[Windows] Videos fail to play on some systems with Media Foundation

[v2k]

Newer twitter videos are failing to load with AVPro video; older twitter videos still work. This is hardware dependent. Videos also work with DirectShow, but fail with Media Foundation.

• Unity version: Unity 2019.4.38f1
• AVPro Video version Ultra v2.5.0f1
• Operating system version: Windows 10 Ent 2016 LTSB

1. Load video in Editor and try to play
2. fails with generic error (seems to be Win10 LTSB)

Videos Fail Video: https://twitter.com/warriors/status/1520850034408845312 Working Video: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1085575593402474497/vid/720x720/N3oylQJ0xoUTWCgc.mp4?tag=9

sent to unitysupport@renderheads.com => DxDiag example of a failing system included

[Chris-RH]

Hi @v2k, Thank you for your message. It is very common for video services to hide their URLs, and more than likely it is against their terms of service to stream their videos or use third party software to find the URLs. Therefore we are unable to find the URLs using our products.

[v2k]

Sorry, wrong link; here's an example:

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1378039169545510913/vid/640x360/Yj3Krs69qenpb9kV.mp4?tag=14

[Chris-RH]

Both of those videos played fine for me. Using Unity 2020.3.29 and AVPro Video 2.5.0, using Win 10 Home. Have you tried playing them in external players such as WMP or VLC?

[v2k]

The videos work on most systems. Did you test on a Win10 LTSB system? Do you have a system similar to the dxdiag I sent you to test on?

The videos play fine in the web browser or any other application. It's just AVPro that's failing.

[Chris-RH]

Hi @v2k, Unfortunately we don't have a Win10 Ent system to test on. Could you try installing this and seeing if it helps please? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53356

[drinsley]

We can't install it,

[Chris-RH]

ok, we'll have another think about it

[Chris-RH]

Hi, we've had another chat about your issue this morning.

Please can you try using Topoedit on your media file. Topoedit.zip You go here and select the media file that you want to play And it should load the media and create a topology. Click the play button and it should play the media in a window. This uses Media Foundation, so it should allow us to see if it is a MF issue or and AVProVideo issue. Thank you for your help.

[v2k]

That yields a Media Foundation Error:

[v2k]

Couldn't see to find any further information in the Event Viewer.

[Chris-RH]

Thanks, that's very helpful

[AndrewRH]

@v2k we're still investigating this....

1) In the MediaPlayer component, if you disable the Hardware Decoding option, does that help?

2) Also - in the above test with TopoEdit, which videos did you test with? Could you also test with our BigBuckBunny sample video?

3) Am I understanding this correctly that your issue is that most videos do play (including our sample videos) on all of your systems, but the new twitter video linked above is an example of one that doesn't play, but only on one specific system with Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB?

Thanks,

[drinsley]

In the MediaPlayer component, if you disable the Hardware Decoding option, does that help? No, it still does not play if I disable that Hardware Decoding option

Also - in the above test with TopoEdit, which videos did you test with? Could you also test with our BigBuckBunny sample video? The BigBuckBunny sample plays fine

Am I understanding this correctly that your issue is that most videos do play (including our sample videos) on all of your systems, but the new twitter video linked above is an example of one that doesn't play, but only on one specific system with Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB? Yes that is correct. We have multiple systems that still use 2016 LTSB and it doesn't work on any of them.

[drinsley]

Not sure if this helps but I found that this video: https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1378039169545510913/vid/640x360/Yj3Krs69qenpb9kV.mp4?tag=14

On the Windows 2016 LTSB system: Does not open with Windows Media Player 32-bit It only opens with Windows Media Player 64-bit

[Chris-RH]

Thank you, this is all very helpful. We'll delve into this further.

[v2k]

Good use of today's wordle!

[Chris-RH]

This is a tricky one, because looking at the files in MediaInfo, they are very similar. Also, the fact that it works in 64-bit WMP, but not 32-bit WMP indicates a possible codec issue?

Could you get the Administrator to try the following please:

1. Reinstall media packs and codecs - 32-bit WMP needs 32-bit codecs and 64-bit WMP needs 64-bit codecs
2. Install latest GPU drivers

Could you also clarify that you are using 64-bit unity and making 64-bit builds of your app please?

[drinsley]

I installed the K-Lite codec pack, and the video can now play in WMP 32 bit. But the original problem still persists with media foundation not being able to play the twitter link.

We're using the onboard Intel HD Graphics 630 and it's up to date.

Yes we're using the 64-bit builds of our app. We can also reproduce it in the editor.

[Chris-RH]

Have you retried the file in topoedit? Do you get different results trying to play it in Unity from your PC rather than from URL?

[drinsley]

Same error with Topoedit, HRESULT is c00d002f

It plays fine in Unity with Media Foundation, but the URL does not play

[drinsley]

It also appears to be any of the new video tweets do not work. Broken: https://twitter.com/warriors/status/1520850034408845312 Works: https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1085695949656141825

[Chris-RH]

Hi, could you try these file and see if you get any different results please? Are you able to put them somewhere to try stream them rather than play from PC as well?

File without audio: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/102963025/169498742-5493449f-04ff-4662-b7c9-3662fea4f048.mp4

File with audio converted to 48KHz https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/102963025/169498715-aff6eaeb-3553-4ad7-9ba6-93fcd1e5dca4.mp4

Could you also please try deleting everything in: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache as that is where Media Foundation caches files to.

[drinsley]

I can stream those links that you sent, they play fine.

But if I make them into tweets and try and play those links they don't work with Media Foundation.

I deleted what I could from that folder, but issue still happens.

[Chris-RH]

Could you send me the file after its been put on twitter? I suspect that they might be re-encoding it on their end.

[drinsley]

You can right click on these links to download the videos, I posted them on twitter then got the url through our software.

Audio Converted: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1529949277719433216/pu/vid/640x360/fqAreUhn9e7RjQax.mp4?tag=12 Without Audio: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1529949133229785088/pu/vid/640x360/2AnVHZqxkB2AXF4e.mp4?tag=12

[Chris-RH]

Those work fine for me. I'm wondering if you are still lacking a codec somewhere.
Has your administrator installed the Windows Media Pack https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/media-feature-pack-list-for-windows-n-editions-c1c6fffa-d052-8338-7a79-a4bb980a700a ?

[drinsley]

Yes it's installed, it works on my windows 10 system as well but it doesn't work on the Windows 10 Ent 2016 LTSB systems

[Chris-RH]

And these ones that you have tweeted again, do they work in topoedit?

[Chris-RH]

The only option we can think of at this point is allowing our Windows developer remote access to the PC so that he can try and figure it out directly.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[drinsley]

I'll get a system ready for you to connect to next week

[drinsley]

Do you have a email I can send the teamviewer information to?

[Chris-RH]

Sure. Please email the details to unitysupport@renderheads.com with 1172 in the subject line. and the windows dev will get in touch. Thanks :)

[AndrewRH]

@drinsley thanks for allowing the remote session.

I was able to test a number of theories and modify the video files to work out what was causing them not to play.

It seems to be a single byte. The "CTTS" atom of the MP4 file has a version byte. In your file that doesn't play, this version was set to 1. Changing it to 0 allows the video to play.

I can only assume that there was an old version of Microsofts MP4 parser that didn't allow this version number and so assumed the file was badly formed and didn't load it. I checked the documentation online and it seems that version 1 was added later to allow for negative CTTS offset values, but in several places I found it's not documented.

I assume that this was fixed in some Windows update, but because this is an LTSB 2016 version of Windows that update might not be available....

I'm afraid I don't think there is anything we can do in our plugin to fix this (unless you use DirectShow which uses different code to load the videos). Even in Windows Explorer it can't give the videos a thumbnail image and also Windows Media Player can't open the file - showing that it's an issue with the MP4 parser built into Windows on that machine.

[drinsley]

Ok thanks for looking into it. I guess we have to update those systems.