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[greg.smalter]

I am trying to play a .WTV file on an MC Client. The file exists on my server. The client and server version are the same. When I try to play the file, I get the simple "Something went wrong with playback" message.

If I use Windows Explorer to navigate to the exact same file on the network and double click it, it opens up in MC and happily plays it. I think this proves it is not a DirectShow problem.

Also, I am able to play audio files in the same manner I am attempting to play the .WTV file, and it works without a problem. So it seems like I am sharing the library correctly. What's wrong?

Thanks.

[stewart_pk]

Is the folder set up as a media folder in File ---> Library ---> Import ---> Configure Auto-Import ?

I get this error message most of the time when I'm trying to play a file in a folder that Media Center does have configured in above. I think it's to do with permissions.

[greg.smalter]

Is the folder set up as a media folder in File ---> Library ---> Import ---> Configure Auto-Import ?

I get this error message most of the time when I'm trying to play a file in a folder that Media Center does have configured in above. I think it's to do with permissions.

I'm going to assume you are talking about the server (especially since the option sequence you specify is grayed out on the client). You are correct that the folder I am trying to play from was not included in the auto-import list (how the files ever got in the library to begin with, then, is a puzzle to me). But, I added it explicitly to the list and I am still experiencing the same problem.

[greg.smalter]

I have a bit of new information. If I right click on the video and do "Locate -> On Disk" on the client computer, I get a file not found error, and it lists some big URL where it tried to find the file.

I really need to solve this problem because I simply can't use MC on my HTPC until I can watch recordings with it. It's so frustrating.

[greg.smalter]

If I use MC to record a TS file on the server, it plays fine from the client. If I move that TS file to the same folder where my WTV files are, it still works from the client.

If I move the non-working WTV file to the folder where the TS files are, it continues to not work. I think this shows that it is not a folder sharing, permissions, or auto-import issue. It's simply that WTV files don't play from the MC client. Yet, they play on the server, and they even play on the client if I do it from Windows Explorer (which opens up MC and plays it).

[glynor]

I have a bit of new information. If I right click on the video and do "Locate -> On Disk" on the client computer, I get a file not found error, and it lists some big URL where it tried to find the file.

I really need to solve this problem because I simply can't use MC on my HTPC until I can watch recordings with it. It's so frustrating.

This is good information.  That's what the Locate -> On Disk (External) does when the client can't find the file locally and has to stream it from the server.  Well, that's how it works now.  It used to always work that way (so make sure you are using the current build of MC on both the server and the client side).

You're getting the playback error because, apparently, MC can't transcode the WTV files to stream them over to the client.  Even if it could, that has pretty slow startup performance and other problems too, and you should only do it with video when you need to (such as out on the Internet, not your LAN).

Do the files have the same exact path on both the client and the server?  In other words, do you have the entire network drive mounted on the client machine, and does it have the same drive letter as where it lives on the server?

You want the contents of the [Filename] field in MC on the server to actually point to a real-working file on the client.  If not, MC can't "match" the network path to the local path.

If so, then it could be that this option is disabled on the client machine:
Options -> Media Network -> Client Options -> Play local file if one that matches the Library Server file is found.

[glynor]

PS.  If you can't make the network path on the client match the path on the server easily (for example, if the files live in a subfolder of the C drive), then you can solve this by importing the files into MC on the server side using their UNC path (the \\servername\share\folder(s)\filename.wtv type path that is used when you don't have a mounted network drive) instead of their local path.

Then, the server and the client will "see" them in the same place no matter what.

If you have this problem, yell, because there is an easier way than re-importing all of your files.

[glynor]

You're getting the playback error because, apparently, MC can't transcode the WTV files to stream them over to the client.

I'm not positive that it can't transcode and stream WTV files properly, I don't have any to test.  If you have a smaller sample file you can post, I can test it out for you.

As I said, though, you probably shouldn't do that if you can avoid it.

[greg.smalter]

I do not have a network drive mounted on the client (when I say I can browse to the file and it works, I mean through HomeGroup/Network Neighborhood in Windows Explorer). I understand I could do that, and not share my server's library at all, and just have a local library on the client that just happens to use network drives for paths. I'm trying to avoid this because it seems less elegant and I'd have to set up network drives on every client (every laptop). It just seems easier to expose the MC library on the server and let anything connect to it.

As far as streaming/transcoding the videos unnecessarily, I admit I'm not aware of the performance implications here. The server is fast, the client is fast, and it's a gigabit network, so I'm not really too concerned with efficiency. I'm more concerned with convenience and elegance. Are you saying that even though what I'm trying to do works perfectly with TS files, I shouldn't do it?

Finally, I'm pretty confident that when you double click a WTV file (associated with MC) in Windows Explorer, it does stream it (not sure who, if anyone, transcodes it) and that works perfectly.

[glynor]

Finally, I'm pretty confident that when you double click a WTV file (associated with MC) in Windows Explorer, it does stream it (not sure who, if anyone, transcodes it) and that works perfectly.

No, that's not right, and that's the problem.  When you play a file from a network location (whether it is a mounted network drive with a drive letter, or just a UNC path you browse to) it plays the file the same way it does a local file (it is NOT streamed).  The only difference is that the "disk" is slower because it is over the network (but, yes, a gigabit LAN is fast enough to play most things without issue, unless you get up above 100mbps files).

When you play a file on MC in "client mode" where MC does NOT have local access to the file, the server has to first convert the file to a format that it is able to send out over the Media Network port.  Windows Networking and network shares are not used at all, and you can actually have them completely turned off.

This works well with many TS files because they are either already in a "streamable" format, or they are easily converted.  The same is not true with other file types.  Like I said, this system is really designed to allow you to play files from across the Internet where you can't have direct access to the source files (unless you have a VPN set up, and even then, that would be VERY slow).  So, for example, I have my MC Port forwarded through my firewall at home.  I can take my laptop across the country, and still open MC up and connect to my server at home from anywhere in the world I have Internet access.  Even though I cannot browse and connect to my home PC's network shares through Windows, I can still play all of my files in MC.  With music and some video types, this works beautifully.  With other videos, this doesn't work very well: the files take a LONG time to start playing, and even once they do, you can't fast forward because only a small portion of the video has been loaded so far (it plays as the file is still "downloading").  I called it "streaming" above for simplicity's sake, but I think what it is actually doing is more of a progressive download, like YouTube.

Anyway, what you want to do to solve the problem is import your files into the server copy of MC using their UNC path, rather than their local path.  Then, when you play them using the client machine, that copy of MC will be able to "find" the files on the network the same way it works when you manually browse and play the file.

So, to give you a real world example... Say your file server and MC server is called servermachine.mynetwork.lan (192.168.0.10).  The media files all live at C:\Users\Public\Media\ and you have the "Media" folder shared on the network as a share called "media".

In MC's auto-import, you would NOT want to monitor C:\Users\Public\Media\.  Instead, you want to monitor \\servermachine.mynetwork.lan\media\.  All of the files you have in the library already that have their [Filename] tag listed as C:\Users\Public\Media\blah\blah\blah.wtv need to be changed to \\servermachine.mynetwork.lan\media\blah\blah\blah.wtv.  If your network isn't configured such that you have working hostnames like servermachine.mynetwork.lan then your best bet is to just use the IP address directly (the server will need to have a static IP address) like this: \\192.168.0.10\media\blah\blah\blah.wtv

This is easy to do using the Find and Replace tool in MC, but you may need some guidance to prevent problems.  Basically, what you want to do is move the entire current contents of your media folder off to a "safe place" that MC doesn't know about (which will break ALL of the files in MC), then use the Rename, Move, and Copy files tool to do a Find and Replace and replace C:\Users\Public\Media\ with \\servermachine.mynetwork.lan\media\.  Once that is done, you can close MC and move all of the files back to where they started and then MC will "see" them again.  It is safest to move them first because if you just do the Rename, Move, and Copy files tool thing first, it will try to actually move all of the files from the source to the destination (which are effectively, the same) and it'll probably get all screwed up (overwriting the files that you are moving currently and whatnot).

When you have it set up that way, you don't need to have network drives mounted on any of the machines, because MC can use the UNC path (those that start with \\) just as well as it can use paths that start with a drive letter.  When you play files on the server, it will actually access them through the "network" (pointing to localhost) but this works fine.

Note: The MC server and the file server DO NOT have to be the same machine on the network, and the files don't have to be on the C drive, I'm just using those as examples.

If you describe in detail exactly where your files live on the server, and how your addresses on the network work, I can explain exactly what to do for your situation.

[Alex B]

Great post glynor.

Moving the files physically (by e.g. changing a letter in the base path) before running the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool may be unnecessary. The tool has the option to apply the changes only to the database: "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move or copy)" in the drop-down menu.

It is possible to forget to set this option, but of course all tool options should be carefully double-checked to avoid accidents. Also, it wouldn't harm to create a fresh library backup file and test the procedure with a few files first.

[glynor]

Moving the files physically (by e.g. changing a letter in the base path) before running the Rename, Move, & Copy Files tool may be unnecessary. The tool has the option to apply the changes only to the database: "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move or copy)" in the drop-down menu.

It is possible to forget this option, but of course all tool options should be carefully double-checked to avoid accidents. Also, it wouldn't harm to create a fresh library backup file and test the procedure with a few files first.

Ahhh... See, I'm usually old-school and just use the regular Find & Replace tool to do this kind of thing.  Yeah, that option would fix it (I see it there now).

[greg.smalter]

No, that's not right, and that's the problem.  When you play a file from a network location (whether it is a mounted network drive with a drive letter, or just a UNC path you browse to) it plays the file the same way it does a local file (it is NOT streamed).

I think our definitions of streamed are different. I'm pretty sure it does not copy the entire 4GB file across the network before it plays the first second of video. To me, that is streaming. I think you can start playing a show that has begun but not yet finished recording and this will work, but I haven't tried it in awhile. But your point about it playing it just like it is a local file that happens to be on a network drive makes complete sense and I'm sure is right. I just failed to effectively communicate what I meant by streaming.

Anyway, thank you so much for the detailed reply. I will try out what you've said (it may take me awhile). I just want to make sure the following assertions are correct:

1. MC first tries to match the file locally and play that (this is what your post is trying to help me set up). If it fails to do that, then it will attempt to transcode/stream the file across the MC network port.

2. WTV files will never be playable across the MC network port and therefore can never be streamed out to the internet. They will be playable on my LAN if I succeed in following your steps.

3. TS files played within my LAN will play the matched file (if I succeed in following your steps).

4. TS files played across the internet (or to a laptop on the LAN that isn't setup to see UNC path to the file) will fail to find a match, but will continue to work properly because they will transcode/stream over the MC network port.

Thanks!

[glynor]

I think our definitions of streamed are different.

Yeah, that wasn't even very precise terminology anyway, because it really is doing a progressive download.  Basically, the MC server serves the file to the client via HTTP.  You're right, of course, any time a file is read off of disk it is "streamed" in one way or another.

Whether it needs to load the entire file before starting playback depends on the file type.  For AVIs, it DOES need to load the whole file first (because the header is in the tail of the file).  It doesn't matter much because at gigabit speeds, it'll load most files extremely quickly (the actual disk access speeds are more limiting than the gigabit, unless you're serving from a SSD).

1. MC first tries to match the file locally and play that (this is what your post is trying to help me set up). If it fails to do that, then it will attempt to transcode/stream the file across the MC network port.

Correct.

2. WTV files will never be playable across the MC network port and therefore can never be streamed out to the internet. They will be playable on my LAN if I succeed in following your steps.

I'm not 100% sure.  If you can post a link to a (non-DRMed) wtv test file I can test it out for you, but that's what I'm thinking.  If you don't have anywhere to stash a file for me to download, Dropbox gives you 2GB of cloud file storage for free (you can just plop it in the Public folder on Dropbox and then right-click to get the URL).

3. TS files played within my LAN will play the matched file (if I succeed in following your steps).

4. TS files played across the internet (or to a laptop on the LAN that isn't setup to see UNC path to the file) will fail to find a match, but will continue to work properly because they will transcode/stream over the MC network port.

Correct.

[glynor]

I'm not 100% sure.  If you can post a link to a (non-DRMed) wtv test file I can test it out for you, but that's what I'm thinking.  If you don't have anywhere to stash a file for me to download, Dropbox gives you 2GB of cloud file storage for free (you can just plop it in the Public folder on Dropbox and then right-click to get the URL).

Hmmm... I just tested using the WTV test file I found here: http://www.filecrop.com/wtv-sample.html

And playback worked on the client, even though the file was not directly accessible.  But, perhaps there is something special about yours.  In any case, since you can play the file back "directly", but not via the server, then it is something about the transcoding/serving that is causing the trouble here.  Again, though, if you are playing on the LAN (even over WiFi) you'll get much better performance and results using UNC paths, so that would still be the way to go.

We can check other possible issues after you get that straightened out.  But, one thing, just to be sure... Is Options -> Video -> DirectShow selection method set to Red October Standard or Red October HQ?  If you are using custom settings, I'd also recommend reverting back, for now, to one of those two standard settings to simplify troubleshooting.

Nevermind.  I failed at my testing.

I can now reproduce the same problem.  If I try to play the WTV file via the MC server's transcoding/serving mechanism, I get the following:



So, suspicion confirmed.  That's what the problem is.

The same exact file, in the same exact place, imported into my server using it's UNC path, works fine on the client-side.

[glynor]

Matt, Yaobing, Jim, et all... Is there a particular reason that MC can't transcode and play WTV files from the server?

I know the file format is proprietary, but MC plays the file just fine.  There's a good sample file here:
http://www.filecrop.com/wtv-sample.html

[Matt]

Matt, Yaobing, Jim, et all... Is there a particular reason that MC can't transcode and play WTV files from the server?

I know the file format is proprietary, but MC plays the file just fine.  There's a good sample file here:
http://www.filecrop.com/wtv-sample.html

The WTV file source filter may not support URLs nicely?

If it helps, JTV works great over the network or Internet.

[greg.smalter]

I agree JTV is the eventual solution, but I'm trying to make a smooth transition from WMC.

Glynor: Thank you so much for the information. I was able to set it up as you described and it works. More importantly, you leveled up my understanding of how MC works.

The remaining tiny mysteries are:

1. Why your WTV error actually says "Failed to find or open file" whereas mine says only the cryptic "Something went wrong with playback."

2. After updating the path of one trial WTV file to the network path, several other files, but not all files, updated their path automatically. I updated them all myself after that, but I found this weird.

3. I have no idea how to force a refresh of the server library on the client other than closing the media server and starting it again. If I were to not do this, I do not know how long it would take the client to realize what was going on on its own.

Anyway, no big deal on those. Thanks very much for your help.