Matroska

Matroska is a multi-media Format of file, free multiplate-form and , in addition of free use. It was placed at the disposal of the general public on May 1st, 2003.

Matroska (MKV) is not a codec (like are MPEG-1, XviD, DivX, or VP3) but a container as well as the MPEG4 ( .mp4 ), QuickTime ( .mov ) or the Audio Video Interleave ( .avi ). The difference with this last is that the MKV can gather within the same file (generally with the extension .mkv ) several video and audio tracks as well as subtitles and chapters (just like QuickTime), the whole for a size of file equivalent to traditional the DivX. In comparison, the AVI is limited to only one video track and to 99 audio tracks, with limitations as for the possible codecs. The audio codecs supported by Matroska include Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, and AC3. The supported video codecs include DivX, XviD, RV10, H.264 and Theora. The formats of supported subtitles include SubRip (srt) and SubStationAlpha (ssa). This container thus allows the use of the most powerful codecs such as the H.264 and AAC.

The purpose of Matroska is to become the standard formats multimedia. It is derived from project MCF, but remotely appreciably because it uses EBML (Extensible Binary Meta Language), a binary format derived from XML. EBML makes it possible the development team of Matroska to obtain an important advantage with regard to the future extensions of the format, without to be incompatible with the former parseurs.

Origin

Matroska comes from the Russian word matriochka (Russian headstock) which corresponds well to the definition of the matroska: it is a video container which makes it possible to mix several audio tracks and subtitles with a video track.

Advantages

The MKV can contain many types of media:
  • It supports almost all the video stream available on Internet.
  • It supports almost all the audio stream and of unlimited number.
  • It can contain a great number of tracks of subtitles of various formats.
  • It supports the chapitrage.
  • It allows the tag audio tracks and subtitles.
  • It makes it possible to integrate enclosures.

Extensions

The MKV has several extensions:
  • .mkv: generally files with a video track, possibly accompanied by other tracks, audio or others.
  • .mka: audio files only. Can contain any format of audio compression supported, such as MP2, MP3, Vorbis, AAC, AC3, SDR, PCM, WV (WavPack), FLAC and soon MPC (musepack).
  • .mks: files containing only one track, in a format of subtitles.

Software readers

The MKV can be read by the following utilities, inter alia:

Material readers

August 17th, 2007, DViCO left (in beta release) the first firmware supporting the MKV (with in particular the codec H.264), for its readers multi-media of living room TViX HD M-4100SH and M-5100SH.

External bonds

  • Official site
  • Pack advised by the official team, because it lack of time to update the official pack, they advise to use the pack CCCP, described like " a good alternative to the others packs overloaded codecs" because it is based on Ffdshow.
  • Definition and Lecture of a MKV
  • Tutoriaux MKV
  • Assistance on the matroska

References

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