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MKV on Mac

davetennisx

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Hi everyone!

I was wondering what's the best way to handle mkv's on a Mac these days? I feel like most programs either don't support and the ones that do are very buggy with it.

Thanks!
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Hello and welcome to the forum.

Answering your question would be easier if you are more specific about what you want to do with your mkv files.
 

davetennisx

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I used to make tennis highlight reels back in the day, so I'm just looking trim the videos, basically.
 

Ryantology

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I downloaded any video converter from the Mac Apple store. It was only 4.99 and I found it to be well worth that. I’m able to convert to damn near any format I want. I upload my files into Final Cut Pro with that.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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davetennisx said:
I used to make tennis highlight reels back in the day, so I'm just looking trim the videos, basically.

Don't Macs come with iMovie? That should be able to make the basic trims you are looking to make.
 

slekyr

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DigModiFicaTion said:
davetennisx said:
I used to make tennis highlight reels back in the day, so I'm just looking trim the videos, basically.

Don't Macs come with iMovie? That should be able to make the basic trims you are looking to make.

Neither iMovie or Final Cut will accept the MKV container.  I'd recommend converting the MKV to a MP4 using handbrake which is free and open source.  Once he has an MP4 he could easily use iMovie to make basic cuts and trims.
 

theryaney

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Handbrake is usually the go-to program for me. 

Subler is a great option that's much faster but I'm not sure if it can handle MKVs.
 

addiesin

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Handbrake is good. 
Advice for beginners though: make sure you never let it convert a video with the default frame rate option. The default is variable frame rate. Remember to change that drop down to Constant/Same as source. 

Variable bit rate is fine, and different. Feel free to experiment with bit rates and "quality". Keep your frame rate constant!

That is all.
 

davetennisx

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Thanks everyone!

I experimented way back with Handbrake and sometimes it would convert it perfectly fine and other times it wouldn't (after waiting several hours). Probably due to the frame rate option you just mentioned.
 

Flubly

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If the video stream inside the mkv container is H.264, you can use MkvToMp4 0.224 for a re-packing to mp4. No transcoding. I know some programs won't import MKV even though they support the video stream inside, not sure if that's the particular case here with iMovie.
 

theryaney

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Flubly said:
If the video stream inside the mkv container is H.264, you can use MkvToMp4 0.224 for a re-packing to mp4. No transcoding. I know some programs won't import MKV even though they support the video stream inside, not sure if that's the particular case here with iMovie.

This is also how Subler works, and it means that it'll be much faster than handbrake.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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Flubly said:
If the video stream inside the mkv container is H.264, you can use MkvToMp4 0.224 for a re-packing to mp4. No transcoding. I know some programs won't import MKV even though they support the video stream inside, not sure if that's the particular case here with iMovie.

I can't speak to the actual software listed, but this workflow is what you should be doing. MKV and MP4 are containers that usually carry the same elementary video and audio streams. Converting via handbrake is pointless and will result in a drop in quality. Find software (hopefully the linked software above works well) that will demux and remux the streams from an MKV container to an MP4 container.

That said, the reasoning for the initial post is rather shady. Please note that we do NOT condone piracy on these forums, and if we find that you are working with pirated material, you will be banned. Links to the rules are at the top of this page. I suggest you read them.
 

Flubly

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theryaney said:
Flubly said:
If the video stream inside the mkv container is H.264, you can use MkvToMp4 0.224 for a re-packing to mp4. No transcoding. I know some programs won't import MKV even though they support the video stream inside, not sure if that's the particular case here with iMovie.

This is also how Subler works, and it means that it'll be much faster than handbrake.

Hurr durr, somehow I missed that the program I linked to was Windows only. Thanks for the OSX alternative.
 
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