MKV files: Switching "containers"?

[quizzelbuck]

I need video files i can make my video card decode. IE/ MP4s and not MKVs. News groups seem to have only MKVs readily available. so i have a few questions about these formats.

First, are MKV's just a fancey kind of Mpeg 4? i hear the words "Mpeg4 container" thrown around in reference. Now, that said, would i have to do a full on conversion, or reencodeing of MKVs to make them plain VC-1 MP4 files? or x264 files? Or is it a simple operation that could involve just telling the MKV to start behaveing like an MP4? i need my 8600gt to decode the files since my CPU cant do it.

 

[nova2]

MKV and AVI are just containers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska

who knows what the video and audio streams are encoded as.

you can use MediaInfo http://www.google.com/search?&q=mediainfo
to find out if the MKV video stream was encoded as x264 or xvid, etc.
Most likely, however, since MKV is being used, the video stream is probably x264.

if your video card isn't helping, then maybe you need to update your video drivers.

 

[13Gigatons]

Sometimes you can trick it by just changing the the file extension since it is only a container.

 

[Modelworks]

If you have the proper codecs installed you can use virtualdubmod to convert them to avi.
http://sourceforge.net/project...les.php?group_id=65889

Biggest problem with the files is they often contain multiple tracks, chapters, that don't transfer directly to avi unless you can set the language, etc first.



Matroska faq:
http://www.matroska.org/technical/guides/faq/index.html

 

[Gooberlx2]

Look at this thread. Though the OP is about a somewhat different issue, there are useful tools and links referenced, specifically concerning MKVs, containers and conversion.