# MKV format, nobody fucking cares! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 21, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363 "2012-09-21T07:33:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/21 "2012-09-21T13:46:21Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Pain in the ass, even on a fast PC it takes a shitload of time. An hour and a half of your time is worth somebody’s life? Though if we’re being honest, it’s not even an hour and a half of your time. You type ffmpeg -i My\_Illegally\_Downloaded\_Dr\_Who\_Episode.mkv My\_Inferior\_Output.mp4 (plus a few switches). After which you can make dinner, read a book, or even use the same computer to make posts about how other people need to die for throwing minor inconveniences your way. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/22 "2012-09-21T13:57:14Z")
> [@Mithras](#): > > An hour and a half of your time is worth somebody’s life? Though if we’re being honest, it’s not even an hour and a half of your time. You type ffmpeg -i My\_Illegally\_Downloaded\_Dr\_Who\_Episode.mkv My\_Inferior\_Output.mp4 (plus a few switches). After which you can make dinner, read a book, or even use the same computer to make posts about how other people need to die for throwing minor inconveniences your way. It is called sarcastic hyperbole and is commonly employed here, you may be the first person to take it seriously. Unless everyone really is murdering kids who mosey through cross walks?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/23 "2012-09-21T14:07:54Z")
> [@Lazlo Hapsburg](#): > > I want to explain that I am fairly new to the world of downloading video files and burning DVDs and there is plenty about it that I don’t understand. In particular … > > In this thread, someone said, “… A pitting admitting to piracy in the OP might not go like you expected.”. > > As I understand it, any mention of piracy in any forum on this board is a huge no-no and will result in very serious penalties up to and including banning. However, there seems to be some disagreement about this. Do I misunderstand the policy? I don’t understand how people can admit to piracy in this thread without expecting serious negative consequences. It’s not against the rules to just talk about doing it, it’s against the rules to link to it or otherwise discuss HOW to do it. (or anything else illegal) > [@](#): > > There is something else I don’t understand and would like to know. > > Why are there no DVD players that can load multiple DVDs in a kind of carousel? When CD players were in vogue, there were plenty of CD-players for home stereos that could load 5 or 6 CDs at once so that you could play all or parts of them all without having to bother with changing CDs. I would love to be able to buy a DVD player that enabled me to load several DVDs at once so that I don’t have to keep getting up to change the DVD. > > Some of you may wonder why I would want that given that today DVD players are on the way out since people can use HDMI to play media files directly from their PCs to their TVs. The reason is that I have a large collection of video files in an older format from years gone by and it would be really great if I could load 5 or 6 of them at once into a carousel-type DVD player and then play portions of any or all of them without having to keep getting up and changing disks. > > By the way, using a video card that supports HDMI and a HDMI cable, I can play most any video file using most any player with no problems and with no need to burn any DVDs. I can control the playback using a wireless keyboard and mouse. > > It took me a long time to figure out how to put all the components together. But I feel that I have huge convenience and flexibility using HDMI and a wireless keyboard and/or mouse. > > I have been trying to achieve the condition for about a year now where I can be in bed and access any number of video files and play them back without having to get up and change disks in a DVD player or get up and access my PC. It took a long time for me to figure out how to do this, but it is a wonderful convenience to avoid getting up every few minutes to adjust my PC or to change disks in a DVD player. Ahhh, nothing like being able to access your whole porn collection without getting out of bed, amirite? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/24 "2012-09-21T14:21:03Z")
AVI and mkv are containers. The codecs are what matter and what will determine hardware requirements (in most cases). It’s entirely possible that a higher quality h.264 video file will require more powerful hardware than a lower quality MPG2 stream even though the file size and frame size are similar. The h.264 should look at a lot better though (not something that might be readily apparent on a small screen, however. ---
**Author:** ![Bambro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df705f/32.png) [@Bambro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambro)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/25 "2012-09-21T15:24:41Z")
> [@grude](#): > > So since we are now at the nice place where even the DVD player you can buy at the grocery store will play .avi format video files burned to a dvd-r the pirate scene decides they are moving on from that and moving to .mkv which not one thing on earth plays besides VLC player. [http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330](http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=330) That will play the fuck out of a .MKV file in full 1080p with awesome DTS sound. I keep all of my movies on a NAS and stream them to my WD TV player. It does have USB connections if you want to put the files on an external device and just plug it into it to watch them. It works great. and yes, I do download and watch the +15GB movies and they play without a problem streaming across my network. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/26 "2012-09-21T16:03:13Z")
> [@grude](#): > > It is called sarcastic hyperbole and is commonly employed here, you may be the first person to take it seriously. Unless everyone really is murdering kids who mosey through cross walks?:eek: What, you mean we’re not really allowed to? Oops! I guess I shouldn’t mention where I put those kids’ bodies, huh? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/27 "2012-09-21T16:50:30Z")
Yuck, why the hell do we need so many different formats? I watch most things in media player and that’s it ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/28 "2012-09-21T17:03:03Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Three weeks now Doctor Who has only been released in .mkv! Uh…where are you looking? A quick search of the most popular and well-known torrent site which shall remain nameless reveals multiple torrents for each episode in .mp4 format. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/29 "2012-09-22T07:28:08Z")
> [@Mithras](#): > > An hour and a half of your time is worth somebody’s life? Though if we’re being honest, it’s not even an hour and a half of your time. You type ffmpeg -i My\_Illegally\_Downloaded\_Dr\_Who\_Episode.mkv My\_Inferior\_Output.mp4 (plus a few switches). After which you can make dinner, read a book, or even use the same computer to make posts about how other people need to die for throwing minor inconveniences your way. BTW, something cool I just discovered the other day: if you like the codecs in the source file and just want to convert to a different container format, use “-vcodec copy -acodec copy” and it’s wicked fast because it just moves the data without re-encoding it. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/30 "2012-09-22T08:04:37Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > BTW, something cool I just discovered the other day: if you like the codecs in the source file and just want to convert to a different container format, use “-vcodec copy -acodec copy” and it’s wicked fast because it just moves the data without re-encoding it. Yeah, re-encoding is stupid unless you specifically need another codec. These MKVs are most likely using the exact same codec the AVIs would. You don’t need an hour and a half to do this, just maybe 15 minutes. The speed limit is your hard drive, not your CPU. Oh, and the reason pirates don’t release in the most popular format is that most pirates are in one of two categories: people who know little more about computers than the fact that program X will allow them to rip TV shows, and the supernerds who have no desire to make things easier for users because figuring it out is simple enough for them. No pirate is thinking “What format should I use to make sure the largest number of people can use this?” They aren’t customer service types. And those rare people who are aren’t the ones who rush to get it out. In fact, that might be another reason the original pirates don’t bother–someone else always eventually comes along and releases it in another format. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/31 "2012-09-22T08:11:05Z")
> [@spinky](#): > > BTW, something cool I just discovered the other day: if you like the codecs in the source file and just want to convert to a different container format, use “-vcodec copy -acodec copy” and it’s wicked fast because it just moves the data without re-encoding it. Doesn’t work as most .avi containers use xvid and most .mkv are H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Older .mkv files were however usually xvid, there were some programs that could easily unpack the container format. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/32 "2012-09-22T08:24:28Z")
It took me 45 seconds to update WMP to play mkvs. ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/33 "2012-09-22T08:50:24Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Doesn’t work as most .avi containers use xvid and most .mkv are H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. As I said, “if you like the codecs in the source file.” Works fine. ---
**Author:** ![firstname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7ab992/32.png) [@firstname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/firstname)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/34 "2012-09-24T02:48:13Z")
Avi is an outdated format, the scene only allows mkv release’s now, so if you want to keep pirating you’d better get use to it. Any avi’s of current tv shows are re-encodes from the mkv rips. Plus think of the benefits of mkv files multiple audio streams, embedded subtitles and chapters, its a better file type and it’s not going anywhere for a while. ---
**Author:** ![peterpiper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@peterpiper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peterpiper)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/35 "2015-06-22T04:20:40Z")
> [@Baboonanza](#): > > MKV containers allow nice things such as embedded subtitles and multiple audio tracks among other things. At this point I would question why you would rip something to anything else. And the reason blu-ray rips come as mkv is that the best tool for riping them is mkv only (MakeMKV). > > Now, quit fucking bitching about something you’re getting for free you over-entitled parasitic twat. And get with the 21st century! What sort of inbred cretin downloads torrents and then burns them to dvd in this day and age? Wow… and all because you don’t understand that MKV sucks and is basically useless to every single human on this planet. A forceful attack on a common sense opinion doesn’t mean you’re right… It just means you’re a bullie. MKV has very limited acceptance and some find it strange that the few are trying to force their insane ideas on the many. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/36 "2015-06-22T04:24:33Z")
> [@peterpiper](#): > > It just means you’re a **bullie**. (bolding mine) Bad spelling, unfounded opinion parading as fact, and resurrecting a 3 year old thread to do it. You’re such a winner, guy! ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/37 "2015-06-22T13:24:10Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > (bolding mine) > > Bad spelling, unfounded opinion parading as fact, and resurrecting a 3 year old thread to do it. > > You’re such a winner, guy! You forgot to add “joining the board to make one post and then leave”. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/38 "2015-06-22T13:31:21Z")
Am I the only one that thought for a brief moment that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King had influenced the field of software? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/39 "2015-06-22T13:44:25Z")
The pirate/vidhacker community loves its exclusivity. It’s a whole world of junior hacker types who think that because they could use a chain of six cranky, difficult, undocumented apps to convert a DVD to a 3-inch SVCD disc, they were godz. Inventing a new format for the real insiders is just part of the game… after all, what fun is it being a realz kracker when anyone who can download a nearly commercial-grade one-step app can do the same thing? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363/40 "2015-06-22T13:48:10Z")
Why are quoted **Charlie Wayne** posts showing him as **Lazlo Hapsburg**? Is this some sort of inadvertent sock outing? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mkv-format-nobody-fucking-cares/635363.md?page=3)