Problems playing MKA files

[dabl]

@HomerJAU
Sorry if it wasn't this thread, but I believe I saw that you submitted the bug report to Kodi devs about the dancing progress bar/timer when playing back 96 khz? 16.5 unfortunately does not fix it. It doesn't "dance" on my Mac, so I got excited, but no love for Android TV.

Assuming you meant v19.5

I'll have to check my v20 install for this. I was surprised to see my v19.4 install get auto updated from Google Play to the v20 RC1 awhile back, but I'm in the Google Play Kodi beta program and it seems v20 will be available there unlike v19.4 and .5

 

[pat bateman]

Assuming you meant v19.5

I'll have to check my v20 install for this. I was surprised to see my v19.4 install get auto updated from Google Play to the v20 RC1 awhile back, but I'm in the Google Play Kodi beta program and it seems v20 will be available there unlike v19.4 and .5

Doh, yup 19.5. It’s a pretty niche problem that probably doesn’t warrant much attention from the devs POV - unfortunately for us.

 

[kcrimson]

You can get gapless MKV and MKA playback using a CUE file in Kodi. The only issue is the last track has no Duration. I have it on my list to write some code to fix that. It’s just missing in the last track’s duration entry in the Kodi database.

I’ve been using .m4a files for all my Atmos BD rips. They can be tagged and so appear nicely in Kodi’s music library and GUI. MP4 and M4A files are easily tagged just like any other ‘normal’ music file, whereas MKV and MKA use a non standard tagging system not supported by Kodi or JRiver.

An undocumented feature for Kodi is you can add tagged mp4 video (music concert) files to Kodi’s music library (not the music video library). So the concert appears under the Artist view as an ‘Album’ in Kodi’s GUI and supported by Kodi for playlist queues.

MMH has tools to batch convert MKV/MKA to MP4/M4A.

M4A can also contain DTS-HDMA streams, as well as Atmos/TrueHD. M4A with Atmos is supported from Kodi 19.2 onwards but still not supported in many other popular media players like VLC, JRiver.

Hi,

I am using kodi 19.5 on a coreelec odroid N2+. I have just started playing around with Atmos ripping and file formats.

I have created mkvs, mkas, and m4as. I can see the tagging of mkas is not working on kodi as you have stated before.
I have been trying to get mkv or mka files working with cue file in kodi. The cue files are not appearing in kodi.
If I use mkv files, these don't appear in the music folders. If I change the name of the mkv file to mka file, then the file appears.
I think what I want to do is use m4a files for albums that do not require gapless, and use mka + cue file for gapless albums.

What is the best way to create the long mka file? Just change the name of the mkv file? Removing chapters from the mkv and then trying to convert to mka via mmh does not work.
I can generate cue files from mmh but kodi does not seem to recognize them. Is there any steps I need to take to resolve this.

Thanks for the help.

 

[andi-999]

This is how I do it, gapless Atmos is working fine this way for me in KODI:

1) Rip MKV from Blu-ray
2) Convert MKV to MKA using MKVtoolnix (remove video stream)
3) Create cue file from MKA using MMH (MMH: How to Create CUE files for MKV files)
4) Remove chapters and tags in MKVtoolnix from MKA file
5) Convert mka to m4a file via MMH "Extract Audio From MKV" (this takes a while for big files, be patient)
6) adjust file name (mka to m4a) in previously created cue file, adjust milliseconds for all titles in file to "000" as Kodi seems to have a problem with the exact time in milliseconds.
7) Place m4a file, cue file and optional "folder.jpg" with album art in same directory and import in KODI

 

[kcrimson]

This is how I do it, gapless Atmos is working fine this way for me in KODI:

1) Rip MKV from Blu-ray
2) Convert MKV to MKA using MKVtoolnix (remove video stream)
3) Create cue file from MKA using MMH (MMH: How to Create CUE files for MKV files)
4) Remove chapters and tags in MKVtoolnix from MKA file
5) Convert mka to m4a file via MMH "Extract Audio From MKV" (this takes a while for big files, be patient)
6) adjust file name (mka to m4a) in previously created cue file, adjust milliseconds for all titles in file to "000" as Kodi seems to have a problem with the exact time in milliseconds.
7) Place m4a file, cue file and optional "folder.jpg" with album art in same directory and import in KODI

Thanks for the guidance - I will try these steps.

 

[kcrimson]

This is how I do it, gapless Atmos is working fine this way for me in KODI:

1) Rip MKV from Blu-ray
2) Convert MKV to MKA using MKVtoolnix (remove video stream)
3) Create cue file from MKA using MMH (MMH: How to Create CUE files for MKV files)
4) Remove chapters and tags in MKVtoolnix from MKA file
5) Convert mka to m4a file via MMH "Extract Audio From MKV" (this takes a while for big files, be patient)
6) adjust file name (mka to m4a) in previously created cue file, adjust milliseconds for all titles in file to "000" as Kodi seems to have a problem with the exact time in milliseconds.
7) Place m4a file, cue file and optional "folder.jpg" with album art in same directory and import in KODI

These steps work great. Thanks for the guidance. The bug mentioned in previous posts about the time elapsed jumping around still appears in Kodi 19.5 when playing Atmos files.

 

[HomerJAU]

The bug mentioned in previous posts about the time elapsed jumping around still appears in Kodi 19.5 when playing Atmos files.

That’s fixed in Kodi 20.1 (and version 21 alpha builds).

 

[Paul Hammond]

@ homeJAU long way back in this thread you mentioned you added 2 file formats to FFMPEG. I believe M4A was one of them. I added FFMPEG Decoder Wrapper to my Foobar trying to get it to play Atmos M4A files, but without adding M4A to FFMPEG it seems not to work. I have Music Media Helper installed, thank you. My request of you is please explain how to access FFMPEG on my WIN 10 PC and add the required M4A file format

 

[HomerJAU]

@Paul Hammond

Add the .m4a file format to the Foobar Ffmpeg Wrapper config setting as shown here:

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/problems-playing-mka-files.29684/#post-537180
I now also have *.mkv added to allow Foobar to play MKV files (plays audio only)

EDIT: This will allow Foobar to play the 5.1 or 7.1 Atmos bed. If you want to listen to > 8 channels you’ll need an AVR with Atmos decoder and media player software supporting HDMI Passthrough audio (Kodi, JRiver or VLC)

 

[Paul Hammond]

I found this page and enabled m4a in foobar. Now to test it...
Yeah, it works, thanks for your help HomerJAU.

 

[pat bateman]

That’s fixed in Kodi 20.1 (and version 21 alpha builds).

Very cool! Is 20.1 playing nicely with your AeonNox QQ logo mod?

 

[HomerJAU]

Is 20.1 playing nicely with your AeonNox QQ logo mod?

It’s good with 20.1 and 21.0 alpha. Aeon Nox Silvo has has very few changes over last couple of years.

I should do an update for 21 when it’s released, but I’m using 21 alpha now as it has HDR color space fixes for 4K UHD BDVs.

 

[atlantasteve]

I have created MKA files of my Atmos audio files. The files are stored on an external hard drive connected to a Window PC laptop. I just can’t figure out how to play these MKA files remotely through Apple TV, my LG Oled or OPPO 203.

 

[Radsen]

I have created MKA files of my Atmos audio files. The files are stored on an external hard drive connected to a Window PC laptop. I just can’t figure out how to play these MKA files remotely through Apple TV, my LG Oled or OPPO 203.

the only way i know of playing them is through kodi, on either pc or nvidia shield tv [edit - tho mine are .m4a files, not sure if that makes a difference]

 

[GOS]

I have created MKA files of my Atmos audio files. The files are stored on an external hard drive connected to a Window PC laptop. I just can’t figure out how to play these MKA files remotely through Apple TV, my LG Oled or OPPO 203.

Steve - I take it your PC is not connected directly to your AVR then?

 

[mandrix]

VLC will play MKA files. You need to set it to bitstream and use an HDMI connection from pc to AVR.

 

[HomerJAU]

the only way i know of playing them is through kodi, on either pc or nvidia shield tv [edit - tho mine are .m4a files, not sure if that makes a difference]

It depends on the player. Most players still don’t recognise Atmos TrueHD (mlp) in M4A files. (VLC and JRiver are two, BD players etc)

 

[mandrix]

PowerDVD 22 Ultra will play Atmos content in M4A, but PowerDVD 23 Ultra seems to work better.

 

[mandrix]

The one failing of Foobar, IMO, is lack of bitstreaming. But seems doubtful at this point he will implement it.

 

[HomerJAU]

Maybe a Foobar component that sends the audio to Kodi to play via Passthrough (invisible to the user), for those who don’t like Kodi.