mkv files

[#1]

I have downloaded a few music videos down from You Tube (I hope that isn't something I shouldn't do). Most have been MP4 files but a couple have been MKV files. The MP4 files play perfectly on VLC. The MPV files are a different story, or at least one of them is. The default setting on my pc for both MP4 and MKV files is to use VLC.

The MPV files - one of them, which is 117MB, and lasts about 20 minutes, plays on VLC - no problem - good video - good audio. The other file is 1.2GB but only lasts 10 minutes. This one however doesn't play at all on VLC, I have to use GOM. The audio on GOM is perfect, but the video is clear but jerky (the video freezes often, but usually is very slow - I dont know if it ever catches up with the audio).

Does anyone have any ideas (a) why this particular file is so large, (b) why it doesn't work at all on VLC, and (c) why I cannot convert it to MPE on Any Video Converter? Is it that the large MKV file is too large both for VLC and for Any Video Converter? I have found a video converter thast does limit MKV files to 1GB, but haven't found any size limit for VLC or Any Video Converter.

Thanks

[#2]

You might not have the correct codecs for the mkv to play properly. There is a codec pack on the net available to download, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's called. A general search for mkv codecs should suffice.

[#3]

Is it https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Dave

[#4]

If you're running Ubuntu you can use the ffmpeg library to do a conversion :

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -codec copy output.mp4

[#5]

@Shep41  - Thankyou for the suggestion. You may be correct, but I can run other mkv files successfully, just not this one, so I think I must have a good codec already.

[#6]

@Mook - I'm not running Ubuntu, and I'm not sure what Ubuntu is.

[#7]

There are a few typos in my original post. In it I always meant MP4 and MKV, so where I typed  MPV I meant MKV, and where I typed MPE I meant MP4.

Sorry

[#8]

Wondershare video converter can convert a lot of audio files as well as video files, depends how important these files are to you but might be worth looking at that program.

unfortunately it’s not a free program.

[#9]

VLC itself has a substantial feature of conversion features. Somewhat intricate but there is guidance via Help. See attachment and https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Streaming_HowTo

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Handbrake can remux MKV into MP4 (and pretty much any input video format).

Available for Linux, Mac & Windows in a GUI form.

[#11]

I don't know if this is a clue to the cause of the problem I am having with this mkv file, but I have been ignoring (until late last night) that there is "4k UHD" in the video title. Apparently this is a reference to the file being very high definition, so that might explain why the file is so large.

I will try Handbrake, and see how I get on

[#12]

@penneck  can you post the video url please ?

[#13]

I have run Handbrake on this mkv file, and the good news is that it has worked. Good video. Good audio. No adverts during the recording - an extra problem I was getting when trying to record the You Tube version as I watched it, using Vokoscreen - never mind, it was worth a try.

It took 82 minutes, but the output file (an m4v file, when Handbrake was set to MP4 - strange!), but the file size is now 281MB instead of 1.2GB.

My thanks to all for your suggestions

[#14]

I assume you want to try it (but that is just my guess), so here it is:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWYIY3icUg 

as requested but just to make you aware, Handbrake has solved the problem.

My thanks to you for your help

[#15]

I used TVDownloader 1.17 to download it and it played perfectly in VLC. No processing needed

Dave