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MKV on MAC ?!

E

Elitward

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 6, 2006
2
0
Hi,

I notice that MKV files are getting more and more popular around us.
But it looks that these files are not supported very well on MAC.
Maybe it's because many MKV files use ReadVideo9 as video codec, which is not popular in MAC world.
As far as I know, the only software to decode Real Media File is RealPlayer, and RealPlayer do not support MKV files. So ...!!

Does anyone have an idea to deal with MKV files?

Thanks in advance.

Elitward
 
Elitward said:
Maybe it's because many MKV files use ReadVideo9 as video codec, which is not popular in MAC world.
Click to expand...

In my experience, I've seen most MKV files use the DVIX and XVID codecs for video. My suggestion would be to try VLC or MPlayer, but I doubt they support RealVideo9.
 
PS. Its "Mac" not "MAC", unless you're talking about running videos on a network card.
 
Call me an idiot, but I've honestly never seen anything in H.264. Ever.

EDIT: Not to mention, none of my computers are nearly fast enough to do it anyway.
 
SC68Cal said:
Call me an idiot, but I've honestly never seen anything in H.264. Ever.

EDIT: Not to mention, none of my computers are nearly fast enough to do it anyway.
Click to expand...
I have, I encode stuff myself. And standard-def H.264 plays fine on my 2-year-old PowerBook G4 with a 1.25GHz CPU. All of your computers are slower than that?

H.264 != HD
 
http://www.videolan.org/

VLC will play .mkv files just fine on OS X. I've been able to watch 720 x 480 .mkv files on my old PowerMac G3 450. Sure, the CPU was under 100% load but it was completely watchable.

I've found that h.264 is showing up a lot more now for standard definition as well. You get up to a 20% savings on file size when compared to MPEG-4/DivX/XviD.
 
Yeah. I encode a lot of things in h264 inside of mkv.

VLC doesn't handle .mkv well (at least not on a 1.5 ghz powerbook) with h264 inside of it. VLC itself isn't the best .mkv player and combining that with the extra proc needed for h264 makes for a poor showing sometimes.

I'm hoping someone will improve mplayer since it handles them beautifully on my linux box
 
60% less mkv frustration

Until Matroska decides to address the Mac Community...
I have found a way to play mkv files, with 60% less frustration.
This works for me, using a G4/400 and Mplayer osx
1. Get Info the mkv file
2. Change to extension to wmv. Save as wmv and that's it.
3. Playback improved, and of course with a G4/400 I'm not running
anything else.
Btw, my display is set to 800x600 100 Hz, Million colors
Best regards to all
6/30/2006 :)
 
Several months ago a Windows-using friend gave me an MKV file, just to see whether I could play it (he couldn't). To this day I've never managed to get it working. The latest version of VLC comes back with:

mkv: unknow codec id=`V_REAL/RV40'
main: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `undf'.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.

It's obviously Real-format video, but I don't know what that "undf" is. Any suggestions?

Edit: The sound plays, just not the video. I also tried MPlayer, which also plays the sound. I don't get a video error in MPlayer, it just sits there eternally bouncing in the Dock.
 
Nermal said:
Several months ago a Windows-using friend gave me an MKV file, just to see whether I could play it (he couldn't). To this day I've never managed to get it working. The latest version of VLC comes back with:

mkv: unknow codec id=`V_REAL/RV40'
main: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `undf'.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.

It's obviously Real-format video, but I don't know what that "undf" is. Any suggestions?

Edit: The sound plays, just not the video. I also tried MPlayer, which also plays the sound. I don't get a video error in MPlayer, it just sits there eternally bouncing in the Dock.
Click to expand...
AFAIK, there is no open-source real video decoder, nor will there be anytime soon, and I doubt Real cares much about Matroska, so I doubt files like that will ever work on PowerPC. It might on Intel if someone gets MPlayer's binary codec pack to work on Mac OS X, which I don't think has been done. Also, the undf is because VLC uses four character codes (like 'XVID', 'avc1', 'mp4a', etc) internally to map codecs, but Matroska uses strings to identify codecs, so VLC has to map Matroska's strings to a fourcc manually, and it looks like no-one's added the mappings for the Real codecs since no sane encoder uses them in Matroska. Where are you guys finding these files anyway? The only Real codecs in Matroska I've seen are test files for proving Matroska's capabilities.

DennyKrane said:
Until Matroska decides to address the Mac Community...
I have found a way to play mkv files, with 60% less frustration.
This works for me, using a G4/400 and Mplayer osx
1. Get Info the mkv file
2. Change to extension to wmv. Save as wmv and that's it.
3. Playback improved, and of course with a G4/400 I'm not running
anything else.
Btw, my display is set to 800x600 100 Hz, Million colors
Best regards to all
Click to expand...
ASF (the container that .wmv files are) and Matroska are two completely different formats entirely, and are not compatible in the least. Unless the file was actually ASF and got renamed to MKV for whatever stupid reason, this should do nothing but confuse MPlayer, but I think it ignores the extension anyway. At any rate, there just might be something for Mac users pretty soon...
 
Just out of curiousity will VLC use Real's codec if you have Realplayer installed? The OS X version isn't as bad as the Windows one. I need it sometimes too.

Additionally, h.264 in .mkv enclosure playback is terrible in VLC.
 
Eidorian said:
Just out of curiousity will VLC use Real's codec if you have Realplayer installed? The OS X version isn't as bad as the Windows one. I need it sometimes too.
Click to expand...
Not last I tried.

One thing I didn't know until I just checked is that MPlayer bundles the Real codecs for MPlayer OS X - http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/rp9codecs-macosx-20041107.pkg.zip (I thought they would only be part of MPlayer's Linux codec pack.) I doubt they work with anything other than MPlayer, but I'll have to try the Real-in-Matroska test files I have when I get home.

@Fukui: There's a difference between a decoder and a player. MPlayer uses closed-source codecs for Indeo, WMV9, and Real Video, among others, which have to be installed seperately.
 
The real problem with MKVs are that since such a file is only a container, not a format, getting one and having it play is kind of a mixed bag. The only ones I've had trouble with so far contained WMV10 video, which at the time (still?) wasn't supported on the Mac.
 
Yuvi said:
@Fukui: There's a difference between a decoder and a player. MPlayer uses closed-source codecs for Indeo, WMV9, and Real Video, among others, which have to be installed seperately.
Click to expand...
I think the Real ones are made using Helix, I also heard there was partial support for VC1 (WMV9) in VLC, but not much has come of it. Some may be hacked too, but I think the real codec may be legit.
 
MKVs are lovely looking, but my 2.16ghz CD MBP with 2gb of RAM can't handle a 1080p movie...:(
 
Screw MKV

I'm sorry, but I don't undertnad the point of even having the MKV format. It sounds like a fancy way to package a normal movie, that will end up requiring the user to download more spotty software in order to play it...

WHY use this when you have so many widely playable options: WMV, AVI, MPEG, H.264, MP4, etc. etc.
 
illegallydead said:
I'm sorry, but I don't undertnad the point of even having the MKV format. It sounds like a fancy way to package a normal movie, that will end up requiring the user to download more spotty software in order to play it...

WHY use this when you have so many widely playable options: WMV, AVI, MPEG, H.264, MP4, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

It's part of an evil plan to take over the world. heh, there's always someone that has to do something differently *sigh*
 
illegallydead said:
I'm sorry, but I don't undertnad the point of even having the MKV format. It sounds like a fancy way to package a normal movie, that will end up requiring the user to download more spotty software in order to play it...

WHY use this when you have so many widely playable options: WMV, AVI, MPEG, H.264, MP4, etc. etc.
Click to expand...

MKV mostly exists because it got relatively popular in the anime fansubbing community due to its ability to contain soft-subtitles and do mixed frame rates. But that's about it. Why it's gotten popular in other circles is beyond me.
 
I've only seen it in anime as well. VLC and Mplayer have worked great for me. But when I started using front row, it had to be quicktime compatible. So I used this to extract the avi's or whatever is in there. You get to pick which audio/subtitle track you want in the mix, and pops the avi's right out of MKV. Maybe it'll be of some use.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24872/mokgvm2dvd

P.S. Does quicktime allow for soft subtitles??
 
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