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Post #620778

Author
bilditup1
Parent topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/620778/action/topic#620778
Date created
31-Jan-2013, 12:18 PM

The easiest way to convert mkv to mp4 is...to use this program, called mkvtomp4.

If you're looking for solid iOS compatibility though, I'm afraid I still haven't found a GUI that makes a file that can properly switch between different audio and subtitle tracks or include chapters. If you just want to use one audio track and no subs then everything'll work just fine with any old GUI...otherwise, if the GUI you use doesn't give the right parameters to mp4box, all the audios will play at once, and none of the subs will work. 

Mkvtomp4 makes it work for audio but doesn't handle subtitles properly (not open source). MeGUI, what I use, can do it with a patch (which I've submitted and which has been accepted) but I'm not sure if it's been rereleased yet with the patch included. I would recommend getting MeGUI and seeing if it works (be sure to select the iPod or iPhone profiles in the mp4 muxer), since it also has a built-in converter for chapters into the xml format that Apple uses (chapter extraction software usually uses the text-based 'ogg' format).

Other than that...I can tell you that Yamb is buggy and unpolished. I can't really recommend it to anyone, for any purpose. There's an alternative mp4box gui out there, aptly named 'MyMP4BoxGUI' that is more stable and has switches for Apple-compatible options. After contacting the author, he updated the program to work properly for audio switching when turning the 'Apple Friendly v2' option on, (see version history) but I'm not sure if the same was done for subtitles. But besides this, the program features a command-line editor, in which you can tweak the argument to iOS perfection. It's an annoying kludge, but at least it still generates most of the command-line for you. 

Oh, a good GUI for demuxing MKV - you'll have to demux the file if you're using any software other than mkvtomp4- is mkvcleaver. It's just an easier to use GUI than MKVExtractGUI2. 

One more thing though: the audio would need to be converted to aac format for full compatibility with iOS devices. The quality loss is acceptable to non-existent if you use high settings (96kbps/channel), and even a bit below that (even 64kbps/channel is adequate for some sources - we're talking about portable devices here, people - though probably not for this film). MkvToMp4 should do this automatically (though I have recommendations for the settings) but with anything else, you'll have to use another program/GUI. TAudioConverter works well for this, as does MeGUI.

Outside of this, there is absolutely *no* quality loss involved - no video is being reencoded. Overhead is not as good as MKV, but is much better than, say, AVCHD. (Does anyone remember the awful overhead of OGM?) But that has no impact on quality either. Of course, I'm not suggesting MP4 supplant MKV...just that the inferiority of the format is a bit overstated when people jump up and down about quality loss that only makes sense when talking about audio.

I can post a small tutorial/roundup elsewhere on this site if there is interest.

EDIT: The official release binary of MeGUI has still not been updated. I can put up a zip with my patches somewhere if people want...