converting .mkv to .avi/.mp4 for a complete beginner

[celestial-cookie]

I'm putting this in "newbies" instead of "coversion" because I feel like this is something really really simple that I just can't figure out. Heck, I don't even usually join forums, but I'm desperate!
I have never done any sort of work with MKV files, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do this- and I've been researching this for the past month! I just need to remove a subtitle track and convert to something Movie Maker can use... If anyone would be willing to walk me through this process, I'd really appreciate it! I have no idea what I'm doing orz

Thus far, I've installed mkvtoolnix 8.3.0, after reading what little I could find on these forums that applied to my situation. Removing the subtitle track and remuxing with mmg.exe works, but from there I have no way to covert.
As far as I can understand, I need to "extract the tracks" and then... do something with those? I downloaded "gMKVExtractGUI" into my MKVToolnix folder and extracted the audio and video tracks just fine, but uh... what do I do from there? i tried merging them again, but it defaulted to a .mkv file. Am I supposed to use the actual mkvtoolnix gui? Because I opened that once, and, uh..... that thing kinda scares me.

It's worth noting that I've gotten one thing to work- but it's by no means reliable (meaning it only works about 10% of the time). Cloudconvert has successfully converted the subtitle-free .mkvs to .mp4s (and .avi, if memory serves) before, but it takes forever and most of the time it doesn't work... There's gotta be an easier way, right?

[manono]

The chances are good you can open the MKV in MKVToMP4 and convert it without reencoding. I wouldn't worry about the subs if I were you because you can dump them at the next stage. Or take the MKV, remove the subs and convert to MP4 with MKVToMP4.

[redwudz]

What is your final format to be? WMM may be fine for editing, but do you want to output MPEG or MPEG4 or WMV?

If you just want MPEG as in DVD, try AVSTODVD.

And welcome to our forums.

[JVRaines]

It's pretty easy if you are butch enough to use the command line. If your video is h.264, for example:

ffmpeg -i myinput.mkv -c copy -sn myoutput.mp4

will move the video and audio tracks, without reencoding, into an mp4 file. (-sn means "no subtitles")

[celestial-cookie]

@redwudz: I think MP4 should be fine? I'm just uploading it to my blog & youtube channel, and MP4 has worked that so far... Once I get it into Movie Maker, I should be set!

@manono: I'll try removing the subs first then converting, because I have no idea what the "next stage" would be otherwise eheheh

Thank you guys for the help! I'll check back in with the results once I'm able to try it out

[manono]

@manono: I'll try removing the subs first then converting, because I have no idea what the "next stage" would be otherwise eheheh

You mentioned then using the MP4 to do something in Movie Maker. That's what I meant by 'the next stage'. Depending on what you want to do, exactly, you may not need to use Movie Maker. Many people (me included) would reccomend staying as far away from Movie Maker as possible. But to suggest something else we'd need to know what you intend to use it for.