Ultimate tool to convert MKV for iPad3 ?

Have you tried Handbrake yet? That's what I always use to convert movies from an mkv format, or even any format at all for that matter. It works well with external srt subtitles and there's even an option to burn them in or have the ability to turn them on or off.

 

I, too, have been struggling to find a good solution which would output a decent MP4 file. I either get something that's unplayable or audio out-of-sync. I did find a program on Windows that did a good job XMediaRecode (it's free).

It extracts the video and copies it while encoding the audio into AAC if it's in a different format like AC3, DTS, etc. However, this does take time. On a quad-core PC with a ton of ram and fast hard drives, it took 18 minutes to do a 2 hour movie.

Forget about using Handbrake because it re-encodes the video, which takes a very long time. The same 2 hour movie would have taken 9-10 hours to complete (no, thank you).

Now when you throw subtitles into the mix, things get a bit complicated. I was not able to get subtitles to work with MP4 files. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think that the MP4 container supports external subtitle files like srt files. You'd have to re-encode the video with hard subtitles.

Every single media player that is on the AppStore (e.g. AVPlayerHD, Buzz Player, etc) uses software acceleration, with the exception of RushPlayer (it will transcode 15-30 seconds at a time so you'll get this shuttering effect; subtitle support was also very flaky for me; the app is also very unstable).

You might be asking why should you be concerned with software vs. hardware acceleration. If you intend to play 720p or 1080p content, software acceleration will result in two drawbacks: 1) jerky playback and 2) faster battery drain.

Now, if you're open to jailbreaking your iPad, then I would suggest that you install XBMC after jailbreaking. It will play nearly any format you throw at it (subtitles supported). It also supports streaming. XBMC uses hardware acceleration. Jailbreaking also opens up a whole new world of tweaks not available within the realm of the official AppStore.

I tested XBMC out earlier today with a 720p TV episode over wifi (802.11N) and playback was as smooth as butter (jumping around the file will take a few seconds because it's seeking over wifi).

With XBMC, you won't need to do any transcoding or conversion. All you need to do is transfer the file to your iPad (into any folder) using a tool like iFunBox (Windows) or iPhone Explorer (Mac). You won't have to do any of this if you're streaming over wifi.

Then in XBMC, you just add the folder as a video file location/library (applies to streaming also).

There's a slight learning curve that involved with the world of jailbreaking, but once you're comfortable you'll wonder how you'd live without it. I hope that helps .

 

What the resolution of the original MKV videos? 720p? or 1080p?

 

if your MKV videos is not 1080P, and your iPad had jailbreak, you can use VLC Media Player for iOS app.

 

I use xilisoft ultimate video converter. I don't use the iPad 3 profile but rather the normal h.24 mp4 profile. That way I can get bitrates as high as 9-12k depending on the file. As we all know apple doesn't allow you to import high quality files to its default video player. But with third party apps like avplayer, as long as the file is mp4 it runs smooth as butter and looks amazing on the retina display.

 

Don't recommend VLC, it's one of the worst players around for iOS with the worst and slowest video decoders. Besides, it knows no tricks like behind-the-scenes MKV remuxing to MP4's for hardware playback.

 

They are not as user friendly but are more powerful as far as options than handbrake, but try mpegstreamclip or compressor if you have the $

 

Remux MKV Player, it can remuxed Xvid and MKV movies. Is it better than VLC?

 

On my iPhone i'm using AirVideo from the AppStore to play .avi .mkv or whatever from my computer.

 

Yeah With XBMC, you won't need to do any transcoding or conversion. All you need to do is transfer the file to your iPad using a tool like iFunBox (Windows) or iPhone Explorer (Mac). You won't have to do any of this if you're streaming over wifi.

 

With most of mkv you don't need to transcode at all the video part (they usually use the same AVC /h264). The Audio is the only part that may need to be converted, if it's only DTS or AC3 format, to the AAC that Apple's mobile device support (Apple TV support also AC3).

So for most of the never Apple devices (that support 720p/1080p) a conversion is not necessary at all. You can preserve the exact original video quality and reduce the conversion time from hours to a few minutes.

A great tool to do this is the MkvToMp4
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MkvToMp4
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/340675-MkvТоMp4-v0-222-rapid-tool-for-repack-Mkv-to-Mp4

It also support adding external subitles, editing tags, automatically downloading artwork and tags from TheTvDB, TheMovieDB and iTunes websites.
It will even correct the atom tags to be able to change the audio and subtitle on Apple devices.


Great tool and completely free!

 

thanks , i recently discovered MkvToMp4 as well. works very well.

 

just convert using eg Handbrake or SUPER.

Or use a better player like AVPlayer.

 

I use iFlicks and I love it. If your MKVs are H.264 encoded and only need a container swap, iFlicks is more than up to the task. I've converted a few AVIs and it took a very long time and the results were meh, but it does do them. In addition to the conversion, it will also scrape IMDB and similar websites to fill out the metadata and artwork fields so your files will display beautifully on your iPad and in iTunes. It merges SRT files into the video file, too.

 

You need to convert the mkv movie to .mP4 or mpeg-4 format to be able to transfer and sync it to the iPad.
iPad can only play .mp4 type files
If you use the latest iTunes, in the top main menu, there should be a menu option to convert the movie to the iPad or iPod compatible format.
It dosen't matter if the original source was a regular DVD or Blu-ray. It has to be in the format that the iPad can handle.
Also, look at Handbrake for OS X
Good Luck