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I've reinstalled my Win-7 a couple of day ago (changed from 32 bits to 64) and now I have a strange problem with mkv files.

Before the update I used WDTV Live player to stream videos from the PC and everything worked flawlessly. Now the player fails to open mkv files from the PC through DLNA streaming. Other formats can still be played. The same mkv plays fine on both the PC and the WDTV if copied to a flashdrive. And the same file used to play on WDTV before Windows upgrade. So, the problem is not in broken mkv or network communication - something must be wrong with the codecs installed on the PC.

I'm using K-Lite codec pack, but the version I had before the upgrade was probably much older than the one I have now. Maybe some settings should be tweaked to make mkv-s play, but I have no idea what to check.

Any ideas on configuring the media server are appreciated.

Update: a detail which may help to solve the problem. When displaying the list of files on WDTV, the player shows only filename for mkv videos - no file size, time etc. So, the problem must be in the container, not in codecs. I also tried to encode the same file to mkv and mp4 using the same codec settings. mp4 is played fine while mkv still fails.

kalobok
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  • do you use Windows shares for streaming? – Endoro Jan 19 '14 at 18:06
  • I'm using media streaming provided by Windows Media Player and its services. It uses DLNA protocol and used to work perfectly. – kalobok Jan 19 '14 at 21:05
  • I'm using Windows shares and the built in codecs of the WD. `DLNA` includes no [mkv support](http://www.dlna.org/dlna-for-industry/technical-overview) – Endoro Jan 19 '14 at 23:10
  • AFAIK, DLNA is just a protocol which can be used to stream anything. In my case streaming mkv worked before I reinstalled Windows, so it is supported by both server and client. Using shares has its disadvantages (e.g. you can not control client device from the server or transcode media on the fly to the format understood by the client). – kalobok Jan 20 '14 at 02:24
  • OK, I can only say: I'm using Win8 64k, shares and WD TV Live and can stream MKV (and AVI, MP4, TS ...) over WLAN in 1080p without any trouble. I never used `DLNA`. – Endoro Jan 20 '14 at 02:34
  • Ok, found the reason myself. The media server needs corrent mime-types for mkv/mka to serve them. By default the types are not set in the registry. It's easy to google for windows mkv registry hack, which fixes the problems (I had to reboot the PC after adding the registry entries). – kalobok Jan 20 '14 at 05:21

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Found the solution myself: the problem was in missing mime-type definitions for mkv/mka in Windows registry. It's easy to google, adding the required registry entries and rebooting makes everything work as expected.

kalobok
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