no thumbnails on folders, stutters at start of MP3 playback.
Unbelievably there is a new feature to change the display order of plugins. WHY??
No consumer has ever suggested that this would be useful. I would have much preferred divx to resolve the sort order of album tracks rather than the order of the plugins.
I guess Divx will say that this was an easy improvement to make. If divx have got time to do the easy things, why not add thumbnails to folder icons???
Have divx gone mad??
I look forward to any comments that help to explain why things are progressing as they are.
There will be a roughly one month beta period where we will be fixing bugs, some related to music sorting.
There is a sticky thread here about files that wont play. If you have any MKV files that will not play, we will look at them if you send them us according to the instructions.
100% Agree. This release is very disappointing in many ways.
After many customers started posts about their frustruation about the development in the last few months, Kosmonaut started six weeks ago a poll (http://labs.divx.com/node/7599) to ask customers, what they want. And many customers wrote their opinion in the poll.
But unfortuatly, the server 1.5 release shows, that all this (the posts, the poll) was completely useless. None of the bugs mentioned by customers were fixed. But new features nobody asked for were implemented. And don't tell me the infamous music-sorting-bug needs more time than the the plugin-managment (who really need this crap?).
That shows a really big ignorance for the customers need.
Did anybody at divx at least read the discussion in the poll?
If yes, why didn't you answer or react in any way?
I expect a comment from divx, because I have lost all my faith in divx.
It's working out of the box with some H.264/MKV video I converted with DiVX 6.X, with DiVX 7, with HandBrake and MeGUI.
I'm on the PC Client for the moment but I'll test the DSM330 too.
Can you put the keyboard map for the remote controls in the help screen for the client soon?
Right away though, the ones I had created earlier had already been indexed...but the one I just added a little while ago and hadn't been seen by Connected Server before had this weird artifact I had seen before: it's as if the aspect ratio expressed in XY had an odd-numbered error. That is, the video had a diagonal line through it from top left to mid-bottom right, as if each scan line was wrapped a couple of pixels.
I had seen this behavior before early on, but I haven't seen it recently. In the past this behavior has eventually gone away, but if it's related to data stored in the resource database then probably not enough time has passed, I'll check later.
I haven't checked with my DSM330 yet, I'll do that next, but I'm very excited, I've produced a dozen MKV videos in the past couple of days in anticipation of this.
I have a sales + marketing question too: I bought DiVX 6 less than a week before you released DiVX 7. I would expect an upgrade. I clicked on the page which talks about an upgrade and it suggested that there'd be an upgrade offer for a small fee. The link asked me to enter my serial# and said I'd receive an email. I didn't get one, I figured maybe your app hadn't really gotten going yet. Is the upgrade route the way to go or should I ask for a refund and reorder?
Thanks!
Is it possible to play multiple audio tracks tracks within a video? I have a movie, but plays in English on the 2nd audio track but cannot see how to change this?
Any ideas?