Beta 7 HD Content problem plus many more

Legacy 2nd gen Apple TV
1

Hi james,

After 6 months of long nights and many frustrating issues with other open source media players, I decided to get a paid product with the hope of have a more stable a solid solution.

First, I have to say the product has great potential and with these bugs fixed and some basic enhancements, I am sure FireCore will takeover the Media Client market for AppleTV.

Here is a list of problems and I have encountered on this beta version.

  1. HD (bluRay) material is impossible to watch. I am using MKV files created with makeMKV. This weekend I tried about 10 different movies with all audio possibilities and they all completely freeze the application or it goes into infinity buffer mode. I think it is a problem with the audio decoding system on the media player. Be aware that these same material plays perfectly with FLEX (need to know that PLEX has AC3 option off though).

  2. HD (BluRay) material audio gets out of sync with video. 

  3. Media Player is not selecting the correct audio track. All of my movies have several audio tracks (DTS-lossless, AC3, DTS, english, french, spanish, etc.) I did this to have a flexibility of future applications and also some other systems like popcorn hour and ReQuest F3 Server have full support for these media. What the system is doing is selecting any audio track at random, sometimes it plays in other languages and some other times it even plays the directors commentaries. If the system is not able to do this automatically, at least give us the option to select the audio track prior to play to movie, similar to the flow that PLEX uses now.

  4. System doesn’t have an option to correct Metadata (similar to Plex and XBMC have).

  5. System shouldn’t show file name. We don’t care about file names, it should display Metadata information instead. This is done by other media players as well.

  6. System doesn’t allow to have multiple shares by group. I have, and I am sure everybody have movies in different folders or locations. It will be best to allow a Movie container and in it we should have the options to point to multiple folders. This way we don’t end up with multiple movie locations in the Favorites instead of just seen one location.

  7. AC3 and DTS is partially working. When these two options are on during HD (bluray) playback it works perfectly, but when using regular DVD material the systems goes mutes. By disabling both options, the audio comes back,but is is stereo only.

  8. Harmony Remote support. I am currently using my Harmony 890 remote with my aTV2, but when using the media player the functions don’t work. I have to use the regular Apple Remote.

  9. Auto expand option. I will be great to have regular 4:3 format to automatically expand to 16:9 format, same way as XBMC does it.

  10. The software installation made PLEX disappear from the MENU and made XBMC constantly crash. I had to manually installed the night builds from both applications manually again.

  11. FF not working at all. it just doesn’t work.

  12. Chapters UI could be better. it would be nice to have the ability to FF by track by press-hold the down option and them the button bar should display the tracks and by pressing the right button it should move to the next track. This is how other media players work. I you want to get really fancy, then the best option will be to hold the center button and then display the icons for each chapter. Same way has the regular Apple interface works when renting movies.

  13. ISO support. No ISO support, how can that be possible? This is the standard format for any high-end audio-video system.

I have many other suggestions, but for now I think these are the more critical ones.

As I said before the application has GREAT potential, and I know we are on Beta only, but I will be great if we get these glitches out of the way. to support the cause, I have purchased the lifetime membership version.

System configuration:

AppleTV 2nd Generation (black) with 4.3 with Build 8F455

3Com 48port 1GB managed switch connected to Applet TV and Thecus N5200XXX with 15TB of storage using two 1GB ports for load balancing and failover options enable.

Netgear DSL Router WNDR3700 with 1GB ports.

All network devices are in a 1GB only network.

2

Thanks for your feedback. We’ve quite a bit more coming down the pipe, but I’ve tried to address your concerns below.

Are these .m2ts files? HD .m2ts files require some special handling that has not be implemented just yet, though I believe this should make it into the next version of MP.

What type of files? We’re looking into a few issues where AC3/DTS tracks will get out of sync after buffering or a long pause.

MP has some specific audio track logic built it. Essentially it uses your AppleTV’s language setting as the primary requirement, then looks at the actual track type (DTS, AC3, stereo, etc…). If needed, you can adjust the track through the Playback menu (hold select during playback).

A correction feature will be added soon.

Coming soon.

This feature requires some special file indexing which we’re planning to add in a future version. 

Are you sure a 5.1 audio track is selected for your DVDs? Is this happening with all DVDs?

A zoom feature is planned for a future version.

Plex is not yet supported on the 4.3 software. There is a nightly version floating around, but by all reports I have seen is quite buggy.

Hmm - what happens when you try to fast forward? What type of files? Streaming via wifi or ethernet?

Our goal is to keep the controls as close to the AppleTV UI as possible. Currently the down arrow in Apple player will bring up the chapters bar (as it now does in MP). Better UI and metadata options for chapter selection via the Playback menu are also planned.

This is also coming soon.

3

Hi James,

Thanks for the quick response.

Regarding your questions, see my answers below:

1. On the type of file, I am using MKV only for both regular DVD’s and Bluray material. no m2ts

  1. Bluray material is also MKV created with makeMKV, other media players are working fine.

  2. I did used this option, I was letting you know it is not working properly at the moment. I think it should always default to English AC3.

  3. Yes, AC3 audio track was selected. I acutally switched to all audio tracks and made no difference. I believed I tried on two movies, but I can always double check tonight again. I will keep you posted.

  4. Yes, that was the version I was using before installing MP. but once I installed it removed the PLEX. This is no trouble, I just went ahead and manually installed the nightly again and worked fine. I was just letting you know.

  5. When FF it didn’t do anything for me. I am using MKV files and if you see my settings at the bottom of the post I am using 1GB ethernet only network (I know AppleTV only goes 100BaseT thugh). I will test again tonight in more detail to explain more the results.

  6. I will check again tonight, but I believe the down arrown doesn’t bring the chapter bar. Will double check and post again.

  7. This is great news, specially when wanting to keep the lossless version of the DVD.

 

Thank you again for your support and I would also let you know that I am available to do any pre-beta testing if you would like me too. I have various setting available for testing in case it is needed.

 

Regards,

 

4

Would you mind running one of the files through MediaInfo (MediaInfo). Sending in the specs along with a bug report would help in tracking down what’s going on. Bug Reporting - 2nd gen Apple TV - Firecore

Same as #1

Is your AppleTV set to use English, or another language?

If you want to double check, and include details about what is/not working in your bug report it would be helpful.

Hmm - there’s nothing specific in MP that will remove Plex or XBMC. As I said before the currently 4.3 compatible version of Plex is pretty buggy, so there could be something else going on.

Did you see the FF indicator in the playback bar? FF/RW is a bit slow (at the moment) for some files but we’re hoping to improve this. The chapters option helps for skipping ahead/back in big chunks.

You may also check the ‘Volume Control’ setting (via Media –> Settings). When enabled, the up/down arrows will be used for volume control, and will not bring up the chapters bar.

5

Hi James,

After some more testing this is what I found tonight.

BTW, all MediaInfo files are posted with request 19630.

Bluray media ONLY

Test 1. Movie 2012. this movied played without any problems, I have AC3/DTS options turned on. No buffering, no error messages. Life is beautiful.

Test 2. Movie The Dark Night (Batman). Movie won’t even start. Tried selecting all audio tracks, but same result (even stereo). Disabled AC3/DTS options with same result. right at the beginning of the movie it will just freeze or play about 1 frame every 30 seconds.

Test 3. Movie Avatar. Movie plays in all audio tracks including lossless (which my Krell processor recognizes as DTS 5.1 not TrueHD). But I get buffer every 18-20 seconds of material.

Test 4. Movie Contact. Message the network is too slow for the movie. Will play with constant buffering.

Test 5. Movie The Day After Tomorrow. Movie will play with buffering every 20 seconds, worked in all audio tracks.

Test 6. Movie Angels & Daemons. Message that movie will play slow to choppy. Played anyways and it was playing like in slow motion.

Also, in the 2012 movied a switched to AC3 English and there was no sound. selected DTS (lossless or 3+2/1) and sound was perfect.

Be aware all materials in the above test were Bluray.

Now to DVD material.

Test 1, 5 different movies test on this test. All movies with AC3 or any other audio track not DTS. they will produce no sound. Only movies with DTS audio track will produce audio. When setting options to off, then sound will be stereo.

Answers to your questions:

1-2, posted files on request 19630

  1. AppleTv is set to english.

  2. see all tests results above.

  3. Yes, PLEX is broken now.

  4. When FF on Bluray material audio gets out of sync. To sync audio again I have to RW for about 5 seconds and they get synced again.

  5. You are correct, my mistake, pressing down button brings the chapter bar and works properly. 

6

I forgot to thank you for you time and help.

Again the product is great and will be better once completed.

It will be nice to have ISO support now so we can do further testing with test formats as well.

I will continue doing testing now and post the results.

Regards,

7

James,

Just to let you know I just submitted the information you requested with MediaInfo files for each of the performed test.

I also updated the post with my latests series of test with some additional material.

Let me know if there is any additional information you may need from me.

Regards,

8

Thanks. We’re reviewing your info.

I’ll let you know if any questions come up.

9

Hi James,

 

Do you have any updates on the reported issues. I haven’t heard anything back from support?

 

10

We’ve tracked down a number of issues, and should have many of them resolved in the next update.

Stay tuned.

11

 

Any idea to when the next update will be released?

12

We’re hoping to have it ready within the next week or so.

13

Great news!

Thanks,