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How to convert MKV files for use in FCP 6?

S

StephenCampbell

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 21, 2009
1,043
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I'm at a loss, I've tried everything I can think of to convert this MKV file into something I can drop into FCP and edit, and no matter what I do FCP says "Unknown file."

How do I convert a large 1080p MKV file into a format that FCP 6 will take?

Thanks!
 
Have you tried handbrake to transcode the video to something FCP can import?

Is the MKV file copy protected or encrypted or corrupted?
 
Yes I've tried handbrake. Handbrake turns it into an m4v which FCP rejects. In the past I had no problem turning DVDs into AVI files using Handbrake, and putting those in FCP.

The MKV comes from a Blu-ray that I own, I don't think it's got any copy protection or encryption on it, I made it with makeMKV.
 
There are some BR disks that just don't copy/extract regardless. Someone used to keep a list over in the AppleTV and Home Theater forum. https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-tv-and-home-theater.100/

You can set handbrake to output a wide variety of containers such as mp4, although I have never had a FCP import m4v problem, thats the default FCP file export/share container. mp4, m4v, mkv are just container formats for video files. These video files could be coded by a wide variety of codecs.

I kinda suspect there is a problem with your MKV file, not FCP. Can any or your apps app play the MKV?
 
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StephenCampbell said:
Yes I've tried handbrake. Handbrake turns it into an m4v which FCP rejects. In the past I had no problem turning DVDs into AVI files using Handbrake, and putting those in FCP.

The MKV comes from a Blu-ray that I own, I don't think it's got any copy protection or encryption on it, I made it with makeMKV.
Click to expand...

If you own the blu ray then re-rip it into a format that FCP accepts.

You own the BR... just rip it directly to an open standard.
 
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vrBrew said:
If you own the blu ray then re-rip it into a format that FCP accepts.

You own the BR... just rip it directly to an open standard.
Click to expand...

Using what software?
[doublepost=1494793472][/doublepost]
ColdCase said:
There are some BR disks that just don't copy/extract regardless. Someone used to keep a list over in the AppleTV and Home Theater forum. https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-tv-and-home-theater.100/

You can set handbrake to output a wide variety of containers such as mp4, although I have never had a FCP import m4v problem, thats the default FCP file export/share container. mp4, m4v, mkv are just container formats for video files. These video files could be coded by a wide variety of codecs.

I kinda suspect there is a problem with your MKV file, not FCP. Can any or your apps app play the MKV?
Click to expand...

Yes, the mkv opens just fine and plays in QuickTime. As do the m4v's that Handbrake makes out of it.
 
Yes, FCP6, FCS2. I tried Avidemux, it gives me an error no matter how I put settings before trying to export the mkv from there.
 
Bigasoft Prores converter has a free trial. In my experience it was the best at handling misbehaving video, but it won't handle all of them.

Since QT and VLC plays the video, you could try to save/export from there... or run a screen capture while the video plays. Wonder if there is some kind of copy protection that allows view but not edit :) .

You may want to check with the AppleTV and Home theater guys. They have been converting MKVs for years.

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-tv-and-home-theater.100/
 
ColdCase said:
Bigasoft Prores converter has a free trial. In my experience it was the best at handling misbehaving video, but it won't handle all of them.

Since QT and VLC plays the video, you could try to save/export from there... or run a screen capture while the video plays. Wonder if there is some kind of copy protection that allows view but not edit :) .

You may want to check with the AppleTV and Home theater guys. They have been converting MKVs for years.

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-tv-and-home-theater.100/
Click to expand...

Yeah I could export to AVI with QuickTime but it looks like it would take weeks to do it. A 5 minute clip said "22 minutes remaining" and then the estimate started going up and the blue bar hardly made any progress.

I'll try Bigasoft Prores and check that other forum, thanks.
 
There is something in that video file (perhaps corruption) that eventually QT doesn't like. Thats typical for how it reacts if there is corruption in the video file. They can play just fine, but just doesn't play well with others. Probably not your case.
 
My apologies if this seems rudimentary. But according to the spec page FCS6 doesn't support mp4 or m4v. It does support mpeg-2, which would explain why DVDs work.

1080 support in FCS6 seems to come in some offbeat formats, which you may be able to get to through Compressor.
 
kohlson said:
My apologies if this seems rudimentary. But according to the spec page FCS6 doesn't support mp4 or m4v. It does support mpeg-2, which would explain why DVDs work.

1080 support in FCS6 seems to come in some offbeat formats, which you may be able to get to through Compressor.
Click to expand...

Oh, well that explains it.

Is there a way to convert this Blu-ray originated MKV into mpeg-2??
 
The MakeMKV MKV is just a bitstream of the Blu-Ray, and if it is a commercial movie, then it had DRM, which MakeMKV stripped.

Handbrake support MPEG-2 output, so you should just convert it using that, and then extract the MPEG-2 file out of the container. Alternatively, use ffmpeg to convert it directly to MPEG-2.
 
StephenCampbell said:
Oh, well that explains it.

Is there a way to convert this Blu-ray originated MKV into mpeg-2??
Click to expand...

I used handbrake for that. Select MPEG-2 in the codec section.
 

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I still got "Error: Unknown File" in FCP after converting it with Mpeg2 using handbrake. I don't get it.
 
What happens if you open it in QuickTime Player* and then just Save As it to a .mov file? This should keep it in H.264 while putting it into a more Apple-friendly container.

Are you sure that it's H.264? Some Blu-rays are VC-1. If you do a Window/Show Movie Inspector (Cmd-I) in QuickTime Player, what Format is listed?

*I'm assuming that you have something like Perian installed, otherwise QT Player "shouldn't" be able to open it.
 
Nermal said:
What happens if you open it in QuickTime Player* and then just Save As it to a .mov file? This should keep it in H.264 while putting it into a more Apple-friendly container.

Are you sure that it's H.264? Some Blu-rays are VC-1. If you do a Window/Show Movie Inspector (Cmd-I) in QuickTime Player, what Format is listed?

*I'm assuming that you have something like Perian installed, otherwise QT Player "shouldn't" be able to open it.
Click to expand...

Funny, I do have a Perian pane in System Preferences, must have installed that a long time ago.

It does say H.264 in the Show Movie Inspector window of QuickTime Player 7. (This is the 37GB MKV). Are you thinking of 7 or X? I just tried to open it in X and I'm seeing that "Converting" thing, the video hasn't yet come up.
 
That's what I thought. So I waited for the whole thing to 'load' in 7 (the playback bar filled in all the way across) and now I'm doing a simple 'Export' to QuickTime Movie, Default Settings. It looks like it's going to take a long time, but if it works, that'll be great.

Edit: Oh wait, you said do Save As. I'll try that first.
[doublepost=1495234383][/doublepost]Well, that created a 37GB .mov file which did go into FCP6. But I can't get FCP to ask me if I want to conform the sequence settings to match the clip, so it remains a 720x480 or whatever NTSC DV sequence, and it runs all clunky with the 37GB 1080p clip in there and doesn't look good.

I need to get the film down to ~2GB or so before putting it into FCP I think. And how do I get FCP6 to match the clip?
 
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I still haven't found a good way to do this. Now I'm thinking about just getting the Blu-ray into a regular DVD sized file for FCP, if possible. Otherwise I'll just have to get DVDs of the films....
 
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