Official Formats Supported

[cparker2k]

Hi guys

I've just received an email announcing the Ceton Echo and trying to determine what specs it supports, it lists the following;

Audio formats supported: Dolby Digital AC-3, MP3, PCM, WMA, WMA Pro
Photo formats supported: BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF
Video formats supported: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.264, WMV9

It states H.264 does this mean MP4 which I think is normally combination of AC-3 and H.264??
I know video codecs are a nightmare but I was also wondering what happened to avi??

Sorry if its a stupid question!

Cheers

[Diverge]

AVI is a container, not a codec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Video_Interleave

AVI is sometimes erroneously described as a codec, but AVI is actually a container format, while a codec is a software or hardware tool that encodes or decodes audio or video into or from some audio or video format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec

[foxwood]

MP4 is also a container format - it usually contains h.264 video, but you can have a valid .mp4 file that contains other video formats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp4

[docmattman]

Does this mean that h264 mkv files will work?

[Motz]

I obviously can't talk more about anything but what is on the site, but as for codecs/containers, all of my movies already are in .m2ts container(AC3 audio with H264). I did this a long time ago so they just work with media center and extenders without having to install anything (http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/10/ ... h-mkv2vob/). My files are streaming just fine

[vir2oso]

This may have already been answered in another thread but will ripped DVD's in vob format play on the echo or will they have to be converted to a different format to play?

[Skybolt]

This may have already been answered in another thread but will ripped DVD's in vob format play on the echo or will they have to be converted to a different format to play?

Yes, Motz can you comment on this? And can you also clear up this issue as well, will the Echo support DTS, the specs are a little unclear surrounding this.


Thanks,
Skybolt

[Sammy2]

Wondering about mkv. Is that going to be added during the beta?

[Sammy2]

I obviously can't talk more about anything but what is on the site, but as for codecs/containers, all of my movies already are in .m2ts container(AC3 audio with H264). I did this a long time ago so they just work with media center and extenders without having to install anything (http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/10/ ... h-mkv2vob/). My files are streaming just fine

I have nearly 20TB of blu-ray rips to mkv. converting them all to wtv to playback via the echo is not an option.

[jarredduq]

I obviously can't talk more about anything but what is on the site, but as for codecs/containers, all of my movies already are in .m2ts container(AC3 audio with H264). I did this a long time ago so they just work with media center and extenders without having to install anything (http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/10/ ... h-mkv2vob/). My files are streaming just fine

I have nearly 20TB of blu-ray rips to mkv. converting them all to wtv to playback via the echo is not an option.

I really want to be able to replace my SageTV solution with this, but if it cannot support MKV, it's pretty much a showstopper. Also, I was hoping for support of HD audio formats, like the SageTV HD300 supports...

It seems like the echo will not add any additional streaming capabilities on top of what the Xbox 360 supports. Of course the main benefit is that it will be silent and consume less power, but I really wanted an all-in-one solution, like SageTV. So far Comcast has not moved to Copy Only status on most channels, so Sage still works for me, but if that changes, Ceton will be the only viable game in town for a decent extender.

At that point I'll have to go to a two box solution again. I just need to decide what that second box will be. I've tried Apple TV 2, Boxee, Popcorn hour, and TViX.

[reggie14]

I obviously can't talk more about anything but what is on the site, but as for codecs/containers, all of my movies already are in .m2ts container(AC3 audio with H264).

I don't mean to put you in a difficult position, but can you explain why Ceton is being so weird about announcing media playback support? The supported container formats is a pretty important piece of information there. Presumably people are going to figure out fairly quickly once they start getting the beta units, so why not just tell us ahead of time so those of us who consider things like MKV support important don't waste our time/money on this?

[jasongrimme]

so, NO containers are 'supported'? Or ALL containers are 'supported'? Or TBD?

I would say DTS is not supported, as it is not noted under audio formats, that doesn't seem vague to me. But container, listing nothing, implies to me container agnostic, so they should support all of them.

[Sammy2]

It may be that the HTPC itself does the splitting. I guess the xBox 360 works that way with Haali splitter on the HTPC and mkv working fine on the extender.

[Skybolt]

... but I really wanted an all-in-one solution, like SageTV. So far Comcast has not moved to Copy Only status on most channels, so Sage still works for me, but if that changes, Ceton will be the only viable game in town for a decent extender. ... At that point I'll have to go to a two box solution again.

Welcome to my world, I have Cablevision and they did through the switch on the CopyOnce flag ... The Echo IS my only hope, as the xbox clearly is not ...

I just need to decide what that second box will be. I've tried Apple TV 2, Boxee, Popcorn hour, and TViX.

Dune Player ... Or stay with the HD300 and Sage for everything else ...

[Motz]

@Sammy2, I wouldn't even suggest converting to wtv that is long and hard, my process that I use for my own personal collection (for the last 3 years and even before I started working for ceton) is to do the container swap, the only thing I touch is DTS audio which it converts to AC3 since WMC doesn't support DTS natively. I have no codecs installed on my HTPC at home, never have and never will.

So a lot of questions I will just give the reponses that we gave to people that mailed in:

DTS:
We hope to add DTS support with a future update. It won’t be available during the beta and isn’t a planned feature for initial release.

Codecs:
What is listed/hopefully some more for launch

Containers:
What is listed/hopefully some more for launch... And for containers it is usually what WMC itself supports which is why I do a container swap...

Moca:
The Echo supports MoCa adapters. We plan to introduce our own adapter in the future, however a Ceton MoCa adapter will not be available at launch. In our testing, Actiontec and NetGear MoCa adapters work well.

Attached is my at home sample of most of my MKV files that I swap to m2ts:

[newfiend]

As far as .MKV goes..
.MKV is a container.. not a codec.
Most .MKV encoders like Handbrake & MakeMKV use .H264 for the video.
If you have a .mkv splitter installed such a Haali and AC3 Filter I think you should be able to play them on the new Ceton Echo.
According to the AC3 Filter website its features are:

Playback
Watch movies with AC3 and DTS audio tracks
Listen multi-channel (AC3/DTS) AudioCD
Playback WAV files with AC3/DTS content, ripped from multi-channel AudioCD without any conversion of these files.
Playback raw .AC3 and DTS files (with help of AC3File filter)

Process
Up-mix any audio track (even plain stereo) up to 6 channels
Down-mix any audio track to any number of channels (to match your speaker configuration)
If you have an external Dolby ProLogic decoder, you may use ProLogic down-mix to help DPL decoder to extract surround information
Watch movies under poor hearing conditions (noisy environment, weak speakers, ...)
Decrease dynamic range to watch movies at night
Apply time shift to the audio track to synchronize audio with video.
Adjust gain of every input/output channel independently to compensate loudness differences
Adjust time delays for every channel to compensate different distances to loudspeakers.

SPDIF
Passthrough AC3 and DTS over SPDIF without any change to external decoder
Encode any audio to AC3 and transmit it over SPDIF
USB sound cards supported

I believe you should be able to have AC3 Filter convert the DTS to AC3 ., If that's the case then I think the Echo would be able to play it as it supports AC3.
But I could be wrong.. I'll soon be testing this myself.
newfiend~

[jasongrimme]

Attached is my at home sample of most of my MKV files that I swap to m2ts:

@Motz, what are you using the 'swap' your MKV files to m2ts?

[Skybolt]

... my process that I use for my own personal collection (for the last 3 years and even before I started working for ceton) is to do the container swap, the only thing I touch is DTS audio which it converts to AC3 since WMC doesn't support DTS natively.... Attached is my at home sample of most of my MKV files that I swap to m2ts:

Thanks Motz, a little clairification can go a long way.

Can you explain what you mean by "Container Swap", do you convert the MKV container to somthing else or re-process the MKV contents?

Thanks,
Skybolt

[Sammy2]

I have read that the xBox 360 will playback mkv with the HTPC doing the splitting with Haali. I use LAV Splitter, LAV Audio and LAV Video with MadVR insid MPC-HC launched from MB. This set-up works great for me and I really don't want to mes with success.

I have also read on the Shark007 forum that LAV doesn't work with the 360 and the HTPC doing the splitting/filtering. Is this going to be the case with the Echo too?

I suppose the first hing I'll try is loading MediaBrowser w/in WMC on the Echo to see if I can even get that far. Then try loading a video to see what happens.p

Although I mostly want to use the Echo as an extended PVR/DRV having it work as a streamer too would really be nice.

One thing I am not going to do is mess up my HTPC functionality for the ECHO. I'll run it off my PC using Haali splitter if I have to but that splits the DVR/PVR to my PC so it now isn't a whole home solution.

Also, Can WMC be set up to load video nativelly for the Echo leaving the MB/MPC-HC set up untouched? While not ideal for "eye candy" Library listings on the Echo this is another route to try.

So ship my beta so I can get started but in the mean time any thoughts or suggestions on this?

[barnabas1969]

@Motz: I understand why you don't support DTS at present. The licensing cost is probably a barrier. I'm wondering though... will the Echo bitstream DTS through the S/PDIF connector so that an AVR can decode it?