Playing .mkv files on iPhone?

[Mike330R]

I have a few .mkv video files that I'd like to watch on an unjailbroken iPhone. Is there a way? Maybe convert the files somehow?

I usually watch them with VLC player on my MBP.

Also how do I transfer the file to the phone that iTunes does not like?

 

[omizzle]

i dont think iphone will be able to play mkv files (both hardware and software limitations)

 

[Mike330R]

Is there a decent free app to convert them?

 

[dissdnt]

Air Video is the best app ever. Grab it.

 

[grahamnp]

Use Handbrake. Not sure if the iPhone 4 and iOS4 have different requirements, but with the previous versions you just selected the iPhone preset, wait for it to finish then drag it into itunes.

 

[Mike330R]

Air Video is the best app ever. Grab it.

How do you get the .mkv file onto the phone to use Air Video?

 

[Shorties]

How do you get the .mkv file onto the phone to use Air Video?

You run a companion server application on your computer, then you stream the videos and convert them on the fly. I highly recommend it, it completely reinvents the way you think of media on your iPhone. And its nice cause it uses no space on your phone.

 

[dissdnt]

You run a companion server application on your computer, then you stream the videos and convert them on the fly. I highly recommend it, it completely reinvents the way you think of media on your iPhone. And its nice cause it uses no space on your phone.

Right. And it's a no fuss converter to mp4 from any format which you can then if you want dump into iTunes and sync.

 

[Mike330R]

My goal here is to watch these files why on a plane so the server thing isn't going to work in this case 🙂

 

[SpaceEdge]

I second using Air Video it's one of the best apps I have ever purchased.

 

[Shorties]

My goal here is to watch these files why on a plane so the server thing isn't going to work in this case 🙂

Ah, yeah that limits what you can do then. There is no way to decode MKV files on the iPhone, so you have to preconvert it with one of the software's available for converting videos to the iPhone. But it will take a while. If your plane has wi-fi though I would recommend trying to go with the airvideo cloud based solution (haha there's a pun in this one when dealing with airplanes 😀 ) as it gives you more choice once your in the air. But as for converting, are you on Mac or PC?

 

[asdff]

use handbrake to convert

 

[Cameron38]

This is exactly why I did NOT buy an Ipad and don't use my iPhone to watch movies when flying. I have tons of Movies and TV shows in AVI and MKV format to watch when I fly overseas. I use an HP Netbook which has the crystal HD card so I can watch the MKV 720p files without any conversion. The files are typically about 1.5g, so you need a big hard drive to store alot of them. On a 17 hour flight to Thailand, you go through alot of shows! 😀

 

[ianray]

My goal here is to watch these files why on a plane so the server thing isn't going to work in this case 🙂

You can use Handbrake to convert, them dump the videos into iTunes (as Movies) and sync to your phone... This works well for me. Good luck 🙂

 

[iceterminal]

Handbrake. Get it. Got it? Good.
Its free, its easy (just select the input file, then iphone as output) and click go. wait.

 

[gloss]

I don't know if you have a Windows machine available, but if you do you should download 'mkv2vob'. Rather than reencoding the mkv, which takes Handbrake ages, it simply removes and remuxes the audio and video streams from the MKV (since MKV stores video in the mp4 format anyway). Long story short, it takes my Core i7 PC less than a minute to convert a 45-minute 720p MKV to an MP4, where it would take an hour or more with Handbrake.

Haven't yet found an equivalent program for my Mac.

 

[Shorties]

I don't know if you have a Windows machine available, but if you do you should download 'mkv2vob'. Rather than reencoding the mkv, which takes Handbrake ages, it simply removes and remuxes the audio and video streams from the MKV (since MKV stores video in the mp4 format anyway). Long story short, it takes my Core i7 PC less than a minute to convert a 45-minute 720p MKV to an MP4, where it would take an hour or more with Handbrake.

Haven't yet found an equivalent program for my Mac.

I 2nd this motion, though this only works if the MKV was encoded in H.264 and AAC audio (Which isn't always the case I believe but I could be wrong, I've never run into issues though, but I also have only done it a few times).

 

[Curare]

Handbrake takes too damn long. Get yxflash in Cydia. SSH your files onto the iPhone and yxflash plays pretty much any format.

 

[g30hd3]

Use MediaCoder iPod Edition! It has GPU+CPU encoding; extremely fast.

 

[IMZ14U2NV]

I don't know if you have a Windows machine available, but if you do you should download 'mkv2vob'. Rather than reencoding the mkv, which takes Handbrake ages, it simply removes and remuxes the audio and video streams from the MKV (since MKV stores video in the mp4 format anyway). Long story short, it takes my Core i7 PC less than a minute to convert a 45-minute 720p MKV to an MP4, where it would take an hour or more with Handbrake.

Haven't yet found an equivalent program for my Mac.

I just attempted this and the resulting file could not be played/added to iTunes and also could not be played by QuickTime, but I could play the file just fine with VLC.

Am I doing something wrong?