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Importing .mkv video into iTunes

U

un.titled

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 2, 2011
156
0
I've looked all over this forum and the internet and can't seem to find an easy solution. Any ideas? I know people have done this, or at least said they have. I don't want to re-encode the video.

Thanks for any help.

P.S. I have already tried "$ SetFile -t "MooV" -c "TVOD" example.mkv". Didn't work. I was able to get iTunes to recognize the format, and it would start to import the file, then iTunes would crash as the progress bar reached the end.
 
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un.titled said:
Might have been clever had I not said in the first sentence that I already searched on the internet. If you're not going to be helpful, then don't reply.
Click to expand...
I'm not trying to be clever. I did quite a bit of searching for you and I only saw that you have to convert the video before you can import to iTunes. Lots of people have asked the question, but I didn't see any responses anywhere that you could actually import a .mkv file without converting it first.

Apple's support shows this re: file formats:

What video content works with iTunes and mobile devices?
iTunes:

Video content purchased from the iTunes Store.
QuickTime and MPEG-4 movie files that end in ".mov", ".m4v", or ".mp4" and are playable in QuickTime Player.
Video podcasts.
iTunes Digital Copies.
iTunes Store Movie Rentals (Requires iTunes 9 or later).
 
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Thank you for the help motoracer, but I am aware that .mkv isn't a supported standard of iTunes. Even QuickTime doesn't support it without Perian. The more I think about it though, I shouldn't have to re-encode it since an .mkv container should contain an h.264 video stream. I'm going to try and use a program called Subler (http://code.google.com/p/subler/) to open the .mkv container and export it as an .mp4.
 
un.titled said:
I've looked all over this forum and the internet and can't seem to find an easy solution. Any ideas? I know people have done this, or at least said they have. I don't want to re-encode the video.

Thanks for any help.

P.S. I have already tried "$ SetFile -t "MooV" -c "TVOD" example.mkv". Didn't work. I was able to get iTunes to recognize the format, and it would start to import the file, then iTunes would crash as the progress bar reached the end.
Click to expand...

This probably isn't the answer (droids) you're looking for but I used to have a ton of mkv files and I've gotten rid of most of them by converting them to mp4 files. Turned 8GB movies into 2GB without noticeable loss of quality (keeping video resolution the same aswell). Converting them I used a program called Handbrake. (converting a movie can take a long time, my desktop with the specs in my sig takes about 4-6 hours per for 720p)

Alternatively, if you're just trying to view your mkv files, head on over and download VLC, plays almost every format that's playable.
 
Nuckinfuts said:
This probably isn't the answer (droids) you're looking for but I used to have a ton of mkv files and I've gotten rid of most of them by converting them to mp4 files. Turned 8GB movies into 2GB without noticeable loss of quality (keeping video resolution the same aswell). Converting them I used a program called Handbrake. (converting a movie can take a long time, my desktop with the specs in my sig takes about 4-6 hours per for 720p)

Alternatively, if you're just trying to view your mkv files, head on over and download VLC, plays almost every format that's playable.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply. I can play the .mkv files fine through QuickTime (+Perian), I just like using iTunes because it keeps everything neat and organized in one central locations.

As to your second part about Handbrake. I am familiar with the program, I use it to rip my DVD collection onto my Mac. I was just really hoping that I didn't have to transcode these .mkv files because it will take a very long time and I don't really think you should have to since it's h.264.
 
Update: I was able to use the Subler program (http://code.google.com/p/subler/) to open the .mkv files and then save them as .mp4 without transcoding. For a 2GB file, it took about 90 seconds to perform. iTunes recognizes the file and runs fine.

Easy solution after all.
 
un.titled said:
Thank you for your reply. I can play the .mkv files fine through QuickTime (+Perian), I just like using iTunes because it keeps everything neat and organized in one central locations.

As to your second part about Handbrake. I am familiar with the program, I use it to rip my DVD collection onto my Mac. I was just really hoping that I didn't have to transcode these .mkv files because it will take a very long time and I don't really think you should have to since it's h.264.
Click to expand...

It's Apple, It's iTunes :(

(I can't wait for an iTunes overhaul)
 
un.titled said:
Update: I was able to use the Subler program (http://code.google.com/p/subler/) to open the .mkv files and then save them as .mp4 without transcoding. For a 2GB file, it took about 90 seconds to perform. iTunes recognizes the file and runs fine.

Easy solution after all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update. I've got some .mkv files that I'd like to import into iTunes as well. This will make it a lot easier/quicker to put them on my ipod! :) Downloading application now...
 
To the OP and anyone else with experience: has anybody been successful in using Subler for this? I've used Subler in the past but not for mkv -> mp4 conversion. For this, I've always used MKV4XBOX which produces files that play but not without some kind of corruption. Subler however, produces video that seems to be perfect but the audio is completely wrong.
 
grahamnp said:
To the OP and anyone else with experience: has anybody been successful in using Subler for this? I've used Subler in the past but not for mkv -> mp4 conversion. For this, I've always used MKV4XBOX which produces files that play but not without some kind of corruption. Subler however, produces video that seems to be perfect but the audio is completely wrong.
Click to expand...

Subler has worked perfectly for the 5 videos I've done so far. Audio is the same quality and in sync. Converted my 2GB .mkv files to .mp4 in under two minutes each.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Why is that a MacBook pro question and are you serious? There are hundreds of threads referring to handbrake which will convert everything into iTunes format.
 
rikscha said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Why is that a MacBook pro question and are you serious? There are hundreds of threads referring to handbrake which will convert everything into iTunes format.
Click to expand...

If you don't understand the question, don't try to answer it. He said he DIDN'T want to convert them, that takes hours! And he did what he wanted in 90 seconds. Guess who's serious.
Thanks OP for the tip, I'm getting that app as soon as I get my mac :p
But do you know if that can be done on windows (7) too?
 
Settings

What settings did you use?? I'm getting the video but the audio is messed up.
 
dizmonk said:
What settings did you use?? I'm getting the video but the audio is messed up.
Click to expand...

It could be the .mkv file you're using.

1.) File > open, choose .mkv file
2.) Make sure video and audio tracks are both selected (should be by default)
3.) "Other settings" in the middle > check HD Video
4.) File > save
5.) Format is movie-MPEG4
6.) Save.

What are the codec details for your .mkv file?
 
un.titled said:
Subler has worked perfectly for the 5 videos I've done so far. Audio is the same quality and in sync. Converted my 2GB .mkv files to .mp4 in under two minutes each.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. Guess it must be something wrong on my end then.
 
This seems to be working. Thanks.. Is it possible to do a batch of files at once?

un.titled said:
It could be the .mkv file you're using.

1.) File > open, choose .mkv file
2.) Make sure video and audio tracks are both selected (should be by default)
3.) "Other settings" in the middle > check HD Video
4.) File > save
5.) Format is movie-MPEG4
6.) Save.

What are the codec details for your .mkv file?
Click to expand...
 
okay now I still am having issues.. Even if I do the same exact thing with different files.. one has audio problems and the other doesn't... :(
 
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