Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac OS and .mkv

I

Illicit

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 14, 2007
267
0
Waterloo, ON
I've noticed people have recommended VLC, and Mplayer to play videos encoded in mkv format. My mac is a Powerbook G4 667 MHz 1 MB L3 cache with 768 MB SDRAM, and playing mkv videos on VLC pops up the error 'display is more than 5 seconds late'. Actually, that's an understatement, the video shows 1 second snippets every 5 minutes or so, while the audio is fine. Downloading Perian mkv codecs leads to the same result when viewing in Quicktime. Mplayer video/audio is near perfect, but subtitles are invisible and there is no preference menu to change it. pressing 'j' in Mplayer activates a command listing what should be subtitles, but shows it as '?????' marks where letters should be.

Does anybody have any recommendations as to other programs that have worked well for them? I'm merely trying to view anime mkv files with subtitles.

Thanks
 
.Mkv does not play well with mac. I actually really hate that format. Wish I could help you, I've found nothing that helps. None of my video recorders can read .mkv so I can't actually convert the file to another format!
 
Most media I have seen in a .MKV is High Definition stuff so would require a hefty machine to be able to decode in realtime. From the sound of your problem your machine is just not fast enough to decode the file in real time.
 
Perhaps use iSquint to convert the files into an AppleTV h.264 format? They work nicely on a Mac.
 
ill be getn a macbook soon and will need to play .mkv files. right now i have 3.0ghz,1gb ram and an old ass fx5200 128 graphics card and i can play 720p .mkv h.254 files fine,its the 1080p i cant play lol.i just found out that the smplayer works the best.and i have used bsplayer aswell that works fine.but hopefully when i get my macbook ill find something that can play the files without stutter. if i were to use isquint would i keep the hd quality of the movie?
 
I think I found the solution! <whew>

Okay, I think I've found the solution to playing .mkv files on a mac... I downloaded a program called FFmpegX, which will convert the Matroska files into an easily readable .avi format (with subtitles!)

-Drag the .mkv file into the area on the left hand side (where it says 'drop file here').
-switch to the 'filters' section and check the 'VOB subtitles' box (making sure 0 is selected)
-convert and enjoy!

*you may need the L8est DiViX codecs for quicktime to view on your mac

ENJOY! I hope I solved the problem for everyone.
 
I've been skipping every file I ever see in mkv because of all the problems playing them. THanks for the tips, I'll try them out next time!
 
Check this link for instructions to get mkv's going on your Mac.

I used one of the precompiled versions with fontconfig support, and it worked great (You need to press the 'b' key to change subtitle tracks with their instructions).

I did find a couple extra options like '-alang jap -slang eng' (or something, can't recall off the top of my head) to force japanese audio track and english subtitle track.

I also tried -nokeepaspect, but it would only work when running mplayer from the command line. I ended up grabbing the source code, and setting the KeepAspect variable to NO by default rather than YES, so I don't have to keep disabling it through the menu.

Remember, MKV is still in its infancy, but it is a much better container to use for many reasons. I grab everything I can in MKV, since its only a matter of time before its a solid format to use on Mac OS...
 
Illicit said:
My mac is a Powerbook G4 667 MHz 1 MB L3 cache with 768 MB SDRAM

I'm merely trying to view anime mkv files with subtitles.
Click to expand...
Darnit. I was writing up a whole paragraph and I realized murfle beat me to it. :) I was going to link to the same Animesuki thread. I had the same problems with fansubs done in MKV format on my PBG4. I haven't had the same problems on my Mac Pro because it's powerful enough, using VLC, to blast through the video no problem (except that that special build of Mplayer has better subtitle support than VLC).
 
You guys do know the new Perian 1.0 came out last friday which now has support for .mkv files.
 
I installed Perian 1.0. The video now plays in Quicktime, looks great, plays more reliably than in VLC - but the audio is taking hits. Every 3-5 seconds, a loud burst of static in heard, similar to the artifacts you'd hear in a corrupted mp3, but much louder and more annoying.

It happens with every mkv file i play, and no other types of files. Anyone have any clue why this is happening?
 
tveric said:
I installed Perian 1.0. The video now plays in Quicktime, looks great, plays more reliably than in VLC - but the audio is taking hits. Every 3-5 seconds, a loud burst of static in heard, similar to the artifacts you'd hear in a corrupted mp3, but much louder and more annoying.

It happens with every mkv file i play, and no other types of files. Anyone have any clue why this is happening?
Click to expand...

I have the exact same problem, anyone got around this?
 
QuickTime can't decode all the audio Track. Probably He-AAC so QT transcode this.
You must use Mplayer.
I create a website about MKV file on Mac.
Sorry for the french, i'm working on the translation.
Mkv4Mac.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back