Merging MPEG2 stream with its AC3 audio... or converting MKV to MPEG2

[cwt]

I have been using MPEG_Streamclip for some time to convert DVDs to MPEG2 files (.mpg) which play well on VLC media player, my WDTV player and, recently discovered, my Sony TV which supports DLNA.

But - I have a number of files which are MKV format. Now my understanding is that MKV is just a "container" which holds a number of streams and mediainfo shows that the enclosed streams are MPEG2 for video and AC3 for audio.

So, using mkvextract I've been able to get separate MPEG2 and AC3 files which play fine as separate video/audio files.

How do I now "merge" these so that I have a single MPEG2 file with merged video and audio - like MPEG_Streamclip produces?

Or alternatively how can I take the original MKV file and convert it?

What I don't want to do is recode the content as:
a) I'm happy with the original MPEG2/AC3 content - I just want it in a different container
b) recoding takes a long time
c) I'm happy with the current quality file size and don't see the need to change it

All the research I've done so far seems to end up pointing me at a tool which re-encodes - which I don't believe is necessary for what I'm trying to do.

I'm probably missing something really simple!

Thanks,

Chris

[poisondeathray]

you want a mpeg2 multiplexer that puts it into a mpeg2 program stream (MPEG2-PS)

eg. imagompeg-muxer, muxman

[cwt]

Brilliant - imagompeg-muxer worked a treat.

I'll try muxman as well but imagompeg-muxer does exactly what I was looking for.

Many thanks.

Chris