Converting mkv to mkv

[carlmart]

What are the best HD converters to go from an mkv file to another mkv files, changing some of the parameters?

Until now I have been using Xilisoft, which some people here do not like, but on those past times the other options that were suggested did not work for what I needed to do.

This time I want to convert a 1080p file to another one smaller in size. I'm trying to preserve the 1080p, but I might have to go to 720p.

What is happening now already happened in the past, namely in similar situations. On those cases I looked for another file and used it. This time I can't find another available file.

What happens is that I do all the conversion with Xilisoft, re-author the mkv file, which seems to play fine.

Then I burn the DVD DL in IMGBurn, which writes the file. But when it goes into checking mode it finds errors. Such happened in in the past doing a similar procedure, with files converted with Xilisoft, and I burnt away two or three discs and never got it to work. As I did find this Xilisoft sourced files to be a common factor for these coasters, a lot more than with other files, I'm willing to look for another program that might allow similar things.

For now, the only other one I tried is AVSVideoconverter, but I can't seem to get the "right" file size, even in 720p.

[jman98]

Then I burn the DVD DL in IMGBurn, which writes the file. But when it goes into checking mode it finds errors. Such happened in in the past doing a similar procedure, with files converted with Xilisoft, and I burnt away two or three discs and never got it to work.

This is not the fault of Xilisoft. This is the fault of burning to bad quality media. Either buy good quality media (Taiyo Yuden or anything by Verbatim except their Life series) or burn at much slower speeds (2x or 4x) to deal with the error issue.

[carlmart]

I wouldn't be assuming that to be a Xilisoft problem, if the error didn't happen exactly at the same place. This time I didn't check that yet, because I would have to burn another disc and see what happens.

I AM using Verbatim DL media, so now there seems to be one less factor to blame. And I always burn at the slowest speed available on the DVd burner, that's how IMGBurn is set for. Then it adjusts to what is allowed.

[rronald_25]

I have the same question.
Id like to convert mkv to mkv
The source is Mkv 4.5gb 720p, id like to make it into 700-1gbish file and still maintain the 720p.
so far my program is roxio 2012 and free studio manager.

[Baldrick]

Try Vidcoder. Open your mkv. Click settings. Change the container to mkv. Under the video tab set the target size to 700MB or try a constant quality around 30 for example(higher value = smaller size = lower quality). You can also adjust the x264 presets, change to ultra fast for fastest encoding but the quality may not be perfect.

[rronald_25]

Try Vidcoder. Open your mkv. Click settings. Change the container to mkv. Under the video tab set the target size to 700MB or try a constant quality around 30 for example(higher value = smaller size = lower quality). You can also adjust the x264 presets, change to ultra fast for fastest encoding but the quality may not be perfect.

Ah perfect if it can limit the size.
But was wondering, what happens if I just change the size only, and leave the other values change automatically, will the video still be 720p?

[Baldrick]

Yep, you can just change the size. Under the audio tab change the codec to auto passthrough and it wont be reconverted....or compress it to aac to make it smaller also.

[rronald_25]

This is the data I got from mediainfo
Any suggestion of what I can change to make it smaller file size?

Complete name : C:\Users\Pavilion\Videos\Waterboys.2001.720p\Water boys.2001.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 4.30 GiB
Duration : 1h 30mn
Overall bit rate : 6768 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-12-23 12:08:02
Writing application : mkvmerge v4.7.0 ('Just Like You Imagined') built on Apr 21 2011 01:13:14
Writing library : libebml v1.2.0 + libmatroska v1.1.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 9 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 30mn
Bit rate : 6 122 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 688 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.952
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.232
Stream size : 3.81 GiB (89%)
Writing library : x264 core 115 r1995 c1e60b9
Encoding settings :
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 30mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 416 MiB (9%)
Language : Japanese
Default : Yes
Forced : No

[carlmart]

Try Vidcoder. Open your mkv. Click settings. Change the container to mkv. Under the video tab set the target size to 700MB or try a constant quality around 30 for example(higher value = smaller size = lower quality). You can also adjust the x264 presets, change to ultra fast for fastest encoding but the quality may not be perfect.

Baldrick,


This program looks interesting. I've already downloaded and installed it.

How do I adjust the presets for best quality?

My file is too large and I will have to lower the bitrate to 8000 kbps to get the mkv size I want. What other things should I preset for best quality?

[carlmart]

Vidcoder is taking too long to make the conversion. It worked all night and there's still 21 more hours to go.

The adjustments I made on the setup were mostly in the middle, so I didn't expect taking this long. Some of the settings warned that if you got higher from the ones I was picking, conversion would be slow, but I thought I had compromised on that.

Both cores of my cpu are working for it, as I checked now, so the program takes long indeed.

[carlmart]

Just to finish the story: everything went well with the VidCoder conversion.

It does take longer, but the final file burned beautifully on the DVD DL disc. Same DVD media, same DVD burner, just different converter.

Vidcoder takes longer to process, but it does seem to get the job done as it should. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the suggestion.

If anyone cares to suggest setup tricks for VidCoder, it should be welcome by many.

This is the setup I used. The elapsed time is wrong. It took a lot longer than 8.33 Hs, more closer to 22Hs.