Daniel Hruska Neither iOS nor OS X supports playback of multimedia content in the open source MKV container, which is used where the ancient AVI is not enough - for HD videos.
While many of us would like MKV support, Apple has good reasons for not supporting it. This is not a standardized container. Although it may seem strange to some, the MP4 container is an ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003 standard based on the historical QuickTime File Format (QTFF). It therefore has certain rules establishing what can and cannot be inside such a container. We are specifically interested in video encoded in H.264, which includes almost all MKV files with HD content.
H.264 video is supported by both OS X and iOS. You can play an HD video in MKV on your Mac without any problems, because today's processors have enough power to "crunch" it even without hardware acceleration. However, the situation is different for iOS devices. Although the processors in them are also increasingly powerful, it does no harm to lighten them at all, mainly due to the limited capacity of the batteries. It is enough to save an MKV file with 720p video in a third-party multimedia player. Try the result on your device. It's definitely not a pleasant experience, not to mention the poor subtitle support.
So how to enable hardware acceleration? Repack H.264 video from MKV to MP4. Download the app avidemux2, which is available for OS X, Windows, and Linux.
Important: If you're using OS X Lion, go to avidemux.app in the Finder and right-click View package contents. From the directory Contents/Resources/lib delete the files libxml2.2.dylib a libiconv.2.dylib.
- Open the MKV file in avidemux. It will process for a few seconds, then two alerts will pop up. Unclick according to the red highlight in the image.
- In Item Video leave it Copy. We want to keep H.264, so there is nothing to do with it.
- On the contrary, in the item Audio select an option AAC.
- Under the button Configure you set the bitrate of the audio track. By default, this value is 128 kbps, but if there is a higher quality audio track in the MKV, you can increase the bitrate. It would be a shame to deprive yourself of pure sound.
- With a button Filters you set additional sound attributes. Here is the most important item Mixer. Sometimes it can happen that the sound does not play when repacking to MP4. It will be necessary to "play" with the channel settings. In most cases, everything works correctly without any change (No change). If you do not suffer from surround sound, or if you are using 2.0 or 2.1 hardware, select the option stereo.
- In the item Format choose MP4 and save the video. Don't forget to add an extension to the end of the file name .mp4. The whole process takes 2-5 minutes depending on the specific file.
Once the MP4 file is saved, you can test whether everything is working correctly. If so, a 4p video can be played without any problems with an A720 processor, and 5p (Full HD) with an A1080 processor.
And since most movies and series are in English, we add subtitles directly to the MP4 file. Apple buyers download the app Subler, Windows users for example application My MP4Box GUI.
Before we start adding subtitles to MP4, it is necessary to change their encoding just to be sure. Open the subtitles in TextEdit.app in SRT format, from the menu File select an option Duplicate. Then save the new version of the file. A window will pop up with the file location. Save it anywhere under any name, just add an extension to the end of the file .srt. In the same pane, uncheck the option If the extension is missing, use “.txt”. Choose UTF-8 as the plain text encoding, thus avoiding the problem of Czech characters not being recognized.
After this simple editing of the subtitles, open the MP4 file in the Subler application. After pressing the button "+" or drag and drop the SRT file into the application window to add subtitles. At the end, for the sake of order, choose the language of the audio track and subtitles and save. Of course, if you want, insert multiple subtitles in multiple languages. That's all. As complicated as this procedure may seem to you, after a few episodes of your favorite series, it becomes a very simple and effective routine.
great, thanks for the tutorial/article…I find it very helpful
I do not know. I use Format Factory to convert MKV to MP4 incl. subtitles and it's completely automatic and painless. You just need to set a font in the program settings that correctly reads ANSI 1250 (e.g. calibri). FF will then add the subtitles directly to the MP4 (both files must have the same name). It is more time-consuming, but completely painless.
It depends on preferences. Converting several hundred GB serials hard via FF, Handbrake or another application could literally fry my Mac mini. This is how I make about ten parts in an hour. I admit that this procedure is more laborious, but it is also faster and many times less demanding on PC performance.
how about iVI? http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/ivi/id402279089?mt=12
Hello, my opinion is this.
1. Ipad 2 with A5 processor will play mkv (720p) fluently with support for subtitles.
2. Push a video in mkv (720p) to the iPhone? WHY ???…
yes, that's the best ever. I use BUZZ Player HD (it sometimes goes crazy when MKV contains a lot of non-standard things) or as a second option, albeit poorer but more stable, I have OPlayer HD. :) both run sqele in iPad2.
2. I have all the series in 720p, so it is convenient for me to convert them all to MP4 and always have them ready. I see no reason to convert them to a lower resolution once. That's my opinion ;-)
it doesn't work, the ipad shows the video but won't play it, it seems to be paused. when i play it stops immediately. you can search in it, but you can't play it. avidemux shows 4cc avc1, is that correct?
it would be cool to have 720p videos easily on the ipad, the conversion takes a long time, I'd rather watch divxy on the buzz.
Are you sure you put "No" and "Yes" as in the first screenshot from the article? This is exactly what happened to me when I didn't know what to click.
What container and with what do you open in avidemux?
ok now it works, I had to select in Mixer: Stereo. with another video it worked right away, it turned out that the problem .mkv had 6-channel sound and somehow it didn't work.
thanks for the help, now I have to make a script so that it doesn't have to be clicked out and it's done :)
Air video..
Nonsense. When I'm within reach of a PC, I'll watch a movie on the PC. Logically, that. But when I'm out, airvideo comes in handy. It surprises me how many of you have trouble thinking logically.
don't you confuse it with airplay? airvideo is a software in which you can play on your iPad a video that you have on your PC via the Internet, keep it anywhere... but the quality is no longer the same as when you edit .mkv to .mp4 according to this instruction
It supports 1080, so the quality is sufficient. The conversion there also works in the background (file queue), ... not only as a stream.
Airvideo and Airplay are the same thing. Why do you think "AIR" is in the name?
Exactly, iOS AIrVideo as choros stated. Simplicity. Over-the-air conversion where the video is converted during playback on the Mac or converted and saved there with one click. Additionally, it supports AirPlay to Apple TV.
Could you compare how long it takes to convert the same mkv with AirVideo subtitles (to PC), avidemux, format factory, ivi (southpole software), handbrake..
According to this instruction, avidemux does not convert, it only "repackages" the video into .mp4, but it does not change the codec or content, it just copies the video... other software sometimes do the conversion, which will take a long time depending on your hardware. with avidemux you can do it in a few minutes without losing quality
Can normal AVI files or just MKV be similarly "repackaged", NOT converted, in Avidemux?
After updating to iOS 5, the subtitles are not showing anywhere. Does anyone have any idea why? :(
I noticed a new "Music" item on the Apple TV and it has iTunes Match..has anyone tried it?
I like the program very much, but whenever I want to add a file to the queue, the program crashes. I'm on 2.5.6, tried 2.5.4 and still. 32 bit version. Don't you know what to do with it?
I don't know if something is different in the new version, but I can't play the resulting file on the PC. Black screen and video stops. Too bad, I was so looking forward to it. Any advice?