MKV -> MP4 without conversion?

[MacinJosh]

After mucking around with several MKV samples, I'm throwing in the towel. Here's what I've got:

Extracting with iMKVExtract is a breeze. Nothing to it.

Muxing with MP4Box gives mixed results. This is the part where I gave up. I get errors with some files, hangs with others.

Out of all my tries, I did get one sample (720p H.264) to mux. It played fine in QT... without sound. At this point I didn't want to play with the AC3 codec I had installed given the success ratio of my muxing trials.

To sum up, like many have already said: IT'S NOT WORTH IT I'll try later when we have better MKV support, better H.264/x264 support and better AC3 support. Until then, VisualHub is my best friend. Thanks for your help guys.

[stomer]

Originally Posted by MacinJosh

After mucking around with several MKV samples, I'm throwing in the towel. Here's what I've got:

Extracting with iMKVExtract is a breeze. Nothing to it.

Muxing with MP4Box gives mixed results. This is the part where I gave up. I get errors with some files, hangs with others.

Out of all my tries, I did get one sample (720p H.264) to mux. It played fine in QT... without sound. At this point I didn't want to play with the AC3 codec I had installed given the success ratio of my muxing trials.

To sum up, like many have already said: IT'S NOT WORTH IT I'll try later when we have better MKV support, better H.264/x264 support and better AC3 support. Until then, VisualHub is my best friend. Thanks for your help guys.

I've had pretty much the same experience as you. I thought that I could simply demux MKV's and remux them into MP4s.
As stated earlier, the 264's in the MKV are either not of the correct profile or else they are just plain mangled.
Then there's the audio. Sometimes it's a 5.1 aac file, which is a pain to get to a simple stereo aac file.
Even if I get to the point of being able to remux, I'll find the sound and video out of sync.
Attempting to re-encode MKVs with VisualHub yielded similar results.

[CrashRay]

You can maybe use : MoKgVm2DVD

[brbubba]

I've been using gotsent under win XP in parallels to do my conversions. Does a nice job except when running into files with 5.1 AAC tracks, in which case it fails when trying to extract the audio. Can't find anything that will work with those 5.1 AAC files.

[lboyce]

The key is changing the .h264 file from a High Level 5.1 to a High Level 4.1. This can be done in Windows using a program called H264info. I do it all the time. Not sure how it is done on Mac (would be great to know). But lately I've been changing all my x264 mkv's to mp4's without having to convert it and playing them on my xbox 360. It's worked like a charm so far! The whole process only takes about 20-30 minutes per movie.

The only bad thing is any files greater than 4GB have to be split for them to play, but it still works. And I'm used to that anyway coming from a DivX background.

[brbubba]

Originally Posted by lboyce

The key is changing the .h264 file from a High Level 5.1 to a High Level 4.1. This can be done in Windows using a program called H264info. I do it all the time. Not sure how it is done on Mac (would be great to know). But lately I've been changing all my x264 mkv's to mp4's without having to convert it and playing them on my xbox 360. It's worked like a charm so far! The whole process only takes about 20-30 minutes per movie.

The only bad thing is any files greater than 4GB have to be split for them to play, but it still works. And I'm used to that anyway coming from a DivX background.

Can you please provide a link to this program. I found a solution, but it's a serious PIA. Demux the video/audio, convert audio to stereo, remux back together, and then convert to MP4. The audio seems to be working ok, but the resolution is screwing up occasionally.

[lboyce]

Unfortunately, this is Windows based. If someone can find the equivelent of these programs on Mac then that would be spectacular but until then, this is the best solution without having to reencode.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.p...ic=620160&st=0

[billabong]

It cannot be done... I have tried numerous ways, and finally just realized that VisualHub was the way to go...

[brbubba]

Originally Posted by billabong

It cannot be done... I have tried numerous ways, and finally just realized that VisualHub was the way to go...

VisualHub will not convert AAC 5.1 audio streams, which is why I have been pulling my hair out over this. If it did, I would just convert all MKV files, no problems.

[ellixan]

Sorry to drag an old thread up from the depths, but I got here by searching for help on Google, and thought I might be of some help to others who arrived in a similar fashion.

It looks like the program formerly known as MoKgVm2DVD has improved by leaps and bounds since this thread was opened. It's now known as MKVtools. It's trialware with minimal limitations, but costs less than $4.00 to register. I'm downloading it now, and according to the developer site, the program would seem to resolve most of the issues listed in this thread. This includes presets for AppleTV, PS3, and Xbox 360, as well as the ability to change the h.264 profile level.

The beta can be found here.
http://www.emmgunn.com/betadownload.html

[frankiepdx]

Originally Posted by ellixan

Sorry to drag an old thread up from the depths, but I got here by searching for help on Google, and thought I might be of some help to others who arrived in a similar fashion.

It looks like the program formerly known as MoKgVm2DVD has improved by leaps and bounds since this thread was opened. It's now known as MKVtools. It's trialware with minimal limitations, but costs less than $4.00 to register. I'm downloading it now, and according to the developer site, the program would seem to resolve most of the issues listed in this thread. This includes presets for AppleTV, PS3, and Xbox 360, as well as the ability to change the h.264 profile level.

The beta can be found here.
http://www.emmgunn.com/betadownload.html

Any luck yet?

[ironjaw]

Doesn't Visual Hub provide AC3 5.1 audio support for the new Apple TV take2?

[northy124]

You can mux with MKVMerge, I know abit late but hey who cares.

[dynaflash]

Simply re-muxing the .mkv to .mp4 would be the fastest, to be sure. However the points about the video still not being AppleTV compatible are extremely valid, even if you found a quick way to do it. Most HD .mkv video's found via bittorrent, etc are *not* encoded with the ATV in mind. Not only the level of h.264 but for instance the atv chokes on consecutive bframes > 6, short term bitrate spikes in excess of 10MB/sec etc. etc. So, tbh I am not sure that even *if* you found the remuxing holy grail, your problem would be solved.

Having said that, vlc has issues with bframes in mkv's and probably QuickTime with Perian is the best mac playback, however it too has its issues (they are outlined on the perian website). Its because of this that some of the built in presets in HandBrake are likely to change from mkv to mp4.

As well, AC3 in mp4 is supported via the spec allowing for private audio tracks. Hence the ATV HD rental mp4 w/AC3 DD and HandBrake mp4 w/AC3 DD. Which of course work great on the ATV.

I realize this does not answer your question on "how to" but rather might shed some light on the details of the problem. For guaranteed compatibility I don't see any way around a re-encode with correct AppleTV compatible settings ... and preferably in an mp4 with AC3. Just my .02

[Donz0r]

I've been working on this for days, and I couldn't do it on a mac.
I found some good leads for windows, but instead of installing bootcamp (which requires a defrag) and going through all the trouble, I just bought visualhub for 23 bucks.
Here's some tips for people still trying to do it without conversion:

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic349617.html

MKVTools for Mac
Videora for PC.
h264info for pc.

You should be able to figure it out.
There's a very easy to use windows tool
H264info will let you change the properties of the H.264 video file, after demuxing using MKVTools or something similar. You can change to profile 4.1 very very easily using this h264info.
Good Luck.

for me though, I just used Visual Hub last night, and I'm very impressed.
I had Transformers 720P (566x1280 or so) H.264 and AC3 5.1 in an MKV that I got online (Septic version).
I used Visual Hub with AppleTV 5.1 Preset, H.264 encoding, 2 Pass, and Audio passthrough.

I haven't watched it yet but I skipped to an hour and a half into the movie and the video/audio is perfectly in sync, also I can't tell the difference between this and the mkv at all maximized on my 24'' monitor.
After work today I'll compare the two on my 73'' 1080P and let you know how it is.

I have compared the DVD Transformers with 1080P upscaling to the 720P .mov that VisualHub spit out (after 10 hours...), and the difference is amazing on the 73''.

I would go with visualhub for the time being because of it's convenience, ease of use, and guaranteed compatibility with TV

[caliguy]

Working with MKV files with x264 video and AC3 audio, I used Perian and QuickTime to put them in an mp4 container. Just set 'Pass Through' for the video (only works when the subtitles are turned off or deleted in 'Movie Properties', I believe).

As for the audio, as stated before, AC3 must not work with MP4, so I guess you'll have to settle for AAC 320 kbps audio.

Process should only take about 20 minutes for an 8GB file. Not bad.

[lindmar]

Originally Posted by caliguy

Working with MKV files with x264 video and AC3 audio, I used Perian and QuickTime to put them in an mp4 container. Just set 'Pass Through' for the video (only works when the subtitles are turned off or deleted in 'Movie Properties', I believe).

As for the audio, as stated before, AC3 must not work with MP4, so I guess you'll have to settle for AAC 320 kbps audio.

Process should only take about 20 minutes for an 8GB file. Not bad.

So whats the process here?
Is the output ATV compatible ?
Can we retain 5,1 sound

[ibglowin]

Its easier, it works and no difference in audio or video quality. Use the TV settings, and make sure if it has 5.1 audio that you pass through the 5.1 as well as a 2.0 AAC to playback properly on an TV. It takes about an hour on a 2.2 C2D Mac

[lindmar]

Originally Posted by ibglowin

Its easier, it works and no difference in audio or video quality. Use the TV settings, and make sure if it has 5.1 audio that you pass through the 5.1 as well as a 2.0 AAC to playback properly on an TV. It takes about an hour on a 2.2 C2D Mac

I am sure that's what I'm doing with the TV preset in HB and I have yet to get an output with 5.1

I must be doing something wrong.....

[caliguy]

Originally Posted by lindmar

So whats the process here?
Is the output ATV compatible ?
Can we retain 5,1 sound

As far as Apple TV compatibility, it probably depends on the MKV file that you begin with. Unless the movie is huge, I think it should work. I use the procedure I stated before for use with my PS3, but ATV should work as well.

5.1 audio is lost however. I'm not exactly sure if Pass Through still works with AC3 audio and creating an mp4 file. As far as I know, QuickTime broke Pass Through with AC3 a couple years ago, and it hasn't been fixed.

[i.maverick]

Dude..I might be late but you could try the apple reference movie maker. I use it to create reference files of an mkv. The reference files are like 4 kb or something. They even play in iTunes if I add the reference files to itunes. I don't have an apple tv but if they play on iTunes so I'm guessing they would on the atv as well.

Also, the actual name of the software might b diff, don't have my comp with me right now!

Hope this helps!!

[KeegoSupremo]

Originally Posted by ibglowin

Its easier, it works and no difference in audio or video quality. Use the TV settings, and make sure if it has 5.1 audio that you pass through the 5.1 as well as a 2.0 AAC to playback properly on an TV. It takes about an hour on a 2.2 C2D Mac

How is it taking you about an hour? what size of file are you working with? In handbrake it says between 20-30 hours for a 5-8gb file

[stomer]

Originally Posted by KeegoSupremo

How is it taking you about an hour? what size of file are you working with? In handbrake it says between 20-30 hours for a 5-8gb file

Depends on Handbrake's presets. I've found that the current presets increase encoding time by a factor of 3!!

[KeegoSupremo]

Originally Posted by stomer

Depends on Handbrake's presets. I've found that the current presets increase encoding time by a factor of 3!!

What settings do you use for Mkv files then? Thanks

[Dimwhit]

I was all set to answer the OP, but then I realized the thread is 2 years old.

That said, I have an MKV file that will play just fine in Front Row. I don't think any conversion is necessary.