If you have a collection of MKV files, and are looking for a quick and easy way to make these files play on your XBOX 360 or PS3, MKV2MP4 might be the tool for you.
You can find the download link for MKV2MP4 at the end of this article. Please read through the information provided to understand its capabilities and its limitations. MKV2MP4 is provided for free, as is, without any warranties or support. The software is Alpha, and possibly has (most likely will have) issues.
If you do not know what MKV files are, this tool is not for you.
While DVD Catalyst 3 (and other conversion tools) can convert MKV files to a format that can be played on your XBOX 360 or PS3, the conversion is usually a long process. For most MKV files, conversion is usually not entirely necessary. Often, the video format is in AVC/H264 format, which is fully compatible with MP4 files, however, due to the way the file formats themselves are created, you can not just simply rename an MKV file to MP4. This is where MKV2MP4 comes in. Rather than re-compressing the video to the same format, it just rips the video and audio parts of the MKV file, and then stitches them together into an MP4 file. Of course not as fast as just renaming the file, the format-change process of MKV2MP4 is actually quite fast, depending mainly on your harddrive speed. On a recent computer, you can *convert* a 2 hour MKV video file in about 20 minutes, while maintaining the actual original quality of the MKV file. By using a conversion tool, you will lose some quality in the conversion process, and it takes considerably more time.
This is all amazing, but whats the catch?
Quite simple, not all MKV files will convert to MP4 files that will play on your XBOX or PS3
Because the video and audio portions are not actually being converted using specific XBOX or PS3 compatible settings, you are at the mercy of the creator/creation tool used to create the file. If settings were used during the creation of the MKV file that are incompatible with your playback device, these settings will also find their way in the created MP4 file.
So why use it?
If the same program is used, or the file is created by the same company/person, they usually use the same settings for each file that is created. So, with a little trial and error, you can find out what works best. Of course you can use a conversion tool like DVD Catalyst 3 to fully convert each of your MKV files, but if you have a lot of files from one person/company, and these play fine on your XBOX or PS3 after running them through MKV2MP4, you can save yourself a LOT of time.
Pro:
Very fast. Your harddrive speed is the limiting factor.
No quality loss for video
Can split files into multiple parts to bypass file size limit of device.
Con:
Doesn’t work with every MKV file
Requires about 4x the file size of your MKV file in free space for proper processing of the file.
Have a look at the included guide or read below for the online version
1. Before you start
MKV2MP4 is an application intended to change the format of one video file type to another as quickly as possible. Many (not all) MKV video files already contain video and audio content that is compatible with devices such as the XBOX 360 and the PS3, however, because these devices are not capable of playback of MKV files, a format change is required. While any XBOX360 or PS3 converter can convert these files to the proper format, a recompression of both the video and the audio portion is performed, which in turn reduces the quality AND can be quite time consuming.
MKV2MP4 was created to speed this process up, and to leave the video portion unmodified. It extracts the original video and audio portions from the MKV file, and then it merges these into an MP4 video file. A full conversion from MKV to MP4 can take up to 10-12 hours for a 2 hour movie, but with MKV2MP4, this process can take as little as 20 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer’s harddrive(s).
Important: Because the video portion is left UNMODIFIED, it depends on how the original MKV file was created. Both XVID and AVC video can be transfered into an MP4 file, however, if the settings for the creation of the video portion is done with incompatible settings, the resulting file will also not be completely compatible.
2. What does MKV2MP4 do?
MKV2MP4 performs the following steps to change an MKV video file into an MP4 file.
· First it extracts the video portion from the MKV file to an AVI (for XVID) or H264 (AVC) video-only file. If a different format is detected, it will convert it to a compatible format using the setting you selected. MKV can contain lots of different video formats, however MP4 not so much.
· Then it extracts the audio portion of the MKV file to a separate AAC (for aac audio) or AC3 (for AC3/E-AC3) file. If the audio is in a different format, it will be converted to AAC audio.
· If the original video portion was in H264 format, a small modification will be made to the header of the file to make sure the proper AVC Level ID is set.
· In the last step, both the video and the audio portion will be merged into a single MP4 file, or if enabled (and required for big files basically) the resulting file will be split into a few different parts.
3. What is MKV2MP4 NOT?
MKV2MP4 is not a converter. In the sense of the word, yes, it is, and while it does have conversion capabilities, it is not designed as a conversion tool for MKV files, DVD Catalyst 3 is designed for that, and does a better job of it with more options. MKV2MP4 is only intended to change MKV files to MP4 format, that’s it. It does not offer any configuration options other than the ones offered, and most importantly, it does not support subtitles.
4. System requirements
· DVD Catalyst 3 (with Boosterpack 2) needs to be installed and run at least once. Upon first-run, DVD Catalyst 3 installs a few files in the “Application Data” folder on your computer, which are used by MKV2MP4. Without these files, MKV2MP4 will not function (and not run). The trial version of DVD Catalyst is sufficient though.
· The processor speed does not affect much, however, the audio portion usually needs to be converted, and for that, it helps to have a faster system.
· Plenty of harddrive space. About 4x the size of the MKV file due to the need to extract the video and audio into separate streams, modify them if needed, and creating the resulting MP4 file.
· Fast harddrive (s). The faster the drive is, the faster the format change. Do not use an external drive for both the source location and the temporary/output locations. It works best by using an external drive for storage of your MKV’s and use an internal drive for both temporary and output.
5. Compatibility
Due to the various ways MKV files are created, compatibility is NOT guaranteed. Created MP4 files usually play on XBOX 360 and PS3, however, not all of them. In addition, the XBOX 360 for example, has a maximum file size limit of 4GB, so if you are changing a 9GB MKV file, you will have to enable the “split in parts option”.
6. Step by step
Using MKV2MP4 is quite simple. It has been designed to make things very easy, and to eliminate as much confusion as possible.
Start the program by using its shortcut.
Drag one or more MKV file(s) (or a folder containing them onto the program.
The files are briefly scanned, and the ones added will be shown in a list. For your convenience the playtime of each file is displayed after the filename.
Clicking on any file in the list will show its main properties, such as video and audio tracks, and what format and language they are in.
Now just click on Start to have MKV2MP4 perform the various steps involved for changing the files you added.
Below the progress bar, it shows the log, and what step is currently performed.
7. Log explained
To explain the log, we’ll use part of the log from the session used for the screenshots above.
5/10/2010 1:17:37 PM * Application started.
· First log entry is added when you start the program.
5/10/2010 1:17:46 PM * Checking 1 item
5/10/2010 1:17:48 PM * Found 1 MKV file
5/10/2010 1:17:48 PM * Scanning complete
· We added a file, and it was briefly accessed to provide MKV2MP4 with the details it needs to process the file.
5/10/2010 1:40:44 PM * Extracting video from Sample Video 2.mkv
· The video portion of the MKV file is being extracted to a separate file.
5/10/2010 1:40:49 PM * Changed AVC Level ID
· A small modification is made to the file to make it more compatible with XBOX 360 and PS3 devices. The “Level” is modified.
5/10/2010 1:40:49 PM * Extracting audio from Sample Video 2.mkv
· The audio portion of the MKV file is extracted. If the MKV has multiple audio streams, only the one that you selected is extracted to a separate audio file.
5/10/2010 1:40:51 PM * Deflating audio from Sample Video 2.mkv
· The audio file is deflated to an uncompressed WAV file.
5/10/2010 1:41:56 PM * Converting audio from Sample Video 2.mkv
· The uncompressed WAV file is converted to 160Kbps AAC Stereo audio
5/10/2010 1:43:19 PM * Creating sample video 2.mp4
· The slightly modified video only portion is merged (muxed) with the recompressed audio file into a single MP4 file.
5/10/2010 1:43:28 PM * Finished sample video 2.mp4
· File format change is complete
5/10/2010 1:43:29 PM * Completed *
· All the items you added have been processed.
8. Settings / Options explained
00001 – Sample Video 2.mkv – 0:24:30
File entry in the list. When you add MKV files to the program, it will be displayed here after scanning. If the number in the list (00001) looks like this *00001*, the video format is in an unsupported format (such as WMV) or the screensize of your original file is too large for it to work properly on an XBOX 360 or PS3. The file change will probably still work, (unsupported video formats trigger automatic conversion) however, it is likely the created MP4 file will not play on your device. If you enable the “Skip flagged files” checkmark, these files will be ignored.
1 H264 VIDEO ???
Video stream ID, video format and language. Some MKV’s have multiple video portions, which will be listed in the dropdown. It will also display either the language, or if the language for the video portion is not defined (which is usually the case) it will just display “???” instead of the language code. It is likely you will see the same for most of your MKV files.
Convert to H264 / Convert to XVID
MP4 files can contain H264 (AVC) video or XVID video while maintaining compatibility with the standard, however MKV has a lot more freedom in what it supports. You can include WMV video, FLV video and a lot more, without any compatibility issues with the MKV standard. Because of this, it is often needed to convert the unsupported video stream to one that can be used in an MP4 file. While many of the formats that do not work with MP4 automatically trigger a conversion of the format, if you want to convert a supported stream to a different supported format, enable the checkmark for this setting.
Keep in mind that this will take a lot longer, and will be slower than if you would use an actual conversion tool such as DVD Catalyst 3.
2 AUDIO AAC 1CH …
Similar to the video track dropdown, but for audio. Audio track ID, Audio format, amount of channels and language if specified.
Usually you will want to select the track with the most amount of channels. In the above example, the other 2 tracks are very likely commentary tracks.
Convert to AAC
Similar as the “Convert to” checkmark for video, but then for the audio portion. With this enabled (default) all the audio tracks processed will be converted to 160Kbps AAC Stereo audio. The XBOX360 does not like multi-channel audio in an MP4 video file, so this needs to be converted over. By removing this checkmark, both AC3 audio and AAC audio streams, regardless of the amount of channels will be kept unmodified (no conversion done) however, other formats, such as Ogg audio and DTS, both of which are not supported in MP4 files, will still be converted to the AAC Stereo audio format.
Temp Folder
Click on the location displayed (defaults to your “My Documents” folder) to change the location you want to use for temp files. The process requires quite a bit of file space (about 4x the filesize of your MKV video file) so make sure there is plenty of space available. For performance reasons, its best to select a different harddrive for your temp location than the one you have your original files stored on.
Output folder
Click on the location displayed (defaults to your “My Documents” folder) to change the location you want to use for MP4 files. Because the files are not or only slightly modified, you need to have at least the same amount of space available as your original MKV files. To speed up the process a bit, use a different drive than the one you use for your temporary files. Because the MP4 file is created from the temp files, you can use the same location as your original MKV files.
Skip flagged files
If during scanning of the original MKV file an unsupported video format is found, or if the screen size is larger than 1280×720, the file will be “flagged” in the list (*00001* instead of 00001) By enabling this checkmark, flagged files will be skipped completely. For unsupported video formats, an automatic conversion is triggered, but for MKVs with a higher resolution, you will have to use a conversion tool such as DVD Catalyst 3 to actually convert the files.
Clear temp files
After the change-process is finished for a file, the temporarily created files will automatically be deleted. If you want to keep them for a different purpose, remove the checkmark. The same filenames are used for each item, so if they are not removed and you process another file, they will be overwritten.
Split in X parts
The XBOX 360 cannot play video files larger than 4GB (unless they are WMV). If your MKV files are larger than 4GB, you will have to split them into multiple, smaller parts, so that they can be played by the XBOX360. (or if you use a USB stick that does not have enough room for the whole file) With the split checkmark enabled, the file will be split into portions during the creation of the MP4 file (at the same time, so it doesn’t slow things down). Files will end up being named like “my movie 0001.mp4” “my movie 0002.mp4” and so on.
Copy to Clipboard
This copies the current log to the clipboard memory, so you can use paste in an email or text-file for another use.
Start
This starts the format change process.
9. F.A.Q.
First off, MKV2MP4 is not an actual conversion tool. While it does perform various steps to make an MP4 file from an MKV file, it does not fully convert the file, so its quite possible the created video files DO NOT work on an XBOX 360 or PS3 system. It depends on numerous things, mainly the source of the MKV file and what settings were used by the original creator of the file. If your resulting MP4 file does not work on your player, you can use a conversion tool like DVD Catalyst 3 to actually convert the file to the proper format, however, this is of course a lot more time consuming.
Secondly, MKV2MP4 is an Alpha version, and is provided as a free download. While it works, issues can (and probably will) come up.
Lastly, this tool is intended for people who are familiar with MKV files. If you have no idea what MKV is or what it is used for, this tool is not for you.
Download MKV2MP4 using the following link:
www.tools4movies.com/mkv2mp4.zip
Please note that it requires DVD Catalyst 3 with Boosterpack 2 to be installed and run at least once.
You can download the latest DVD Catalyst 3 Trial version (including Boosterpack 2) by using the following link:
www.tools4movies.com/dc38tr.zip
If you are using an older version of DVD Catalyst 3 that does not include the Boosterpack, you can download the Boosterpack by using the following link:
To update DVD Catalyst 3 to the latest version, just click on the cat-eyes in the program.
Please read the included guide first before you start asking questions.
