[iCapture]

I haaaate how there are 50 different video types and there isnt one media player that will play them all. My buddy sent me a DVD with a bunch of videos on it. And they are .mkv files. I have VLC, Real Player, Quicktime, and DivX player, and none of them will work with this video format.

What do i use to play this type of file? Is there a media player out there for mac's that will play most formats? Downloading a new media player every time i download a video is becoming old.

Thanks,

Adam

[iCapture]

damn, now i've downloaded mplayer os x and it plays the audio of the file but doesnt show the video.

whhhyyy must this be difficult?!?

[Uncle Skeleton]

VLC can play them too, unless they have RealVideo as the video codec, in which case I don't think there's anything that can (for mac). But you can use mkvtoolnix to demux to "native" file formats (all streams separately), then play those in RealPlayer (or whatever the "native" format turns out to be).

Having many tools for many jobs is the price of being on "the cutting edge." New technologies are developed, and they require new software. If you don't like it, and prefer everything to be just-works plug-and-play, you don't have to use the "cutting edge" videos. Getting your video only from traditional sources, like DVDs and cable TV, will prevent you getting exposed to things you need to understand in order to get them to work. Just sayin...

[Chuckit]

Mplayer has never failed to play a Matroska file perfectly for me. If that's not working, this must be some particularly odd combo of formats. Unfortunately, with all the myriad bizarre formats out there, it's hard to find one player that does everything perfectly on any platform.

[m4c]

I am using VLC and it's the best solution i've found to play matroska on mac. If you can't play in VLC then VLC probably doesn't support the codec used in those files. I have h.264 aac in mkv and had no problem playing it.

Solution:
There is a quicktime component to play mkv: SourceForge.net: Matroska QuickTime Component
get this and get the quicktime components for ALL the codecs used in your files.

However this quicktime component is VERY slow. Does anyone know any other quicktime component that plays mkv? I've been watching mkv files in frontrow with this component and normally it takes 1-2 mins to open a mkv file after i click play on remote. And if I go down the list of mkv files it can take several mins since it generates a preview of ever single video as I browse... takes forever. One solution is to save each mkv files as a quicktime reference file... this eliminates the long load time but the playback speed is reduced to the point where it's almost unwatchable.. btw I have 24" iMac 2.33 GHz intel core 2 duo, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB Graphics... so my mac well capable of handling these files.

after getting frustrated with frontrow/quicktime I just started using VLC. Anyone have a solution for frontrow??

[m4c]

MPlayer also plays them fine but still no acceptable solution for frontrow/quicktime.

[m4c]

problem solved. Perian finally supports mkv. Performance is not as smooth as VLC but satisfactory. so far the best solution for frontrow!

[MuppetFloss]

Originally Posted by iCapture 

I haaaate how there are 50 different video types and there isnt one media player that will play them all.

You're right, Adam. It's a total nightmare and it's very stupid. Too many companies have too many established interests in trying to own the winning format, and users are the losers. Even when attempts are made to standardize, people refuse to support the standards.

I believe the relatively new Mp4 (.mp4) format is meant to be an ISO standard for digital video for TV, DVDs, 3G and the internet. Mp4 is designed to be player-independent, thus solving internet user's headaches maintaining an army of players - and of course allowing people to do things like watch digital TV, or an HD-DVD, or video on their phone. (Imagine if watching TV was as much trouble as internet video.) It seems like TV broadcast, DVDs, and 3G are following the standard, but the internet certainly isn't. I don't think Real or Microsoft support it yet. It could take forever.

And it seems that Matroska is a similar response to the problem - and a response to Mp4, which isn't completely open because it's subject to Mpeg licensing.

Ironically, our digital TV is a Mac. Digital TV is standardized, so we have full and easy control over it - but with the same computer, internet video is a freakin nightmare: DRM, nightmare formats, and crappy user controls (no full screen, no download, streaming). It's still just like 1995.

Thanks for the Perian tip. I guess I'll try both that and the QuickTime component.

[voodoo]

Ugh I hate Matroska files. They are nothing but annoying. I use VLC to play them, and so far it hasn't failed.

V

[MuppetFloss]

I tried both Perian and Matroska QuickTime Component on PPC and Intel with QuickTIme 7.1.6. Components were installed in ~/Library/QuickTime/

In each case, Matroska QTC resulted in a white screen with audio, and Perian resulted in an error message.

I only tried files from one source, but VLC plays them fine. I was hoping QT would play them as I expect that would mean EyeTV would play them. EyeTV has much better controls than QT. Blah.

[RevEvs]

FYI: The next version of Perian (theres a 1.0 beta out there if you cant wait) has MKV support - i.e. Quicktime will be able to play them, and in turn EyeTV

I just stick to VLC. If it doesn't play in VLC then i bin it.

EDIT: I would post a link to the Perian beta - but the beta page tells me not to .. anyone who can use google can find it tho

[realdiamond]

You get the white screen due to the video not be a standard, the biggest one is X.264 encoder not being H.264 standard and encoded By widows XP/vista users, who of course don't know what they are doing.
But now An AVC1 plugin for quicktime 7 was put up on Apple.com site.
avc1Decoder - Video now even XP/vista encoded X.264 play. just bearly.
O the reason why the MKV component takes its time was explained in the read me doc. Like AVI Xvid and Dvix the Hole file is decoded in to the MAC's memory before the screen displays, Perlian trys to do it in the back ground, just like Flip 4 mac can do for WMV. but this extra work while playing MKV, is to much it hits the limit for my MAC and the frame rate drops dead but then its only a beta.

[Thinine]

I find the latest Perian beta handles mkv files pretty well, aside from the fact that it has to decode every keyframe in the movie before it can scrub it. Annoying, and not something VLC has to do.