Select Video Stream from multi-video MKV
#1
Apologies if this has been asked before. I tried a search here, on the OpenELEC threads and Google and didn't come up with my answer:

I'm currently authoring my MKV's to contain the following streams, to reduce space on my drives and to future-proof:

- 1080p H.264 Video
- 1080p HSBS Video (for 3D)
- AC3 5.1 Audio
- MP3 2.0 Audio

In the Audio Section, it is possible to select the Audio stream as normal. No issues here.
My question is in regard to the Video stream:

I know that XBMC will output HSBS Side-by-Side, but it's fine since I can toggle the correct mode for my display.
Is it possible within the current Eden or Frodo builds to select the Video stream, similar to selecting the Audio stream on playback?

I'm hoping that I don't have to maintain 2 sets of files.

Thanks in advance!

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#2
XBMC does not currently support multiple video track files.
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#3
mythtv supports showing just the left of a SBS movie, which would mean you could watch the SBS movie on a non 3d TV. That would mean you would only need one video stream (the SBS one) and it could be viewed on 3D or 2D screens. (Albeit at half resolution).

I am not sure that you saving an awful lot of space in putting two video streams in 1 file. You are saving repetition of the audio tracks, and although they can be quite big, they are small compared to the video tracks. I get the file management thing though.

I have two copies of, eg, Prometheus, they both of course scan identically but I change the movie title to Prometheus 3D on the right one, then you can play the right one.

Switching video streams though is a logical thing to have in movie player software - I have also seem people asking how to manage different frame sizes of movies - ie they have a 1080p version for the living room and a lower res version for some weaker playback devices. This could also be handled by multi-video track mkvs.

However I am not sure that there is going to be a lot of pressure on the devs to implement this - other than knowing that it is possible to put more than one video track in an mkv, I have never seen one, let alone tried to play it.
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#4
Thanks Ned and nickr -

@Ned: operative word being 'currently'? Smile

@nickr: you're suggestion about adding '3D' at the end of the title of one set of files is probably what I'll end up doing, hopefully until the feature is implemented. The feature is available in VLC, however I can't speak to difficulty, as I'm not a developer. I'm just hoping that it is supported in a future version as it would seem to make sense, not just for the 3D/non-3D angle but also as you've mentioned, from a HD/SD perspective also.

True, it isn't something that is seen 99% of the time. You are correct in that most of my space is saved on audio files (AC3) however DTS-MA tracks in my experimentation ended up being gigs big thus, with higher quality audio streams, the savings becomes more pronounced.


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#5
Hello there! I have same problem.

I made a multi track MKV (using mkvmerge) of the Serial Experiments Lain special DVD, LPR-309.

It is made of 3 video tracks and 3 audio tracks, all with the same length and resolution and bitrate etc.. With this solution I can change audio and video tracks individually and transparently during playback. It is awesome! Big Grin This works well in MPC-HC and PotPlayer using LAV or Haali/Matroska splitter. Actually, ffplay, which comes with ffmpeg, can do this as well. However in XBMC I could only find the option to switch audio tracks, but not video tracks Huh. I STFW to find a solution, and read this -> boohoo Undecided.

The only workaround I have found for my situation for now is 3 separate files containing one video track each and all 3 audio tracks, which I then put in playback queue with "repeat all". It "works" but it's not the same, first the mess with the triplicate files and then not really being able to switch video tracks on demand transparently..

I hope this option will be implemented soon!

Btw, thanks for a great media center solution, I have used it since the good old Xbox days, life wouldn't be the same without you! So thanks Smile
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#6
There is a special feature on Avatar that has three video tracks
1. Final movie with PIP MOCAP footage
2. MOCAP
3. Animatic

I too have used MKVmerge to recompile these three video tracks into the one MKV so they can be played just like on the Blu Ray disc, or so I thought. Until XBMC supports multi angle/video track switching I won't be able to make proper use of this special feature.

+1 for multi angle/video track switching.
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#7
Feature added to fernet's repo: https://github.com/FernetMenta/xbmc/comm...f3b56ae684
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#8
Moved to feature request section
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#9
Hope this makes it in Kodi 18. Great Feature
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#10
It's already in Kodi.
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#11
How is it accessed?
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#12
Via OSD video settings, it will show the video stream in use and if there are multiple video track you should be able to select which one. However as I've no mkv's or other video files with multiple video tracks I've never been able to test.
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#13
No nor me, but I might make one up with mkvmerge in order to test!
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#14
IIRC I had seen this dropdown when playing either youtube or some amazon video (DASH streams, quality selection)
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#15
That's something entirely different.

This allows a single video file to have multiple video tracks where supported by the file format e.g. mkv, this allows you to have a single file containing a theatrical and directors cuts for example.
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