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[macdonjh]

I have ripped approximately 100 TV episodes and approximately 60 movies.  Every time I try to play a file (either by selecting the file and pushing the "play" button or by hovering over the file and selecting "play") I get a pop-up that says MC21 has unexpectedly shut down and am asked if I want to reopen.

What is going on?

[blgentry]

Are the files imported into MC's library?

Are you trying to play them back with the Mac's screen, or to an external (HMDI) monitor?

What format are the files?

I've never had a significant problem playing video with MC21, so I'm asking questions to try to isolate what's going on.

Brian.

[macdonjh]

Yes, this is new. 

I believe all the files are in the library because MC21 displays the art work and I've done several library updates over the last couple of days (as we discussed in a different thread).
Gear: Mac mini with external hard drive that houses all video files (music files on internal drive).  HDMI connection to my pre-pro and a Thunderbolt/HDMI connection to a monitor.  Pre-pro connected to TV via HDMI.
Software: MC21 for library and playback, MakeMKV for ripping DVDs.  DVD files are .mkv format.

Different topic:  I did get The Matrix to play this afternoon.  While it was playing I looked at the pre-pro display and saw it was receiving multi-channel LPCM.  I also looked at Audio Path in MC21 and saw that MC21 was decoding 6-channel, 48 kHz audio, made no changes, and output 6-channel, 48 kHz audio.  While the movie was playing I tried changing the output to Dolby Digital, but the pre-pro still received multi-channel LPCM.

We stopped playing The Matrix and tried to play The pink Panther and that's when this trouble started.

[JimH]

Is the external drive a USB drive?  Or a NAS?

[blgentry]

HDMI connection to my pre-pro and a Thunderbolt/HDMI connection to a monitor.  Pre-pro connected to TV via HDMI.

I've only played videos to my local display.  I would think that MC can play videos to external monitors and TVs, but I don't know the details.  I do know that you can set a few options for this at:

Tools > Options > Video > Display Settings

MakeMKV for ripping DVDs.  DVD files are .mkv format.

That's as ideal as it gets as far as I'm concerned.  MC shouldn't have any problems with MKVs.

Different topic:  I did get The Matrix to play this afternoon.  While it was playing I looked at the pre-pro display and saw it was receiving multi-channel LPCM.

Well that's interesting that it *did* play video at one point.  LPCM is expected in this case.  Why?  Because MC sees the Dolby Digital or DTS audio track and immediately decodes it to 5.1 channels of uncompressed (PCM) audio.  It then sends it to your pre-pro, uncompressed.  If you want your pre-pro to decode for some reason, then you need to tell MC to send a DD or DTS *bitstream* to the pre-pro.  Note that this means that MC can not do any processing at all: No equalization, volume leveling, parametric eq... nothing.  You can set this option at:

Tools > Options > Audio > Settings > Bitstream > (choose which format(s) to bitstream)

We stopped playing The Matrix and tried to play The pink Panther and that's when this trouble started.

Weird.  I'd reboot the Mac, even though Macs rarely need rebooting.  I'd probably "reboot" the pre-pro and the TV too for good measure.

Let us know what happens with this.

Brian.

[macdonjh]

OK, some other stuff:

I've already rebooted the Mac twice tonight.  I've also restarted the pre-pro (power off, all the way off not just stand-by).
I've played video through this system from MC21 dozens of times.  The previous problem was no multi-channel, but that was a pre-pro problem, now fixed.
I just tried and succeeded in play music, so audio files are not a problem.
The external drive is connected via USB.  What is NAS?

I looked into the settings you list above.  They have to do with NTSC vs. PAL and frame rate.  I'm going to leave that switched to "off" for now.  Video worked previously and I don't want to change that at this time, introducing another variable.  I may try bit streaming.  My pre-pro is supposed to have great decoding, so it will be interesting to see if I can tell if MC21 sounds different than the pre-pro.

Note that all video files were ripped to .mkv with MakeMKV. 

[blgentry]

Thanks for the details.  NAS means Network Attached Storage, which means a file server on your network that serves files to clients.  USB storage is much less problematic so this is good. 

Try using another player to play your videos as a test.  VLC is a good universal player that should play just about anything.

I'm sorta stumped. Maybe try re-installing MC21?

Hopefully someone else will step in with better ideas.

Brian.

[JimH]

On Windows, at least, USB 3.0 drives have problems when plugged into USB 2.0 ports.

[macdonjh]

I'll double check, but I'm pretty sure that my Mac has USB 3 outputs.  The external drive is USB 2.0/3.0.  Hopefully that isn't the problem.

No networks in our house.  I have enough trouble keeping individual computers running.  The last thing I need is a server.

I'll look into VLC.  I guess I'll also reinstall MC21. 

[JimH]

That is a USB 3.0 drive.

[blgentry]

Macs have no trouble with USB2 drives in USB3 ports.  Macs have no trouble with USB3 drives in UBS2 ports.  I've done both.

All Macs after roughly 2012 have USB3 ports.

Brian.

[Awesome Donkey]

Early versions of OS X 10.11 El Capitan had issues with USB 3.0 devices, I've read. Which version of OS X are you using?

[macdonjh]

I'll look this evening.  I think I updated to El Capitan, but I don't remember the version number.

[macdonjh]

My Mac tells me I have Yosemite 10.10.5.

We played a movie last night without trouble.  In the last couple of days I done the following: cursed computers (a lot), restored my MC21 license, turned the computer off and given it a thirty-six hour rest.    Perhaps that fixed the problem.

I do have another weirdness, though.  When I'm ripping DVDs I'll preview the short extra titles that are included with most DVDs, just to see what they are.  If I use the fast forward button to skip close to the end of one of those files, then use the STOP button, MC21 often crashes and I have to restart it.  This morning MC21 restarted without incident, but it's weird that it crashed in the first place.

[blgentry]

I do have another weirdness, though.  When I'm ripping DVDs I'll preview the short extra titles that are included with most DVDs, just to see what they are.  If I use the fast forward button to skip close to the end of one of those files, then use the STOP button, MC21 often crashes and I have to restart it.  This morning MC21 restarted without incident, but it's weird that it crashed in the first place.

MC21 for Mac can't rip DVDs can it?  Does the crash of MC21 happen while you're using a *different* program?  I'm a little confused.

Brian.

[macdonjh]

No, MC21 for Mac does not rip DVDs.  I rip DVDs using MakeMKV.

All playback is through MC21. So it's MC21 that crashes sometimes when I stop a video file near the end. 

[blgentry]

Hmm.  I've never tried fast forwarding in MC with video until now.  If you hold down the forward key, it just time skips without showing you anything and keeps skipping until you release it.  That's pretty much useless for me.

I always skip forward either by clicking in the time line, or by pressing the forward arrow key on the keyboard.  That key jumps forward 30 seconds.  So you can get a pretty good overview of what you are looking for pretty quickly.  Backward arrow skips back 10 seconds, so you can fine tune your position.

I also just tried playing a somewhat short video and pressing stop 30 seconds from the end.  Then 25, then 20, then ~10 seconds from the end.  MC just stopped each time.

If this continues to happen to you, you might try to give use the specific sequence you are using.  In particular which keys you press, the times, etc.

Brian.

[macdonjh]

I realize this is an old thread, but I haven't had problems with video and MC in months.  I don't know what I did to solve my problem, but I thought I should report that what ever my problem was, it went away.