Opening/converting mkv

AnimeDudde · Post by **AnimeDudde** » Sun Aug 02, 2009 5:18 am

Hey, so I know Ulead doesn't support mkv files, but can someone just explain to me how how I can possibly convert or something an mkv file without quality loss onto ulead video studio? I have video studio 11.

Post by **Ron P.** » Sun Aug 02, 2009 9:26 am

MKV (Matroska) files are open source container format that holds compressed audio, video streams along with a encoder. What you need to do is convert it using a special purpose conversion utility like Super © by Erightsoft. It's a free conversion program, that will convert just about any file type to any other...

AnimeDudde · Post by **AnimeDudde** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 1:07 am

Hey thanks, can you recommend something to convert it to? I converted it to an uncompressed avi but it seemed I didn't have the right codec or something so it wouldnt show the video on WMP or Ulead. I want it to just remove the mkv container and get the original filetype so ulead can read it, if possible.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 3:11 am

Try converting to either DV or MPEG2.

AnimeDudde · Post by **AnimeDudde** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 5:44 am

When I use an uncompressed method I get outrageous file sizes.

I don't wanna compress it because I'm going to have to compress it again with Ulead after I'm done video editing and it'll result in even more quality loss. Isn't there a way I can get Ulead to open the mkv? I mean even a simple program like Windows Movie Maker can do that.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:34 am

If VideoStudio is unable to open mkv files (Here I will take your findings on that issue - there are simply hundreds of different video formats) then you will have no choice but to convert the file first.

As you have discovered uncompressed "avi" is huge - 65 GB per hour.
This gives you two choices. The easiest format to work with is DV (Digital Video) which uses 13GB per hour. You would have to convert that again when rendering your editing decisions to a DVD compliant MPEG2 format.

You can cut down the amount of re-rendering but converting directly to DVD compliant MPEG2 format but the drawback is that MPEG2 is more of a distribution format than an editing format. You can edit MPEG2 but you need to beware of inducing out of synch audio issues.

For further details please view:
Suggested work flow by SJJ1805 for Video Creation

AnimeDudde · Post by **AnimeDudde** » Tue Aug 04, 2009 5:47 am

Thanks for the info, that link was especially helpful! However I think I may have found a way to play the file directly into Ulead. Basically I extracted the video stream from the .mkv and got a .avi with a avc1 codec. I googled it and tried many diffrent methods but I still cannot get the video to play. I used GSpot to find out that the avi was using the avc1 codec.

Do you know anything about the avc1 codec and how I can get it to work? Would it be possible to send you to the video file so you can try out which codecs work or something. I know it's a hassle but I'd really appreciate it if you could do that.