Video compression in MakeMKV?

[estugarda]

Is there in meantime, or will there be in future, a possibility to compress the video track inside MKV container made with MakeMKV?
It would make it the most powerful and user friendly software of this category for sure.

[Matt Devo]

already asked and answered, and the answer is no. There are plenty of other programs which can recompress the MKV file created by MakeMKV, such as mencoder.

[estugarda]

I am still to find software which will be able to recompress video while keeping exactly the same mkv container structure as the one from MakeMKV. All I have tried so far failed at this. I didn't try mencoder becuase I'm terrified of command line software.

[Matt Devo]

I am still to find software which will be able to recompress video while keeping exactly the same mkv container structure as the one from MakeMKV. All I have tried so far failed at this. I didn't try mencoder becuase I'm terrified of command line software.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'keep the same container structure' - can you elaborate?

Use MeGUI, it's a front end for mencoder. It comes with many profiles so you don't need to change a lot of settings, just pick the profile you want.

[estugarda]

I mean an MKV with video track, 4 audio tracks, chapters and subtitles. MKV made in MakeMKV has such structure, and I want to keep it. All encoding software I tried so far doesn't keep at least on of mentioned things.

[tyborg]

Using DVD decrypter you can get the raw streams for video, audio and subtitles. ChapterXtractor will pull out the chapters and then just use MKVMerge to throw them all into an mkv. It's the exact same thing as what MakeMKV does just not as clean, but you can script the whole process to automate it. You can even throw in a step to compress the video and audio.

I would much rather other functionality be focused on, especially getting the CLI to work, before compression is considered.

[mike admin]

I mean an MKV with video track, 4 audio tracks, chapters and subtitles. MKV made in MakeMKV has such structure, and I want to keep it. All encoding software I tried so far doesn't keep at least on of mentioned things.

you can re-encode video with any encoder and then use mkvmerge to create a new MKV with audio/chapters from original MKV and video stream form your newly encoded file.

[Matt Devo]

I mean an MKV with video track, 4 audio tracks, chapters and subtitles. MKV made in MakeMKV has such structure, and I want to keep it. All encoding software I tried so far doesn't keep at least on of mentioned things.

you can re-encode video with any encoder and then use mkvmerge to create a new MKV with audio/chapters from original MKV and video stream form your newly encoded file.

I concur, that's the easiest/best way to re-encode. Though with storage being so cheap these days, it's not worth the time/effort IMO

[estugarda]

This sounds great in theory and I knew this before. Practically, something always doesn't work right. Some encoding software packages don't support more than 2 audio tracks. (MediaCoder). Some do not support chapters from MakeMKV. Some do not support subtitles from MKV. Others produce out of sync results. Then there is codec and support issue. Some work, some not in combination with particluar software. There just isn't a whole solution to make a MKV from file created in MakeMKV and keep the structure.

[Matt Devo]

This sounds great in theory and I knew this before. Practically, something always doesn't work right. Some encoding software packages don't support more than 2 audio tracks. (MediaCoder). Some do not support chapters from MakeMKV. Some do not support subtitles from MKV. Others produce out of sync results. Then there is codec and support issue. Some work, some not in combination with particluar software. There just isn't a whole solution to make a MKV from file created in MakeMKV and keep the structure.

the only thing you are changing is the video track - everything else stays the same. MKVMerge has no problems taking the multiple A/V/Sub tracks and chapter info from the MKV file that MakeMKV produces, and combining it with the compressed video file generated by mencoder/MeGUI. Mencoder/MeGUI does not touch anything but the video track.