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Author Topic: MKV - Um, Why? Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-16-2016 07:50 PM                     As if we don't have enough audio-video encoding formats already, we have this "open source" format, MKV, also known as Matroska, coming in to further muddy up the waters. It might be possible to tell I'm a little bit annoyed as I write this post, and this would be true. I have a couple of these "MKV" video files I'd like to re-wrap into .MP4 containers, keeping the MP4 video and Dolby 5.1 AC3 audio intact without transcoding (and DEGRADING) the content into other formats. I'm at my wits end trying to use VLC Media Player to do this conversion job. If I didn't give two farts about the 5.1 audio I'd let it vomit out a horrible, low grade MP3 audio track for this. But I'm not going to do that. I'll delete the damned files before I let that happen. I'm kind of stubborn that way. VLC Media Player has a save/convert option and little check boxes for maintaining the original video and audio bit streams in the file. But every time I try using that tool it converts the video only and leaves out the freaking audio track. Dead, useless silence is all we get in the resulting .MP4 file. I am not interested in the slightest about re-encoding this in another multi-channel audio file format, such as AAC. VLC offers this as an option, presumably so people can play this stuff on their little Apple TV boxes. I want the original Dolby Digital track unmolested. So, are there any MKV to MP4 tools available that can do this kind of conversion job reliably and correctly? I've gone searching around online for various conversion tools but the web sites for just about all seem too sketchy to even visit. Why did MKV become such a big format in the online video sharing community? MKV is not compatible with very many devices. I have to use VLC Media Player to play such files on my computer. My Saumsung TV will play MKV files but my Playstation 3 will not. I would have figured the .MP4 format would be more universally accepted.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 02-16-2016 08:11 PM                        Have you tried avconv? You may find this interesting.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-16-2016 08:34 PM                     Pardon me if I'm misunderstanding what that discussion thread is suggesting, but I definitely do not want to convert the audio in the MKV files to AAC or MP3. I only want to maintain the original AC3 audio in the file. I have no interest in converting the audio to different audio formats that might be more web browser friendly. VLC Media Player can already convert MKV videos to MP4 with TV quality MP3 or AAC audio for itty bitty Apple TV boxes. If avconv has some way to convert a MKV file containing .MP4 video and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio over to an .MP4 container with the very same thing I would be interested in using that. But I have zero interest in something that forces the audio only into MP3 and AAC stereo options.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-16-2016 08:57 PM                     Have you tried MPEG Streamclip? http://www.squared5.com I like it better for converting videos to other formats. FYI: VLC now has a player app for the new Fourth Gen Apple TV. It will play anything that it's big brother can play. You can play streams or local content, just like the original. If you have a NAS hard drive on your network, you can simply drop video and audio clips into it and VLC will play them, directly, without the need to hassle with iTunes. I have a NAS plugged into my Wi-Fi and, using VLC on my 4th Gen Apple TV, playing videos is literally a drag-and-drop affair.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-16-2016 09:37 PM                     I haven't tried Streamclip yet. I couldn't get avconv to install successfully. Handbrake could convert the MKV file to MP4 and pass-through the AC3 track successfully, but not without taking a giant crap on the video quality (it re-encoded the video rather than leaving it untouched). I'll have to look a little more in case I missed a step.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-16-2016 11:06 PM                     Streamclip should be able to extract an audio track from the movie package file. Can you extract the audio and recombine it with a satisfactory video track? QuickTime player 7 should be able to do his,as well.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 02-16-2016 11:23 PM                     According to this page, use ffmpeg to change the wrapper: ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4  |  IP: Logged Aaron Garman Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1470 From: Toledo, OH USA Registered: Mar 2003 posted 02-17-2016 02:03 AM                     Why are you in need of .MP4? You can also easily convert an MKV to an M2TS file, so long as the original video and audio are compatible with the Blu-ray spec. The app you want to do that is tsMuxer. I find converting MKV to M2TS improves compatibility with my Oppo player whilst losing no quality at all. AJG  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-17-2016 11:17 AM                     tsMuxer converted the MKV file to M2TS without re-encoding any of the audio or video. As long as it will play on a Playstation 3 that should be good enough. For people who make rips of Blu-ray discs using Make MKV this little exercise with tsMuxer would seem to be an extra, necessary step. M2TS appears to have more compatibility support than MKV.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-17-2016 10:33 PM                        Why do you need to do this? Just convert to ProRes and Linear PCM. DONE. You can use ClipWrap to rewrap the M2TS file to something of your choice, but you have to bend down and let Steve Jobs stick his dick in your ass because it's only available for Mac. You're missing out, dude. Steve's here when you need him.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-18-2016 11:10 PM                     I need to re-wrap video files in MKV containers in something else because MKV doesn't play on many devices or in many software media players either. Converting MKV to M2TS using tsMuxer is a work-able solution for me.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 02-19-2016 12:16 AM                     quote: Adam Martin ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4 Have you tried it? Like Martin already put it, it copies the audio and video streams into an MP4 container. So, it just demuxes and muxes your content and doesn't do any transcoding. Furthermore, I do like MKV. It hasn't been broadly adapted by commercial playback and editing solutions yet, but that's not the fault of the format. The format itself makes a whole lot more sense than stuff like "MP4" or "AVI".  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-19-2016 09:34 AM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen Have you tried it? Like Martin already put it, it copies the audio and video streams into an MP4 container. So, it just demuxes and muxes your content and doesn't do any transcoding. No, not yet. I already had a copy of tsMuxer. It's easy to use, so I went with creating the M2TS file instead. I might look at ffmpeg (and save Adam's command line code) for use later. quote: Marcel Birgelen Furthermore, I do like MKV. It hasn't been broadly adapted by commercial playback and editing solutions yet, but that's not the fault of the format. The format itself makes a whole lot more sense than stuff like "MP4" or "AVI". MKV may be a patents free audio-video container, but the fact remains not very many things play it. If I use something like Make MKV to rip one of my Blu-ray discs, I'm not going to leave the resulting file in a MKV wrapper. I'm going convert it into a format that can be read by more devices and applications.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-20-2016 12:35 PM                        It's easier to just record the HDMI stream from a Blu-ray disc.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-21-2016 01:33 PM                     Not really. If I managed to just copy what came from the HDMI output I would end up with a file no better in quality than what was on the Blu-ray disc, but it would consume a shit-ton more of hard disc space. I'd prefer to use the already compressed/encoded audio and video tracks, leaving them as is, but just changing how the audio and video tracks are wrapped.  |  IP: Logged

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