editing MKV on mac

[SquareRobot]

Hi everyone. I'm trying to put together a video from a bunch of big MKV files (about 2 GB each). I started by converting one MKV file to MP4 with Handbrake (which took like 6 hours, for some reason). I tried to bring the MP4 into FCP, but when I put it on the timeline it said something about the project settings not matching the video clip settings and asked if I wanted to make them match, I said yes and then FCP gave me a "General Error" (very helpful, yes?). So now I've wasted a bunch of time and gotten nowhere.

tl;dr: Does anyone know a relatively easy way to edit my MKV files?

Thanks in advance.

 

[cgbier]

Get MPEG Streamclip and export it to AIC or ProRes. That should fix your problem.

 

[SquareRobot]

Thanks for the reply. I have mpegstreamclip but I don't see any options for the two things you mentioned anywhere in the export to other formats screen. How do I do that?

 

[cgbier]

File > Export to Quicktime, then just choose the codec for compression.

 

[nateo200]

I wish there was a plugin for editing H.264 w/ AAC audio Mkv's in FCP X or FCP...wouldn't it be relatively easy to implement since the only difference is the container format really? (Still if you change the extension FCP won't open it without errors).

 

[SquareRobot]

Thank you for showing me how to do that. However, this is going to take way too long. It's going to take 12+ hours just to convert each file to be edited in FCP. That's like 200 hours just to convert the files I have.

Does anyone know a reasonable way to edit MKV files because this is ridiculous.

 

[cgbier]

MKV is a delivery format, not meant for editing, so you won't have any other chance.

... and don't export to MP4 with h.264 for editing. Use AIC or ProRes (should be faster to boot)

 

[SquareRobot]

Dang. Alright, thanks for the info.

 

[BrunoWill]

Maybe you can use Handbrake to convert your video to MOV or M4V video, maybe FCP support those kind of format.

 

[SquareRobot]

Thanks for all the info, guys. I haven't had any time to work on my project but when I get to it, I'll see if your advice works.