Force output file to MKV (H.264)

[Transporter]

What determines or is there a way/means/setting so that the file being put inside the MKV container is in a specific video Format?

I have installed VLM Player on my Macbook Pro and it sees and will play all my MKV files from my Media Server. This makes sense because it has codecs and can transcode file types. I also have a Roku3 which has an app called Roku Media Player that will play movies from USB Drives attached to the Roku3 or files it sees on the same network it is on. The issue I think I have is that the Roku3 does not transcode and files must be in MKV (H.264). I have ripped all my Movies, Mini-Series, and TV Episodes with MakeMKV. All but one movie plays perfectly using Roku Media Player. All the mini-series such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific play great. Only about 40 percent of the TV Episodes will play or even be seen by Roku Media Server. One thing I have notice is it is not hit or miss, the whole TV Series either plays or will not play. For example Streets of San Francisco is seen and plays fine but Boston Legal and Shark are not seen nor will they play even if I load them direct to the Roku via USB Stick (it sees all the episodes on the stick but will not play them, say non-support format).

I there a way to force MakeMKV to rip the TV Series to MKV (H.264) which is supported by Roku Media Player. This isn't a huge deal at home as I have PLEX and it will transcode everything I have ripped so far. But for the Beach Condo and River Cabin all I have is a Roku3 running Roku Media Player and an 8 TB USB drive which I bring with me so all files need to be MKV (H.264). There is Internet at the Condo so the Roku3 can also do NetFlix etc, but at the cabin its just what is on the USB Drive.

[trumpet205]

You have a huge misunderstanding on how video decoding and MakeMKV works.

MakeMKV outputs whatever is on the Blu-ray disc, as-is. It makes no attempts to re-encode files other than FLAC or AAC audio should you use those profiles.

In other words your problem is with the Roku3, not MakeMKV. Plus just because a file is encoded in H.264 format does not mean it works on all H.264 hardware player. Too much bitrate, unsupported profile, differences in encoding settings, etc can make a particular H.264 video not playable on these hardware players.

You should direct your question to Roku, not MakeMKV.

[Woodstock]

The video codec on Bluray disks is SOMETIMES h.264. Sometimes it's VC-1. Sometimes it is one of the other codecs the standard requires BD players to support.

If you need it in h.264, your need something like handbrake (from handbrake.fr) to transcode it into h.264. It will also probably make it significantly smaller.

[Transporter]

You have a huge misunderstanding on how video decoding and MakeMKV works.

MakeMKV outputs whatever is on the Blu-ray disc, as-is. It makes no attempts to re-encode files other than FLAC or AAC audio should you use those profiles.

In other words your problem is with the Roku3, not MakeMKV. Plus just because a file is encoded in H.264 format does not mean it works on all H.264 hardware player. Too much bitrate, unsupported profile, differences in encoding settings, etc can make a particular H.264 video not playable on these hardware players.

You should direct your question to Roku, not MakeMKV.

Thanks for the reply. These are not Blu-ray disks, they are standard DVDs from the early 2000's. The Files that Roku Media Player sees and plays, play flawlessly.

Yes I am new to all this and I think I read to much into the explanation of what a standard MKV File "is" and what MakeMKV does (could even be crossing some of the information). The first 1200 DVDs I used MakeMKV on ripped perfectly and I am able to use only Roku Media Player to watch them so I did contact Roku and the only Movie, DVD, Video file formats supported directly are - MKV (H.264), MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264) that is it. All the DVD Movies, all the movies I ripped with CloneDVD2 and burned to DVD-R, and certain TV Series DVDs that I have used MakeMKV on play via Roku Media Player. So what you are saying is that the Video Files on those original Movie DVDs have to be either MKV (H.264), MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264) ??? And that the TV Series DVDs that MakeMKV turned into MKV Files had to be something other then MKV (H.264), MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264) Video?

Is there a way to see what type of Video Files are on a DVD with MakeMKV? And if not, is there a recommendation on what can tell me what type of Video Files are on the DVD?

I have seen a friend use Handbrake on a video file and it took forever. Things could be better today because that was a couple years ago but if I remember he had to decode and rip it, then convert the file with Handbrake to what he needed it in taking a couple hours few DVD. I can't deal with that.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[trumpet205]

DVD only allows two types of video, MPEG2 and MPEG1. Pretty much 99% of DVD out there uses MPEG2. I only came across an MPEG1 DVD once and that DVD was a bootleg. I'm not aware of any legitimate DVDs out there that actually used MPEG1.

Blu-ray allows three types of video: MPEG2 (very rare), VC-1 (early Blu-ray discs), and H.264 (majority of Blu-ray discs).

Going from what you said, Roku player should not play any of those MKVs from DVD (but you said some are playable)? In any case you probably need to use Handbrake to re-encode them into H.264. Speed can vary depending on your CPU and settings.

[Smithcraft]

I'm going to venture to guess that when you ran the source discs through CloneDVD that the source files were converted to h264, and then when you ripped those discs with MakeMKV, you had MKV files which had h264 video streams.

As for using MakeMKV to determine the video stream type, open the disc with MakeMKV and let it scan the disc. When you get the list of titles on the disc, expand the title and right there in the list of streams in that title, it will say Mpeg2. Or whatever it says with your CloneDVD discs.

SC