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[MrHaugen]

I've asked this question before, but have never gotten any good answers.

Upgraded to MC17 a few days ago and I'm still missing duration and resolution on most of my video and movies. First I thought it was because the sound devices was disabled (RPD does that on Windows Server 2008) and MC could not play any content because of this. Sound Service have been enabled and I've found other remote apps to do this job. Everything plays well on the server now. Sound should be enabled and working, even though I can not confirm this as I have no speakers on the server.

Both new imports and old files are almost impossible to get the duration and resolution tags. I've tried with "update tags from file". Nothing changes. Is there other methods of updating this fields on old media, and does anyone have some tips as to what the problem can be? It's rather annoying to have to play each file to check for duration.

[bob]

I've asked this question before, but have never gotten any good answers.

Upgraded to MC17 a few days ago and I'm still missing duration and resolution on most of my video and movies. First I thought it was because the sound devices was disabled (RPD does that on Windows Server 2008) and MC could not play any content because of this. Sound Service have been enabled and I've found other remote apps to do this job. Everything plays well on the server now. Sound should be enabled and working, even though I can not confirm this as I have no speakers on the server.

Both new imports and old files are almost impossible to get the duration and resolution tags. I've tried with "update tags from file". Nothing changes. Is there other methods of updating this fields on old media, and does anyone have some tips as to what the problem can be? It's rather annoying to have to play each file to check for duration.

What build of 17 are you using?

[MrHaugen]

I'm at build 41 currently. The following test is done before and after update to latest beta build.

Of 71 movies, only 8 got the duration correct with the "Update Library (from tags)" command. My collection consists of mostly HD video. About 95% mkv files and 5% mp4 files. The files that got updated Duration fields was the MP4 files. Non of the mkv files got updated. I'm not sure what's in the mkv containers, but it's mostly 720p (and a few 1080p) movies with a rather common encoding type I think. When I look at the Dimensions field, there is a lot more data populated here. About 85% of my movies have this already.

I also have some older TV Shows and short movies that is in avi format. Testing of 115 avi files with the Update tool, made 0 difference. No duration or Dimentions data at all.
The same result with 71 smaller mkv files from a TV Show.

Most of the video files that is missing Duration or Dimensions seems to be newer media. So, it has probably been working earlier.


All filetypes except for AVI and MKV's seems to get the data correct. It might also be the fact that I only deal with mkv today, and a few avi's. Here's a summary of how my video library looks like:

AVI - Duration & Dimentions: 3240
AVI - No Duration Only: 410
AVI - No Duration or Dimensions: 240
AVI - Total: 3890

MKV - Duration & Dimentions: 1003
MKV - No Duration Only: 306
MKV - No Duration or Dimensions: 1613
MKV - Total: 2922

[Matt]

Please try build 45 or newer:

17.0.45 (12/1/2011)
NEW: Rewritten video import -- gets compression and frame rate for almost all videos and runs around 40% faster.

[MrHaugen]

I'm using build 46.

The problems I'm having seems to only be present at the library server. I just tested importing some of the files that did not update duration, and everything is updating correctly on my workstation. Also using build 46. Both new import of the files, and updating of the restored server library files gives the wanted results.

What in the world can cause this? As I said, I think I've fixed the sound issue, and the movies play very well on the server. If the sound was broken I should have gotten a message of this, and if the video was badly configured I would not see it play, right? You guys have any hints as of what I can look for?

[MrHaugen]

Nobody have any idea of what can cause this? Is there no check list I can start with to get to the bottom of this?

I'm running latest MC17 beta on a Windows 2008 R2 Server.

[BryanC]

I'm having the same issues on build 46:

[MrHaugen]

Thanks to lowjoel, we have the answer to this mystery!

When running MC on a Windows 2008 Server (R2 or not) there is some IMPORTANT things to consider.

1. If you want MC to update Duration and Dimension on video content, you need to enable the feature "Desktop Experience" under Server Manager and features. MC obviously have some deeper connection to basic video playback component in this feature.
2. If you need sound, or the ability to play music and video on this server, you need to set the service "Windows Audio" to Automatic and start it. Without this, you'll never get sound in Windows. You also have the option now to run Null Audio Renderer as playback device in MC, so this might not be necessary to actually check if things play in MC.
3. If you use Remote Desktop to connect to the server, all sound devices will stop working on the local server. No matter what options you choose, or hack the registry. MS have just made RDP on 2008 server this way, and have no plans on fixing it. If you want to enable sound on the server and keep it that way, you'll either have to use another Remote desktop product like VNC, Team Viewer or similar, or you have to use local access only.


I hope this will help someone else as well. I guess there is more than me that uses 2008 server.

[Hendrik]

1. If you want MC to update Duration and Dimension on video content, you need to enable the feature "Desktop Experience" under Server Manager and features. MC obviously have some deeper connection to basic video playback component in this feature.

I figured this out quite a while ago with the help from Matt. Without installing "Desktop Experience", you won't have the "Null Renderer", which is needed for the duration/dimension gathering, after that all my issues seemed to disappear.