[ssimon]

Hello,

I am making great progress with my XBMC Live 9.11 Camelot on an Acer Revo R1600, but a very annoying problem sits currently at the top on my list: The inability to properly FastForward, Rewind, Resume and Skip when playing back WMV-HD files.

Said files are mostly encoded from .MKV with Encode360 which uses the Windows Media Encoder 9 from MS, so they are fully standard compliant. Most are also multichannel files with 6 channel AC3 or DTS. I converted them to reduce file size but mostly because I used to use the XBOX360 to stream HD content until my XBMC HTPC was ready, as the XBOX360 cannot play .MKV's.

Anyway, the audio is not an issue, that works fine, however unlike .MKV and .AVI (DivX) files which can be controlled during playback in XBMC, all the WMV-HD files seem to restart at the beginning whenever any kind of fast forward, skip or resume is attempted. These same files forward and skip just fine if played through the basic "Videos" Media Player in the Xbox 360, so I doubt they can possibly be ALL corrupt or problematic.

Has anyone else noticed XBMC playback control problems with WMV-HD files, or does anyone know how to fix this?


P.S. To allow testing I have re-encoded an 86MB public domain mini-movie called "Elephant's Dream" from AVI to WMV-HD using VC1 codec and linked it for download HERE (link valid for 1 week from post date). Please let me know if you can replicate my problems with this or other WMV-HD

[ssimon]

Has anyone tried this?

Can anyone confirm the same problems I have described with controlling playback of WMV-HD files?

[ssimon]

No one has this problem I cannot believe it.

Cmon guys and gals, please test and let me know your results...

[ssimon]

I am really stumped that no one is commenting on this, and reading that WMV playback has been broken for so long in XBMC.

All the WMVs I tested can be controlled perfectly from WMP in Windows or on the XBOX360, so none are corrupt.

XBMC treats them all like a stepchild and is unable to forward/rewind, skip or resume.

Is there any chance of this being fixed anytime soon?

Thanks!

[p1nky]

It's a shame no one replied to you, I am going to at least do that but can't help you either. I'm in the same boat and there are a couple of more people. Fact is that it has been broken like forever (2 years minimum), after about a gazillion posts of me and a few other people some small semi fix was made which made it a little better in the older version, but most files still don't work correctly.
I haven't even bothered to try the new version after reading here that it's probably even worse...

That's the downside of free open source software, no one owes you anything, and apparently the developers just don't give a flying fuck whether WMV can be watched with XBMC.

It would at least be more honest to drop WMV support alltogether, though, if no one gives a shit if it works anyway...

[ssimon]

Thank you p1nky for at least bothering to reply. I am glad to see more people posting about the mess that is WMV playback on XBMC.

While I agree with you that no one owes me or anyone else anything, it is not proper to list WMV playback as one of the features and then leave it broken for as long as it has been. Also, you would think one of the senior folks on here would have made a comment of any sort.

I am still hopeful that WMV playback will be fixed at some point as there must be a lot of people like me, stuck with countless files in this format and we cannot "just get the MKV" equivalent.

Please do not abandon WMV format. All we need is Resume, FF & Rewind.

[rodalpho]

Don't hold your breath. If you need WMV, you should not be using XBMC or any of its derivatives.