x264 but its .MKV?

Neoprod said:
xvid.avi was terrible by comparison to x264.mp4...this change seems more about convenience when releasing than anything else.

Not against it...I prefer mkv because it's more flexible. If I didn't have a Roku and HTPC though, I would have a gripe as my previous 2012 Samsung TV didn't manage mkv directly...my 2014 Samsung doesn't mind mkv's.
Click to expand...

Like I said if not for this thread I probably wouldn't have noticed for months if ever. It's definitely to have everything be uniform from 4K movies to SDTV everything will now be .mkv.

I can't think who the people are that complain, most PCs should be able to play the files and even the cheapest of the cheap media players can do .mkv, I understand how OCD would kick in having 20 episodes be .mp4 and the last 4 be .mkv, but it will take you less time to convert your entire season to either of the containers than it will take to watch one episode.
 
daveza said:
Please go on...
Click to expand...

Install ShanaEncoder and under setting choose - Copy - Stream Copy to MP4 or MKV depending on which you want to change to the other.

Side note before you do this you might want to go into parameters and remove "Prefix filename".

Edit: Just to make sure I wasn't lying about the time I just remuxed a 580MB mp4 to mkv at an average of 6300FPS and it took maybe 8 seconds.
 
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That's just not fair.

I took a 3.3Gb file that Handbrake took about 3 hours to convert from MKV - this converted it to mp4 in a few minutes.

I did notice that it doesn't reduce the size though whereas Handbrake delivered a file about 50% of the original.

Unbelievable - thanks.
 
daveza said:
That's just not fair.

I took a 3.3Gb file that Handbrake took about 3 hours to convert from MKV - this converted it to mp4 in a few minutes.

I did notice that it doesn't reduce the size though whereas Handbrake delivered a file about 50% of the original.

Unbelievable - thanks.
Click to expand...

This just remuxes the video and audio stream from mkv to mp4, Handbrake would re-encode the whole thing, so depending on your hardware it will take really long compared to just remuxing it and the settings used can reduce the file size but often at a loss in quality.
 
daveza said:
That's just not fair.

I took a 3.3Gb file that Handbrake took about 3 hours to convert from MKV - this converted it to mp4 in a few minutes.

I did notice that it doesn't reduce the size though whereas Handbrake delivered a file about 50% of the original.

Unbelievable - thanks.
Click to expand...

I don't think Handbrake has an option to not re-encode the source file...in this case all you're looking for is a container-swap which is a bit like changing the header in an email. Handbrake was clearly not built with such peasantry in mind :)

I use ffmpeg for this on occasion...Soul Assassin's linked to a UI which is even better (though I kinda liked writing command line instructions to do all the files in a directory while I went to get tea :)).

ffmpeg -i c:\stuff$\Castle.2009.S08E19.720p.HDTV.x264-KILLERS.mkv -c:v copy -c:a copy c:\stuff$\Castle.2009.S08E19.720p.HDTV.x264-KILLERS.mp4

takes about 25s on my work laptop.
 
Tried The Bourne legacy - 2.7gb mkv

Made an mp4 in a few minutes at pretty close to 2.7gb

This is going to be very useful for watching an mkv almost immediately and I'll let Handbrake convert to a smaller size mp4 if I want to keep it for rewatching later.

Just need to see how it handles subtitles because Handbrake sometimes removes them during an mkv convert.
 
daveza said:
Tried The Bourne legacy - 2.7gb mkv

Made an mp4 in a few minutes at pretty close to 2.7gb

This is going to be very useful for watching an mkv almost immediately and I'll let Handbrake convert to a smaller size mp4 if I want to keep it for rewatching later.

Just need to see how it handles subtitles because Handbrake sometimes removes them during an mkv convert.
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It will be exactly the same thing, the mp4 container can't have embedded subtitles. You will need to take a subtitle file and burn it onto the video.

P.S. am I right in assuming previously when you had a mkv you wanted to watch on your ATV it would take you hours to convert to mp4?
 
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Soul Assassin said:
It will be exactly the same thing, the mp4 container can't have embedded subtitles. You will need to take a subtitle file and burn it onto the video.

P.S. am I right in assuming previously when you had a mkv you wanted to watch on your ATV it would take you hours to convert to mp4?
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Many, many hours to convert a large mkv.

So if I get an mkv with embedded subs and I 'convert' to mp4 with Shana what will happen ?
 
daveza said:
Many, many hours to convert a large mkv.

So if I get an mkv with embedded subs and I 'convert' to mp4 with Shana what will happen ?
Click to expand...

You could have saved so many hours.

If the subtitles are already hardcoded in the mkv like foreign parts it will just stay there because it's part of the video stream, if the subtitles can be turned off you can either extract them or download subtitles and then burn them into the mp4 file.
 
daveza said:
Would this also do a quick mp4 from avi or just from mkv ?
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Convert the avi files to mp4 seeing as avi will be encoded using Xvid, you will have to convert it to x264, if you have a Intel CPU released in the last couple of years you will more than likely have Intel Quick Sync which will convert to x264 extremely fast with almost zero CPU usage.
 
I use VLC player on my PC and Plex for TV. Matroska format is open sourced and not restricted by licensing. Unfortunately, it has become the standard for the "guys" we depend on. The sub title included in the multi- media container is very helpful when you want to snoop on new releases.
 
Soul Assassin said:
Convert the avi files to mp4 seeing as avi will be encoded using Xvid, you will have to convert it to x264, if you have a Intel CPU released in the last couple of years you will more than likely have Intel Quick Sync which will convert to x264 extremely fast with almost zero CPU usage.
Click to expand...

Finally I can 'convert' all my old avis to mp4 without weeks of Handbrake.

Thank you.
 
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