MKV format

[lithos]

Recently DL'd a movie and it's in MKV format, anyone know what codecs to use for that?

[Cephius]

I know this combo pack covers MKV. I hate that format though, never seems to decode well no matter what player/codec pack I use. Hope you have better luck!

EDIT: Don't worry about the Soviet theme of that webpage, it's a legit site with no viruses... scared me at first too

[b6c7565]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Plays damn near every format

[Cephius]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Plays damn near every format

Actually, while VLC does play practically everything, its built in codec for MKV is terrible. This is one of the rare cases where Media Player Classic or Windows Media Center plays a format better. Try VLC for sure, but your experience is like mine the video will play much much better in WMP.

[Gilanth]

I hate this format it seems all the 720HD stuff is in this format and now they added Divx/xvid support on 360/PS3 i can't stream it from my comp. Anyone know a good convrter?

[Zigma]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Plays damn near every format

Actually, while VLC does play practically everything, its built in codec for MKV is terrible. This is one of the rare cases where Media Player Classic or Windows Media Center plays a format better. Try VLC for sure, but your experience is like mine the video will play much much better in WMP.

MKV is not a codec, its just a container format like *.avi, *.mpg, *.mov etc. If you're having problems playing it with VLC, chances are its your PC.

[Cephius]

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Plays damn near every format

Actually, while VLC does play practically everything, its built in codec for MKV is terrible. This is one of the rare cases where Media Player Classic or Windows Media Center plays a format better. Try VLC for sure, but your experience is like mine the video will play much much better in WMP.

MKV is not a codec, its just a container format like *.avi, *.mpg, *.mov etc. If you're having problems playing it with VLC, chances are its your PC.

I know MKV isn't a codec, but you do need a codec to play it just like anything else. And for whatever reason, it decodes horribly in VLC. It plays slow, out of sync, and is very choppy. If i play it in MPC it is better but still flawed, and if I play it in Media Center it's flawless. It makes little sense, but if it plays terribly in one player and flawlessly in another, it means my PC isn't the problem.

[Zosi]

I know MKV isn't a codec, but you do need a codec to play it just like anything else. And for whatever reason, it decodes horribly in VLC. It plays slow, out of sync, and is very choppy. If i play it in MPC it is better but still flawed, and if I play it in Media Center it's flawless. It makes little sense, but if it plays terribly in one player and flawlessly in another, it means my PC isn't the problem.

The software that handles MKVs and demuxes the streams is called a splitter. VLC uses it's own, anyone with CCCP installed is using Haali Media Splitter. MPC and Media Center are both DirectShow players, so they're using the same splitter, the difference in performance is most likely because of a wrong setting in MPC.

[Cephius]

I know MKV isn't a codec, but you do need a codec to play it just like anything else. And for whatever reason, it decodes horribly in VLC. It plays slow, out of sync, and is very choppy. If i play it in MPC it is better but still flawed, and if I play it in Media Center it's flawless. It makes little sense, but if it plays terribly in one player and flawlessly in another, it means my PC isn't the problem.

The software that handles MKVs and demuxes the streams is called a splitter. VLC uses it's own, anyone with CCCP installed is using Haali Media Splitter. MPC and Media Center are both DirectShow players, so they're using the same splitter, the difference in performance is most likely because of a wrong setting in MPC.

Thanks for the info, apparently the splitter for VLC doesn't work well with MKV files for whatever reason. I, like another poster in this thread, have tried to play 720p files encoded in this format and they play pretty bad in VLC.

[Zosi]

Thanks for the info, apparently the splitter for VLC doesn't work well with MKV files for whatever reason. I, like another poster in this thread, have tried to play 720p files encoded in this format and they play pretty bad in VLC.

That might be related to the codec in use too. 720p video is usually done in H.264 for better compression, which is a bitch and a half to decode in terms of power required. A lot of video cards have hardware H.264 decoding, which VLC probably wouldn't make use of, but WMP would. If the CPU utilization is substantially higher in VLC, that might be why.

[Shuemue]

It must differ per system then, I've played numerous mkv files fine with VLC.

[Cjskater]

Athlon X2 4000+ @2.1ghz
http://i30.tinypic.com/35ndds1.png
720p .mkv in Media Player Classic.

http://i25.tinypic.com/ji2e78.png
720p .mkv in VLC.

I don't have any problems in either programs while playing 720p despite the high usage on that 1 core in MPC. 1080p is a different story... MPC it just doesn't play well at all for me, I haven't tried it in VLC though. I have an old PCI Radeon 9250 btw lolz, no HD decoding for me. D:

I say just use what works best, no reason to argue either of them since there is no one size fits all for anything.

[Cephius]

I say just use what works best, no reason to argue either of them since there is no one size fits all for anything.

I completely agree, got off topic a bit but my main point was to point out to the OP that sometimes different applications will play the same file completely differently.

[Snowknight26]

Haali Media Splitter + FFDShow.

[Epical]

Haali Media Splitter + FFDShow.

This.

HD or

[Fallso]

VLC works fine for me, flawless quality even when I full screen it at 1920X1200

[Osede]

usually i'm just download the k-lite media codec pack. Save my trouble to figure out other codec if one does not work and vise versa. But usually your pc spec will be one of the player issue too, especially when watching the MKV format.

[Snowknight26]

Haali Media Splitter + FFDShow.

This.

HD or

Speaking of which, how are you liking the site?

[Epical]

Haali Media Splitter + FFDShow.

This.

HD or

Speaking of which, how are you liking the site?

Absolutely loving it. Planet Earth was a bitch of a download, but it was sooooo worth it.

Grats on CtrlHD too.