MKV (H.264) to AVI

[haggen]

Hi, i just downloaded a MKV, it says its compressed with h.264

What i need to do is extract the VIDEO from this MKV. I tried "MKVextractGUI" but doesnt seem to work propertly, i can extract audio with no problem at all, but not the video.

Is there a way to do this? i have tried everything i know (virtualdubbmod, MKVextractGUI i dont know any other way to do this.)

Any help will be well received.

[Baldrick]

i would try mencoder
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=268844

[garrisonkw]

If memory serves, MKVextractGUI will work, but you need to make sure the h.264 streams come out as .264 files and not .avi files. The .264 file is an h.264 elementary stream of some sort. I'm not really an expert on the matter, but I know I've used MKVextractGUI to pull h.264 streams out. I think the .264 files played fine in Media Player Classic.

Hope this helps!

[haggen]

If memory serves, MKVextractGUI will work, but you need to make sure the h.264 streams come out as .264 files and not .avi files. The .264 file is an h.264 elementary stream of some sort. I'm not really an expert on the matter, but I know I've used MKVextractGUI to pull h.264 streams out. I think the .264 files played fine in Media Player Classic.

Hope this helps!

I tried this and MKVextractGUI wont let me change the extention of the output file to .264

Any ideas? please

[haggen]

i would try mencoder
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=268844

I think Mencoder can do the trick, but its nor working for me i did everything on the guide (c'mon, its pretty easy). I think the main problem here is that the video format is an AVC Video H264 (V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC)

ANy other ideas please?

Or maybe, how can i convert that MKV h264 to xvid?

[jliles]

Hi haggen,

I just went through hell trying to convert an anime fansub encoded with h.264 and ogg audio plunked in an mkv container into something playable on a standalone player (a standard avi). What an abomination...I do feel your pain, so I hope I can help. Here's what I ended up doing - maybe someone else can come up with a better solution.

First, I used MKVWizard, available Here to demux the video and audio files from the MKV container. When you do this, you will have two files, a video file with an .H264 extension and an audio file (in my case, it happened to be an ogg file).

Then, you can use the avc2avi tool located Here to place the .H264 file into an avi container.

If you need to, you can use the audio converting tool of your choice to convert the audio file to another format. I used BesweetGUI to convert the ogg file to an mp3.

Now the avi file can be opened up in VirtialDubMod. Open the avi file, then go to the streams > stream list menu choice. Add your audio file to the stream. Under "Video", set "Full Processing Mode" on. You can now save the video as a DivX, XVid, etc. and end up with a standard avi.

Yes, it is a colossal PITA. I hope someone can tell me a better way to do this. Hopefully this will give you some ideas about what you can do.

Julie

[video2005]

Hi haggen,
you can try our convert tools,maybe work.

[haggen]

jliles thanks for the tip! i was able to extract the .h264 file from MKV (thats a start!) hehehe.

Now i have the .h264 file, and i need the avc2avi tool to place it on an avi container. I followed your link and downloaded the small file "avc2avi_rev267_mmx.7z" that is "AVC2AVI. Revision 267" but... a .7z file?? what do i do with it? i cant open it or anything.

Whats next?

Thanks man, i really appreciate your help.. its been 2 days of hard work and getting no results until now.

[haggen]

Ohh ok.. those are compress files... i opened already.. i have this avc2avi.exe but it seems i need a commandline or something like that right?

[celtic_druid]

Yes. avc2avi is a commandline app. Really though if you are re-encoding then it would be better to just re-encode from the mkv. There is a reason why mkv stores AVC streams natively. avi/VfW simply wasn't designed to handle advanced stuff like AVC.

[haggen]

The problem here is that i was not able to touch that video file from the mkv. Until now i could extract the .h264 file and now i dont what should i do with it... Is there a tutorial or a command line for avc2avi i can use as an example?

[jliles]

Hi, celticdruid...

I would have loved to have just directly converted the mkv, but literally nothing I had could open or convert the file. Virtualdubmod choked on the mkv itself and would not open the h264 stream either directly - it would only open it if it was slapped into an avi container.

I tried SUPER, using both ffmpegx and mencoder - both failed to convert the file.

Is there another program I can use to directly convert the file?

Haggen...

Yes, avc2avi is a commandline tool. 7z is a just a file compression format, similar to a zip file. To uncompress the file you need a utility that can "unzip" that particular format. Not sure if WinZip can handle it. I use a program called ZipGenius that works great for this (it also happens to be free). I believe PowerArchiver can open them as well, and I'm sure there are other programs that can do this too. Try going to download.com and look at the compression utilities there, and you should be able to find something that will work.

Once you've unzipped it, you can open a command prompt and navigate to the directory where you extracted avc2avi. Just typing avc2avi.exe will get you a message that will tell you the command format. I don't recall the exact syntax at the moment, but as I recall it was pretty straightforward.

Julie

[haggen]

Yeah i did that too, but all i get when i exec the avc2avi.exe is this:

avi file written
- codec: h264
- size: 0x0
- fps: 25.000
- Frames: 0

I dont really get any commands or anything else.

P.S The avc2avi is in the same directory as my .h264 file

Thanks for the help Julie.

[paulw]

I have tried to sort out an MKV type movie a month or two ago and all that i suceeded in doing was screwing my Xvid codec. Why to people post stuff in this format?? Whats wrong with Xvid or Dvix??

[celtic_druid]

mkv is a container, XviD is a codec. You can store XviD in an mkv container. So just because something is mkv, doesn't mean that it isn't XviD or DivX. DivX is also a container though, based on avi.

What is wrong with coming up with a container that is better than avi rather than just hacking it up more? mkv offers numerous advantages over avi. It supports native MPEG-4/AVC, offers lower over head, better error resiliance, supports more subtitle formats and just more formats in general. Better taging, embeding fonts, cover art, etc. Specs also support menus.

Why do people insist on complaining about stuff that they get for free?

[haggen]

Im not againts new formats and containers... but they just are "not playable" or not "standard" yet... Unfotunately divx and xvid have been around for some time and we all know how to work with them.

This new compression might be better, but it still hard to work with.

Long live to smaller file better quality but........?

Any ideas to my issue?

[jliles]

haggen...

Sorry, I forgot what I had to do to get the options for this tool - look at the source!

https://trac.videolan.org/x264/file/trunk/tools/avc2avi.c?rev=267

Anyway, just type avc2avi -h at the command prompt and it will display the options available.

Julie

[haggen]

I got it!!!!!!!! Yes!

The command line its pretty easy. So here's a little tutorial for those who had the same problem.

Extract Video from a MKV (AVC - h264)

1. To extract the .h264 file from your MKV use MKVWizard, available here. You might have to wrtie the extention .h264 to the output file.

2. Once you have the .h264 file, now its time to convert it to an avi. Then, you can use the avc2avi tool located here to place the .H264 file into an avi container. You will download a .7z file, you can use a program called ZipGenius that works great for this (it also happens to be free).

3. Once you've unzipped it, you can open a command prompt and navigate to the directory where you extracted avc2avi. To see all commands available type: avc2avi -h

An example of a commandline would be:

C:\video>avc2avi -f 23 codec fourcc -i videoinput.h264 -o videooutput.avi

That means:

-f = Fps
-i = Input file name
-o = Out put file name

Im not so sure how to leave the original fps but if you dont apply the -f command, the default fps on your avi will be 25. If anyone knows how to leave fps intact, that would be great!

Thanks to Julie for the assistance

Thats it!

[celtic_druid]

The app would need to be modified to read the original fps from the input file's header, assuming that is that it contains such info. Also keep in mind that the frame rate may not be constant.

[NormaJ]

Hello!!! Thanks for the great job. I was pulling my hear out with a matroska file from wich I could not extract the video stream. I have worked on it for days. And I got it to work just doing what I have read on this post and installing the newest version of mkvtoolnix. I feel quite happy

[celtic_druid]

mencoder should be able to convert to an XviD/mp3 avi directly. Just mencoder.exe -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame. Should also be possible to frameserve the mkv using AVISynth and directshowsource().

[ChristianHJW]

So, once you have h.264 in AVI, what does that help you ? will your crappy standalone players play those files ?

Christian
matroska project admin
http://www.matroska.org

[NormaJ]

I ran avc2avi as said up there, and got my avi.
I converted the 2 AAC audio tracks to AC3.
I worked on the 2 subs track to make both srt files.
And then, I authored a DVD, to play back in my crappy standalone player.
What's the deal?

[celtic_druid]

Well the point is that you converted to an avi that can't be played by you crappy standalone any easier than the mkv that you started with. So why bother with the avi?

[NormaJ]

As far as my Tmpgenc wont open a .264 file to encode it to dvd, I just need a crappy avi to do that.

[celtic_druid]

It should assuming you can play it via dshow. It should also be able to open the mkv directly. TMPGEnc's dshow input is somewhat buggy though. Could also frameserve via AVISynth using directshowsource().

[NormaJ]

I'd love to get my Tmpgenc to open .264 files. I've got one that I can play with Windows Media Player, but still doesn't open with Tmpgenc.
How do you think I should fix this?
I'd really appreciate your answer, because it would avoid lots of converting jobs.
Thanks in advance.

[Baldrick]

try avisynth, https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=284288 , as celtic says.

[NormaJ]

Thank your very much Baldrick. As soon as I saw your post, I gave it a try. But can't get it to work. Here's what I get:

DirectShowSource: could not open as video or audio
Video returned: DirectShowSource unable to determine the duration of the video
Audio returned: DirectShowSource: the filter graph manager won't talk to me
(P:\DVD\video.avs, line 1)

I do want to get through this, I want to learn about avisynth and command line tools, ugh!!

Well, I still can play my .264 with Windows Media, but can not play the avs file. I may be missing some codec configuration or so...

Will you please keep on guiding me through this?
Thans again

[jliles]

CelticDruid and ChristianHJW:

I'm the person who helped haggen originally get over his issue with not being able to convert his h.264 MKV file, and just happened to run into this thread again.

I have nothing against the MKV container or H.264 video at all. But the fact remains that the container is just not as widely supported as the avi container is. I am lucky enough to have a nice tv (well, it's nice to me, anyway), and I don't like watching video on my computer screen. It took a huge amount of frustration and effort just to *play* the mkv file I described in my earlier post on my computer (and my system was in fact able to play mkv files prior to getting this file), never mind converting it.

Literally the only way I could get *any* conversion program to recognize the file at all was to put it in a "crappy" avi container.

Guys, I'm a grownup. I work for hours in front of a computer every day. When I come home and want to watch a video, I don't want to sit in front of a computer to do it. So yes, that often means using my "crappy" standalone player. (I should mention that my "crappy" player plays aac audio and nero .mp4 files, so it's not purely a divx player). I'm not the only person who feels this way. If my player supported .MKV, I'd be a happy puppy. But even XBMC has trouble with some MKV files, including the one that inspired my reply.

Nobody here is saying that MKV sucks or has no technical advantages over avi. It absolutely does. What can drive me bananas is the "my way or the highway" attitude that some MKV devotees seem to have. I've run into people who have the attitude that if people have problems playing or converting your file, well that's their fault because they wanted to convert the file from this "perfect" container. There is no need to be so sensitive because people (heaven forbid) just want to watch video on a television. Liking and supporting MKV shouldn't necessarily mean you have to wage a holy war on the avi format.

Enough ranting. Let's all get along.

Julie