Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Tim Fisher. VP and General Manager, Lifewire. Tim Fisher has more than 30 years' of professional technology experience. He's been writing about tech for more than two decades and serves as the VP and General Manager of Lifewire. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn. Updated on May 22, Tweet Share Email.
In This Article. Playing MKV Files. Some Files Need Decoder Filters. Converting an MKV File. Editing MKV Files. Still Can't Open the File? MKV Format and Codecs. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Whether you are downloading videos from the Internet or getting them from other people, there is a high chance that you will come across MKV files. It got its name from the Russian word for Nesting Dolls, matryoshka.
The Matroska project was developed as an open standards project, which means that it is open source and completely free for anyone who wants it for personal use. The company also has a lot of resources on their website , including a list of playback options.
As time went on, the format was improved and in , it became the basis for the WebM multimedia format. Contrary to popular belief, MKV files are not an audio or video compression format.
MKV files are actually multimedia container formats. An MKV container can incorporate audio, video, and subtitles into a single file—even if those elements use different types of encoding. For example, you could have a MKV file that contains H. MKV container files were designed to be future proof, meaning that the files would not become outdated.
Matroska developers included several key features to make this happen, including things like:. The MKV container itself also supports almost any audio and video format, making the format highly adaptive and easy to use. You have two main options for playing MKV files: using an MKV compatible media player or downloading the appropriate codecs for the media player you prefer. Downloading and installing the program is easy if you follow these directions. Begin by navigating to the official download page at videolan.
Beware of going anywhere else, because a lot of crapware vendors have fake VLC download sites. Simply run the downloaded file to install VLC.
The entire installation process should take no more than two or three minutes. Note that, while VLC does associate itself with all supported video and audio formats during the installation—including MKV—it does not register itself as the default app for those file types.
Of course, not everyone likes VLC player. Codecs are notorious for bundling in crapware or, worse, malware. We highly recommend heading to Ninite —a great resource for getting clean installs of lots of useful apps.
The good folks at Ninite make it their mission to provide downloads completely free of any bundled nonsense. Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles The term is a play on the fact that container format is media within media. The format was first proposed in , which makes it reasonably new.
Because of this, MKV has features that other formats do not. First and foremost, it supports many various codecs. Next, it supports features for several streams of video, audio, chapters, and subtitles. Thus, a single file can show a movie that is dubbed in several languages. This codec is used for HD playback. However, the most common encoding in MKV is still x Because of the ability of a single file to have several streams of data, the size can be quite large.
This is the only downside of the MKV format, which makes it less useful to the average user. However, due to the support of other features, MKV is still beneficial to professional users who need those options. MPEG-4 is a definition of compression for visual digital and audio data. It was developed for a group of video and audio formats with related technologies. This means it can be used to store video and audio data simultaneously. It can also be streamed over the web.
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