Converting MKV to Mp4

[farbods0]

Okay so I have a bunch of movies that I am converting from mkv to mp4 so i can play them on my ps3. All these movies are blu ray 720p or 1080p and whenever I convert them the quality seems to degrade no matter what converter I use. Currently im using Xilisoft HD Converter and I put the quality and audio both on maximum and still the quality degrades. I was wondering is there anything I can do for this not to happen?
http/img802.imageshack.us/i/quality.png/

 

[rwpritchett]

There will alway be some kind of degradation if encoding is involved, especially if transcoding from one highly compressed lossy format to another. What you need to do is demux the video and audio components out of the mkv container, and then remux them into an MP4 container.

If the profile is compliant, it should work... though you may run into sync problems.

You could demux the MKV with MKVExtractGUI which will kick out your video and audio streams into separate files. Then you can try to remux the audio and video streams into an MP4 container using a tool like MeGUI.

There's a guy in the Netherlands that is working on a h.264 MKV to PS3 MP4 converter that is supposed to leave the audio and video untouched. YMMV, details here:

http/sites.google.com/site/sentry232/home

Another alternative is to make your MP4's from the original source material (BD disc). Unless you downloaded your movies, and if that's the case: shame on you.

 

[farbods0]

Well I suppose shame on me but if I take out the volume and put it back in wouldn't there be an out of sync

 

[rwpritchett]

Possibly. Try the GOTsent program in the link above and see if that works. It would be the easiest solution.

 

[farbods0]

The gotsent file is gone

 

[farbods0]

Any other coverter that wont degrade quality?

 

[rwpritchett]

I've played around with some of my own files. Though I've been successful in de-muxing the video and audio out of the mkv's and remuxing them back into mp4 containers using MeGUI, I can't get the audio to play in the resulting video file.

This may sound stupid, but I just tried something simple and it worked on a test mkv for me. The test mkv has h264 video and DTS audio. I just renamed the file extension from mkv to mp4 and WMP plays it just fine. Maybe you should try this and see if your PS3 will play the file.

 

[farbods0]

Tried that didnt work im guessing theres no way for it to actually convert without degrading then is there.

 

[rwpritchett]

OK, I tried it again and this time I got it working. The reason I wasn't getting audio the first time was because of a codec setting in ffdshow.

Demux the video and audio from the mkv using MKVExtractGUI.

Remux the video and audio into an mp4 container using MeGUI.

The resulting file is an mp4 with no lip sync issues and no quality loss. The file sizes are almost identical. Here is the test movie I changed from mkv to mp4. It is an h.264 AVC video with AC3 5.1 Dolby Digital audio:

 

[FireWire2]

Or this:

Demux the video and audio from the mkv using MKVExtractGUI.
Use MP4Muxer to put it back together as MP4 container