Playback on Devices which don't support mkv

[hwsknudsen]

if a device doesn't support mkv its possible to change the file format without transcoding ie keeping the orginal
for example on a toshiba tv with a usb port

Changing container from MKV to avi and mpeg for devices that don't support mkv is easy and doesn't require lots of recoding time
try using mencoder and the "copy" command examples are below

mencoder my.mkv -oac pcm -ovc copy -o myoutput.avi
mencoder my.mkv -oac copy -ovc copy -o myoutput.avi

or
mencoder my.mkv -oac pcm -ovc copy -o myoutput.mpeg
mencoder my.mkv -oac copy -ovc copy -o myoutput.mpeg

// make sure to choose the correct audio format

-oac pcm // for pcm - Pulse Code Modulation represents the input exactly and is dumped meaning transcoding does not take place so doesn't take extra time but does use more space
-oac copy = means Output Audio Codec exactly as input
some device can only except certain audio codecs, this can be changed in order to output with another type of audio
-oac mp3lame // for mp3 - mp3 requires transcoding from the input format this takes extra time but saves space


see http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Mencoder#mp3lame for extra information about mencoder and audio codecs



it is also possible to do the same thing with avconv and as i couldn't get mp2 audio to work with mencoder here is an example
avconv -i input.mkv -c:a mp2 -ac 2 -c:v copy output.avi
the -ac option is used to limit the number of audio channel as mp2 appears not to support more

and an example with pcm
avconv -i title00.mkv -c:a pcm_s16le -c:v copy pass.avi

and finally mp3 again
avconv -i title00.mkv -c:a libmp3lame -ac 2 -c:v copy pass.avi