MKV, the Virtual Russian Doll
For the uninitiated, MKV is a multimedia container format that stores all of a movie's information in one file. The full name of the format is the Matroska Multimedia Container, named after that set of Russian dolls "of decreasing size placed one inside the other."
As one MKV can contain all the data you need to watch a movie, the video, audio, image, and subtitle tracks, MKV creation and editing tools are very popular nowadays. They let people grab videos from discs or do the reverse (burn these movies onto optical media).
With that in mind, let's go through the 10 tools that will let you work with MKVs.
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But i concede that is so opaque that is easy to miss how to do it.
Extremely love virtualdub, using it when doing VHS lossless cleanup/upscaling. Wish somebody to give it nice multi threading support.
AnyDVD HD will let you copy and use the files on your computer. You can use mkvmerge to convert the movie files to MKV :-) For chapters stuff, you need to do some research..
Nope. Maybe for DVD and Blu-Ray RIPS, but not on the discs themselves..
DVDs use VOB (based on the MPEG-2 Program Stream) and Blu-Rays use BDAV (.m2ts, based on the MPEG-2 Transport Stream)
Creating and editing a container is simple: MKV Merge (mmg.exe)
I am guessing this article is 10% finished. But include: 1) difference between container and codec 2) true objective of this article 3) target audience i.e. born today vs. 10-20 years working with videos files. codecs, and mkvs [all different yet related] 4) all programs can easier be free, no need for paid progs 5) CCCP is unnecessary for this purpose. Thus it's inclusion is ... maybe ... political and offensive...
Thanks!
However, what people should be doing is, extracting the contents of the MKV container, and using all those tried and true tested editors that everyone already knows how to use, do the edits, then create a new MKV.
Here is a better list of tools
1. mkvextractgui-2 (extract those video clips to .h264 .mpg .avi, audio to .aac, .mp3 .ac3)
2. FFMSIndex, DGIndex, DGAVCIndex (Frame Accurate decoders for avisynth)
3. avisynth (frame serve those video clips, crop, resize, cut, splice, filter, countless plugins)
4. Lagarith codec (lossless video compression for working files)
5. Virtualdub (Create working files for Editors, or use it to do all your edits not done in avisynth)
6. AviDemux (like Virtualdub, with perty buttons, Comes with extra tools non video related)
7. Adobe Premiere,Sony Vagas,Pinnacle Studio,Lightworks,VideoLAN Movie Creator (Editors)
8. Subtitle Editor, Aegisub, BDSup2Sub (Subtitles)
9. Handbreak, MeGUI, AVStoDVD (use Editors videos, creates your MKV, MP4, DVD, BD)
Handbreak, MeGUI can do some basic edits, like combine, cuts, and the sort, but this article was trying to talk about tools to do effects, transitions, annotations that Editors will do. If you need basic stuff, then there are plenty of FREE tools that will get the job done that I might not have listed
MKV vs MP4, MP4 supports 1 video, many audio, text based subtitles, simple chapters, MKV supports many video, many audio, fancy and text based subs, fonts for those fancy subs, warp point chapters(load external file play it, then continue playing current clip, useful for episodic shows with same opening sequence) and anything else you can throw at it.
~Majorlag