Talk:Matroska/Archive 1

Archive 1

Linking to ogg

Link to ogg? --Repabil

Link to "The XviD-Ogg-MKV Walkthrough"

The Link to "The XviD-Ogg-MKV Walkthrough" doesn't work. I found that one:

h**p://www.meshier.com/dev/xvid/index.htm

moo

Fixed, moo. http://neap0litan.net/xvid/

Divx 7 will use Matroska as native container

Just a heads up from Doom9. Quoting DigitAl56K: "DivX 7 will use the MKV container format! That's right, you heard it here first: our new format does not use AVI!" source Also Corecodec has something coming concerning Matroska: mentioned later in the same thread. --91.154.248.171 (talk) 10:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Uh, Corecodec is working on Matroska 2.0! --91.154.251.216 (talk) 20:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Link to official site

thats real good info and good news too but it would be better if u provided the links to the official sites of the projects too!

When trying to link to the official site (as listed in the right-hand info box) I get a page load error. Has the site been removed/relocated? Justin.Blades (talk) 23:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Paraphrasing of official page

This page looks like too much a paraphrasing (plagarization) of the official home page. Needs to be redone. (Already promised I'd redo 'Ogg' and haven't, so anybody feel free to fix this.) --Heywood

I'll have a go. AlistairMcMillan 20:19, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Competing Technologies section

The competing technologies section is rather confusing. All the formats reffer to other formats (ie, OGM "supports everything that ratdvd does except for menus") and then ratdvd doesn't list what the heck it supports anyways. One could argue that the reader should go to ratdvd's page to see what it supports, but in that case, why not just go directly to OGM's page and read what it supports there? I think this section is either unnecessary (could be replaced with a container format comparison page?) or too confusing. 70.162.61.81 16:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you whoever fixed this! I think there's still a bit of room for improvement, but this is much much nicer IMO. 151.151.21.101 20:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, I think the whole section should be removed (and also removed from the linked articles that it is present in). It's a badly written section in the first place, and is rather redundant with the container comparison page. 151.151.21.101 20:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused by the first sentence: "The official playback solution for the Microsoft Windows operating system is the Combined Community Codec Pack." ... Who's the official? And, if MAtroska is a container, why would we need to know about a filter pack developed by an anime group? Jpf51286 01:11, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Why Matroska, not Matryoshka?..

I wonder why this project was called Matroska instead of Matryoshka, if it was named after Matryoshka doll. Matroska is something different - it's a kind of cap with 2 ribbons worn by Russian sailors. --Anthony Ivanoff 11:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

One wonders if it could have been simplified in order to read easier for those not used to Russian spellings? Bennity 00:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

That's what I think. Ш is sh any day of the week. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Davidleeroth (talk • contribs) 09:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

First, I must say that as it stands now, the sentence about how Matryoshka allegedly ought to be transliterated into the English alphabet, is a bit out of place. And I might at least consider finding another way of saying it which does not sound as «I want to show what I know» as it does know.

But to discuss this matter: Matryoshka is an excellent name of a container format - that is why it was called with this name.

As to why it was transliterated Matroska instead of Matryoshka. Well, is it certain Matroska is transliteration? It might be a transcription. It might not even be a transcription, it can simply be the name of the matryoshkas in another language. Kiev is not a transliteration of Ки́ев - that would have to be Kiyev. Kiev is the name of Ки́ев in many languages. Just as as Moscow is the english name of Москва.

Transliterations sometimes look very ugly. For instance there are many more which write Ekaterina than those that write Yekaterina. (While the opposite is the case for Eltsin versus Yeltsin.)

As for Matryoshka, there are more than one English way of writing that word. Matrioshka for instance. <http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Matrioshka_brain>. Other spellings are also possible. It depends, I suppose, on whether it intends to be «accurate» in some sense compared with Russian, or if it wants to stands on its own feet. Myself, being neither Russian or English, I find the «y» as the first part of Russian «ё» to look very ugly.

In most languages where they have their own, more or less native way of writing «matryoshka», you will find - I think - that the Russian «ё» has become a singel vowel - either «o» or «u», – and not «io» or «yo» or «jo» – or whatever. In German wikipedia it is Matroschka [[1]].

So we can only speculate why they have written Matroska. Personally I am happy that they did not bother to write Matryoshka. --Komputist

Matroska is a clever wordplay. It refers to both the famous cascading embedded dolls and the russian word for sailor suit. Anime, which is the main user of matroska is widely associated with the sailor suit girl genre. 91.82.32.98 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC).

The new logo seems to disprove any speculation that the misspelling is a pun or due to charset restrictions. Now they spell it with a haček but still with an o (not yo, io, 'o or ë): Matroška. This isn't a valid transcription or transliteration of матрёшка in any system. Does a word like матрoшка exist in any language? The Cyrillic version is still матрёшка. What were they thinking?--88.74.202.40 (talk) 14:57, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, a logo is not a product name, a logo is just a picture, which means the haček is irrelevant. It could just mean some sort of decoration over the S letter or whatever. A logo (i.e. a stylized picture) does not define a product name. A product name is defined in the official documents, specifications etc. published by the product creator(s), and the official documents by the Matroska team still say the name is Matroska, not Matroška. Anything else is irrelevant. Secondly, the logo was apparently done by a totally clueless person who had no idea what he was doing at all (the logo consists of brackets and the "Matroška" word written simply as text in the SVG file, which is something no graphics designer would ever do, not treating the letters as graphics/shapes, not giving it any treatement, relying on the availability of the exact same font and the exact same font rendering system, the text is not kerned, which is obvious at first sight etc.—this is the most basic beginner's mistake No. 1 in logo design, or more exacly, this is not logo design at all). So, the logo is totally amateurish (to the point that I would not even consider it a logo) and as such cannot be taken seriously—I bet the Matroska team doesn't even know or care about it, the new logo was probably just offered by some keen volunteer from a country that uses the Š letters, who was thinking it was a cool idea, and they just accepted it without really understanding how stupid (misspelling the official name in the official logo) it was.—J. M. (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

May I post X264 video w/o getting deleted

I want to use FFH264 (x264 in reality), LAME mp3, and Matroska for video. It won't be deleted cos it follows the GPL. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Renegadeviking (talk • contribs) 02:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

"Matroska" is NOT "Matreshka", nothing to speculate. Matroska has a totally different meaning.

Missing information.

On reading this article, prima facie questions I asked were, "What clients play this file type by default?", "What clients require a codec to play it?" and lastly, "What clients do not and cannot play this format?" Might be worth expanding in that direction. Jachin 17:22, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I see that there is now a section listing media players with "native support" for Matroska. At least two of those players don't recognize the extension even with codecs installed (WinDVD and PowerDVD), and the rest all require codecs. That's not "native" support, but they can be extended to support it. Haven't done all the research to know which is which since I don't have all those players. 24.116.22.86 (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Edited the Software Support header to remind readers that media player applications do not have 'native' support. They require additional software installed to the operating system, whether they are Windows desktop OS, Windows Mobile, Linux, Mac or others. By definition, 'native support' would mean straight out of the box/disc, and not even Linux offers this. 74.210.8.19 (talk) 23:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it was a good edit. Firstly, you changed "support" to "playback support", which is clearly wrong, as there are also video editors listed, not only players. That is, the section is not only about playback. Secondly, it's not true that all applications need additional codecs (or even drivers—what for?) installed. For example, the Avidemux video editor or MPlayer and VLC players use built-in decoders for all (or almost all) supported formats, they don't need anything else (yes, that's the "out-of-the box support", by definition), plus their codec support doesn't have anything to do with the operating system (they mostly don't use system-specific multimedia frameworks, that's why the "for the oprating system" expression is wrong, too), and it also does not have anything to do with Matroska support (if a software product supports Matroska, it supports Matroska even if it does not support the video/audio formats inside the file). So I'm reverting the edit, as it's completely wrong in everything.—J. M. (talk) 00:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Set top box compatability

I'd like to see information on what set top boxes support it, or how to get them to. In this I'd like to include consoles as set top boxes since the Xbox 360, PS3, and unofficially PS3 Linux and XBMC all support 'media' in some form or another.

Also I'd like to point out how annoyed I am with the popularity of mkv for x264 content, and the lack thereof of quick converters (as containers don't change the x264 video itself, it's like there's mkv x264 and mp4 x264, it's x264 encoded and x264 decoded, just packaged differently) to formats that are actually supported, like mp4/m4v/mov, on more consumer gear (specifically the increasingly popular set top boxes that can handle such media with ease when compared to the cost of the computer power necessary to decode such video, as described by Cringley). I tried finding easy ways to do so on Mac OS X, and apparently it's possible if I install the x264 package in fink or darwinports or whatever. I know Wikipedia is not a help forum, but it would be nice if wikipedia provided useful information for those of us struggling to take the very versatile Matroska and turn it into the very unversatile but very compatible mov/m4v/mp4 containers.

Not to say it's impossible for me to do it as is, but I'm tired of going through the effort. Some of us want to watch stuff on screens bigger than the popular Dell FPW2105 or whatever. But some of us just want to click a button, not on VisualHub to actually convert video to the same format losing quality, but on a program that will extract the raw data and repackage it into a usable form. Open Source fails. --TIB (talk) 05:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something here, but a casual glance at the linked comparison list appears to suggest that the MOV format supports everything that MKV does, and more (in-place editing, for instance). Perhaps you are referring to something else when you talk about the "very unversatile" formats?

Actually you hit on the reason I came to this page as well, "as containers don't change the x264 video itself, it's like there's mkv x264 and mp4 x264, it's x264 encoded and x264 decoded, just packaged differently". I came to try to figure out whether or not this is really true. As I understand it, the container formats differ primarily in the way they lay out the little bits of their files within the larger container file. If this is the case, then it seems that you should be able to convert from one to the other simply by reading the original MKV and then re-writing it in the MOV format, leaving the actual contents unchanged.

Sadly this article doesn't have any technical description at all, so I still don't know the answer! It looks like I'm going to have to start reading the code :-(

Maury (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, there are several tools that can come in handy when trying to do this. The problem though is that you can't guarantee it will work just by remuxing it. Certain set-top boxes may not support say Vorbis audio, or if you have AC3 5.1, they may need AAC Stereo, or something along those lines. Audio is going to be your major trouble-maker. The other big issue is that when encoding with x264, there are different profile levels, usually high level 5.1 is used for content you find online. It's supported by most x264 decoders. But, for compatibility it needs to be high level 4.1 in order to be used by set-top boxes. You can change this, but sometimes with mixed success.

The only tool I know of offhand is h264info that can change the profile level. Unfortunately, it's in early alpha and windows only, so I don't know if it will work for you.

the only other tools you should need are mkvtoolnix and mp4box. They are both pretty self-explanatory and have good documentation. I don't really know what else to say. It's not really all that complicated to do, if it works. If it doesn't work, it usually isn't going to work. There's good resources all over the place to get help in the process though, like the Doom9 forums and stuff.

I would say you might be guaranteed almost 100% success rate if you ensure the x264 stream is high level 4.1, make sure the audio is compatible with your set-top box and transcode as needed, and then just mux the streams into an mp4 with mp4box.

I'm not a regular wiki user, so if you need to get in contact with me somehow with a question or something just let TIB know, he's on IRC with me all the time.

12.226.169.154 (talk) 07:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

A combination of the later two might be very interesting. For universality, OGP, AVI and even WMV readers would also be useful. Maury (talk) 11:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And although it's in library form, GMerlin appears to fix all of the reading side of the problem. Hook that up to QuickTime for writing back out as a m4v and you're off to the races. Maury (talk) 12:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

revert?

I would like to revert the recent changes made by 70.118.119.177 as the current version of the article appears bloated and not more informative than before. Also it looks seriously out of place on Wikipedia. 88.64.177.108 17:06, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I made a few edits, as to the confusing metaphors and whatnot, as well as some weird grammar things. Also added VSO Softwares to the list of software that co-operates. MarVelo 03:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Hardware support section

I removed the hardware support section, as it is unencyclopedic. It is also slightly advertising like. I would like to remove it again, but I'll await feedback this time.

The anonymous editor who reverted my change also reverted other changes that shouldn't have been removed.

bruce89 (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Does it make sense to include the Sigma Design section, as their products don't support Matroska?

Kanhef (talk) 00:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Good question. It was included as they more or less own the market for devices in this segment - if its a settop box it very likely has Sigma chips under the hood and that's essentially what I was implying. If they don't support it, how will any device provide practical consistent decoding support? I'm not sure how to put that in a form that doesn't sound biased - but it is a fact in a technical and economic sense. I just looked up the Popcorn Hour device linked there, and I see literally DOZENS of threads on their forum site claiming that the Matroska support is inconsistent or non-existent. So I'd personally question the inclusion of that device even. This is sort of like saying you can install OSX on a vanilla PC- sure you can shoehorn it and hack it to work, but is it at all a reliable, supported, consistent product the way one expects a consumer electronics device to be? 74.210.71.26 (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the beyonwiz players from the Hardware Support section as the official specifications do not list support for the Matroska container, and these three threads in the official user forums make it quite plain that this brand of player does not support the playback of these files unofficially either.74.210.71.26 (talk) 03:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought, since there seems to be a great deal of deliberate confusion on this issue regarding hardware support - shouldn't there be some sort of verifiable requirement that the settop boxes manufacturers' state the device supports Matroska video? I've pulled the list of players others have posted here, because in fact none of them categorically state support for the container. Every last one of them that has been posted supports Matroska sorta, kinda, maybe on the third Sunday of odd-numbered months. and noone posting these brands have shown verifiable proof of support. Which is fine if you're a hardware hacker but otherwise is no help to an end user.74.210.71.26 (talk) 16:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

removed the phrase though some OEMs do add it to system designs based on these chipsets. someone tried to weasel into the facts about Sigma Designs' hardware. Nice try, would have been acceptable with a link to said OEM with their MKV support page. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 16:40, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Since neither Zensonic or Sigma support MKVs, if that's the case, both should be removed. I have heard of players out there supporting MKV though....haha, sure enough, the Cowan A3 does support MKV. Adding it to this section. :) Yfrwlf (talk) 19:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

After a year of struggling with a Dvico 6500 I can confirm that, among the many features that it promises but does not deliver there is the support for the mkv format. It shows the video content but no sign of the embedded Vorbis sound. When questioned about the issue their support suggests to convert the mkv to another format. Do not expect more from a company that doesn't even bother to translate the user manual in a decent English. 85.18.14.34 (talk) 03:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC) dommimi

I'd like to add the popcorn hour devices to this list. The A-200, S-210 and C-200 all support the Matroska container. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.170.244 (talk) 18:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Need discussion of x264?

x264 may fit into any container class. Surely this move is meant to capitalize on the demographics of available container class recognition, whereas mkv is relatively speaking, a non-existant recognized container class. Thus instead of focusing on h264, perhaps we could talk about viability issues concerning how deployment of container class recognition plays a factor into whether a codec like h264 can succeed on a wide range of platforms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.105.203 (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, did not realize h264 is properly accomdated with the latest ffdshow when h264 is inside avi. Rook2pawn (talk) 11:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There are only players in software section

The software section should be probably expanded and split to players and editors (such as VirtualDubMod, Avidemux). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.103.132.181 (talk) 17:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Why? What's wrong with the software section? There's nothing really to expand upon. What do you suggest? That we describe in detail how the process works when exporting XviD encoded files through VirtualDubMod into Matroska? — EliasAlucard (Discussion · contribs) 15:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that it would be nice, if the page answered the question what software can be used for editing the files in matroska format. And having section with general name "software" where there are only players in it is illogical anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.103.132.181 (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that video editors should be included in the software section, too. So for a start, I added Avidemux and VirtualDubMod. —J. M. (talk) 22:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Official Matroska icon

Is there an official icon (Windows .ico file, official .png images) for Matroska files? Justin.Blades (talk) 00:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, now displayed in the infobox Antonski (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Release Scene

By "Release Scene," are you referring to "illegal distribution"? So coy. Schear (talk) 20:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

See The Scene. Scene releases aren't necessarily illegal (although nearly all are), and there's plenty of video piracy that doesn't involve the scene. Plorkyeran (talk) 02:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Combined Community Codec Pack External Link Needed?

Is the Combined Community Codec Pack link really needed in the See Also section? It's just a filter pack that happens to include Matroska support, many packs out there do this. To me it just seems like a plug, but of course I'm just wondering. - BlaenkDenum (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

While there are other options, the CCCP is the officially endorsed Matroska playback pack. Plorkyeran (talk) 02:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Matroska reaches adulthood

There is some kind of "Island Fever" HDTV resolution porn circulating on the net in a single 7.5GB matroska file. It was supposedly ripped from the first ever commercial blue-ray XXX release. Budget laptops with shared memory VGA and weak Celeron-M processor do not have the horsepower to play it fluently, not even with VLC player. 91.83.4.250 (talk) 18:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

ffmpeg

ffmpeg also supports matroska. I saw it when I did an ffmpeg -formats yesterday. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.78.121.8 (talk) 12:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Page design

For some reason the logo was not displayed in the infobox. As a workaround I've set it as icon, just to overcome the issue. Any ideas if this is a problem with the infobox template? Is it possible to be fixed? Antonski (talk) 13:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this project still active?

Is there reason to believe this project is still active? I've been looking at their web page and at their svn repository. Nothing has changed in the last year. Is it because it is complete? I doubt that - no piece of software is ever fully complete. Who is developing this now? The player developers maybe? Like VLC and the like? Eeyore22 (talk) 15:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Blatant lie on my part. SVN repository is still active - last checkin on April 7, 2008. However, there seems to be a general lack of information as to what's going on with the project. Eeyore22 (talk) 15:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Criticism Section Must Be ReWritten A.S.A.P.

"Matroska has received a great deal of criticism in online movie and anime communities for being poorly optimized and too tolerant of poor encoding practices and file corruption, thus often requiring excessive processor usage for playback in supporting software, compared to other MPEG-4 containers." Smells like it was written by an anti-Matroska zealot --- makes very little sense(if any). KSM-2501ZX, IP address:= 200.155.188.4 (talk) 20:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Matroska indeed requires a bit more CPU than AVI. But it does not become clear from that paragraph, whether only demuxing of "poorly encoded" videos is CPU intensive. Is the container supposed to police users in the number of B-frames or usage of CABAC? -- J7n —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.99.184.75 (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

High-Definition video and High-Definition audio are more-commonly and more-conveniently stored in MKV than in AVI. Fancy-animated subtitles require more CPU-power as well. Nothing to do with the media container itself. KSM-2501ZX, IP address:= 200.155.188.4 (talk) 22:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What about the commentary regarding its lack of hardware support, is this also in dispute? I see in discussion there were (and still are) unanswered questions about this, and the Matroska homepage appears to have been claiming forthcoming hardware support for years now. PSPs, PocketPCs, cellphones, DVD players all run Divx videos but you'll never find a device that claims to playback Matroska files reliably, even non-HD content. Regarding convenience - are we going to redefine this term now too? Viewers don't care about the encoder's ease of use, if that's even what you were implying. If this is the case, then the section should state so clearly. Performance demands are the only quantitative metric here and comparing apples to apples with the same content at any definition, Matroska will be more demanding on the computer playing it. You can't weasel out of this by simply trotting out the catchall 'High-definition' as an excuse. 68.148.145.155 (talk) 05:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, first of all, and before anyone else decide to keep misunderstanding me, I do not mean that this article does not need a criticism section; as I said above, I think the criticism section of this article needs to be rewritten.

Matroska indeed requires a bit more CPU than AVI. This statement needs to mention reliable sources. As for the fact that the Matroska container still lacks a widespread hardware support, well, that's a fact, but less because of possible technical deficiencies/difficulties and more because of bad "marketing strategies" and similar/related things.

Regarding convenience - are we going to redefine this term now too? Let's not forget the design limitations of all the other "less unpopular" containers. Matroska is an attempt to overcome most(or all) of such limitations. Pre-installed support for AVI and ASF, on the one hand, and pre-installed support for MOV and MP4, on the other hand, unfortunately are NOT what all users should ever/always need.

Performance demands are the only quantitative metric here and comparing apples to apples with the same content at any definition, Matroska will be more demanding on the computer playing it.Again, needs a)technically-convincing argumentation, b)reliable sources, c) both things. KSM-2501ZX, IP address:= 200.155.188.4 (talk) 12:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Not that I am a reliable source, just sharing some experience. I have a group of videos in the following format XviD/2MBit/512*384/AC3(Stereo), and a computer that barely can play this kind of content (400 MHz Celeron). The result: same streams in AVI are playable from start till end without freezing at about 85% CPU, while CPU usage of the Matroska version often climbs above 100% (which means frozen frames). I can't rule out Hali Media Splitter though, with all its fancy bitrate graphs in Properties.

Matroska still owns all other containers, because it can store just about anything without transcoding requirements of its own, and does not give out bad smell of patents and copyright (such as MP4 and especially ASF). If AVI is needed and the streams are supported, transmuxing with VDM is quick and straightforward. -- J7n —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.99.184.75 (talk) 18:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

High-Definition video and High-Definition audio are more-commonly and more-conveniently stored in MKV than in AVI. What is this opinion based on? Does anyone have a source for a well-regarded site that has reviewed the containers? Ars, Tom's Hardware or something? 68.149.32.221 (talk) 04:26, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the "good-faithed" inputs :-) So, it really seems the Matroska container is more "CPU-hungry" than the AVI container. But it also seems the feature is a problem only for the old and slower computers. My PC is an outdated 1.5GHz Pentium IV and I could never notice it does have to work harder for playing-back MKVed videos smoothly. However I do have noticed it really has difficulties at trying to playback MP4 clips. Regarding the alleged "convenience" of the Matroska container for High-Definition formats: DivX and XviD can be adequately stored in the AVI container, but H264 is a potentially-problematic choice in such a case; H264-in-MKV, H264-in-MP4 and H264-in-M2TS = not-a-problem; WVC1-in-MKV is not uncommon in the Japanese P2P filesharing, WVC1-in-ASF is an obvious choice for the lazy/incompetent "releasers"; as for the audio, even AAC can be stored in an AVI file, but AFAIK only AVI-Mux can do that job, whereas WMA-in-any-container always sucks (LOL LOL LOL). I still have not met Hi-Def~Dolby or Lossless~DTS stored in AVI files.

signed: KSM-2501ZX, IP address:= 200.155.188.4 (talk) 14:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone intend to dispute the commentary about the hardware support of Matroska vs. other formats? I know I've never seen any box aside from a PC that supports it yet my 360, PocketPC (cellphone), and digital cable box all play Divx files and MP4. PSPs also support those too IIRC. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 22:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the criticism section needs to have the section poorly optimized and too tolerant of poor encoding practices and file corruption, thus often requiring excessive processor usage for playback in supporting software, compared to other MPEG-4 containers written in a technical explanation of how/why this is so, and how it would adversely affect playback, the current statement doesn't explain why this would be so. The criticism of the lack of hardware support is quite self-explanatory, IMHO. From a support perspective this project appears to be treading water badly, while the commercially-supported formats forge ahead. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 17:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The first and most important thing the Criticism section needs is links. Everything in Wikipedia articles must be verifiable, material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source. This is not optional, this is an official Wikipedia rule. Sections that do not cite any sources and yet contain challenged claims may get deleted. The Criticism section has been there long enough for its author (or anyone else) to provide any citations. He failed to do that, so if it does not get rewritten ASAP or if nobody provides any links, it is time to delete the whole section.—J. M. (talk) 19:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

How should one provide verifiable links for products/information that does not exist? Not to be a jerk, but this is a catch-22. If the product lacks hardware support this is literally a void of information, how does one document this? Doing some basic Google scrounging I found only ONE reference in the previous two years to a settop box that supposedly plays back MKV files, but user forums for this Tvix brand device report this support to be spotty at best. Further searches in user forums show that this support was never official either, but regardless posts by unknown random webboard users are hardly verifiable fact. Sigma Designs' three most recent MPEG decoder chipsets for video recording and playback devices support MP4 containers and h264/VC-1 codecs by name but make no mention of Matroska. The only fact I can find is Matroska's own homepage has had no news about hardware playback at all except an April 2006 statement that this would be forthcoming over two years ago in a product from Zensonic; subsequently this thread on the official Zensonic forum by a forum administrator (Zensonic employee?) denies playback support will be made available. So the only facts I can find are

1) that Matroska makes claims of hardware support which have not been delivered upon.

2) That the MPEG decoder chipsets used in the vast majority of dedicated video playback devices do not support Matroska. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 21:58, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I was talking about the "poor design" claims, not about hardware support. But even that part is quite easy—the section is called "Criticisms of Matroska". And so it claims that there are people who criticize Matroska for poor design, poor optimization and also lack of hardware support. But it does not say *WHO* are the people who criticize Matroska for that and where exactly they are (i.e. links, references, citations). And that's why it violates official Wikipedia policies.

I think you are missing the point of the whole section. The purpose of a Criticism section is not explaining why the product/thing is bad, but merely saying who says bad things about it and where. The answer to the "who is the person criticising it?" question cannot be "the person who wrote this section", that would violate two basic Wikipedia rules: no original research and neutral point of view. It is not up to the Wikipedia editors to criticize anything, explain what is good and bad. All they have to do is just reproduce what other people are saying about it, that's encyclopedic work. So for example, if there are people criticising Matroska for the lack of hardware support, then the Criticism section can say "there are people who criticise it for the lack of hardware support" and then provide links so that we could all see who says that. If there are no people (in reputable sources) who criticize Matroska for that, then it has no place in the Criticism section, that would be simply untrue, wishful thinking.

So I think what you really want is a separate "Hardware support section". There is already a "Software support" section, so feel free to add another one for hardware. You can do all those comparisons there. But the whole Criticism section is just completely broken. So, again, if it does not get fixed soon, it will be removed.—J. M. (talk) 23:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I have taken this suggestion under advisement and added the details I noted above into a separate Hardware Support section. I really can't speak to the encoding practices/playback issues/file corruption/etc even though it is plain to see with some searching on any of the dozens of forums out there for video playback & encoding that Matroska causes a lot of headaches under all operating systems. The problem simply seems to be there is no encyclopedia-quality citation, since they are all just users. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 19:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI -Just on a technical note regarding the playback issues: I just performed a quick & dirty test of an MKV file downloaded today. Demuxed and recompiled with the same video codec and bitrate, the AVI file required an average of 65-70% CPU usage on my older PC. The source MKV file (which contained 1 video, 1 audio, 1 subtitle and 7 Truetype font streams) required an average of 90% CPU usage and for me to place the Media Player Classic application in High process priority to maintain consistent rate. One could certainly say your PC must be on the Frontier of technology to achieve consistent results with Matroska. But being original research of course these results are invalid here. ;) 74.210.71.26 (talk) 02:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting, but it may also depend on the muxing application and/or the player/demuxer. I tried remuxing a Matroska file with H.264 video and MP3 audio to an AVI file and the CPU usage (using MPlayer for playback) was about 60% for the Matroska file, and about 55% with the AVI...—J. M. (talk) 03:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

And as I'm sure the proponents of the container would point out this is due to a different(better)CPU architecture. My test was done on an Athlon XP 2500, and yours definitely sounds faster than that. There are also dozens of other factors, which from my reading any of which can affect the reliability of playback. I made some minor cleanup of the Hardware Support section to spell out better what devices Sigma manufactures and what they do. 74.210.71.26 (talk) 01:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother trying to edit this page, the marketing chick for this company will just jump back in and airbrush away all the truth. Is Wikipedia receiving bribes for this whitewash? What we need is a public tool that allows edits from anyone. And where the truth is not erased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.228.183.111 (talk) 23:53, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I recommend reading the Wikipedia help pages, rules and guidelines. This would not only teach you to sign your comments on talk pages, place them below the latest entry in the section (not trying to grab all attention by placing them at the top, which is the equivalent of shouting in ALL CAPS) and proper code of conduct, but also the five pillars of Wikipedia. Which would save you time and frustration:

1. Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone.
2. Wikipedia articles are not about truth, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
3. Every fact presented in a Wikipedia article must be attributable to a reliable source, original research is forbidden.
4. If anything in any Wikipedia articles fails to meet the required conditions, there are standard ways to deal with it: using {{fact}} tags and other templates, discussing the topic on the talk page, and, if necessary, using other ways of dispute resolution.

In short: there is no reason to despair. Wikipedia is built on self-healing mechanisms and neutrality. If you can prove that anything in the Matroska article cannot be supported by citing an independent, reliable source, you can challenge it, and if it doesn't get fixed, you can remove it. If it keeps being added again, there are ways to deal with it, too. That's the standard way Wikipedia works. Addressing the problem constructively is more useful than inventing conspiracy theories.—J. M. (talk)

MkvToolNix

Why MkvToolNix isn't mentioned anywhere in the article? It's the Matroska creation tool. And I wonder what is Moritz Bunkus' relationship with the Matroska development team. -- J7n —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.99.184.75 (talk) 02:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I added mkvtoolnix + a reference. It was there but got deleted, because it has no Wikipedia article. I wonder why other tools got articles since it's just software. It's just not necessary to have an article for every software out there. IMO this is not the purpose of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.39.63 (talk) 09:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well if it's required then one could think about adding an article for it. (please) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.39.63 (talk) 09:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

If it is so important, please do add it to the text (together with a reference about its significance). Please do not add red links to a long list of wikilinks. If you believe other software is not relevant, state so on the respective talk pages. (I do agree with you!) And please add a reference for mk3d, I have never heard of it.--Regression Tester (talk) 11:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I wont judge about the relevance of other listed software, but I do comply with the rest. If I can prove the significance of mkvtoolnix (contain mkvmerge) I'll add is as text. For .mk3d should I add 1.) http://www.matroska.org/index.html or 2.) http://www.matroska.org/technical/guides/faq/index.html ? What do you think is a better reference? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.61.39.63 (talk) 13:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Standalone player support

According to the manual (page 30), the JVC XV-BP1 will support the MKV format. Also an Dutch article on Tweakers.NET states this. The JVC XV-BP1 is scheduled for release end of may.

192.42.125.250 (talk) 06:32, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

sample test files

Where can one find a good set of sample test files? -71.174.175.104 (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The bane of video servers the world over

Someone should point out that 99% of posts to do with MKV are about what an epic fuck around it is to get it to work. Xbox, ps3, etc users all have massive grief from it, and most posts out there are asking how to convert it to a 'real format', so the criticism of the masses really should be addressed. MKV is a nifty idea, but in practice with so few viewers supporting it it's shit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.205.101 (talk) 15:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I concur. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.161.172.235 (talk) 05:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The bane of the Wikipedia talkpages are users who do not sign their comments. Please take note that everything in Wikipedia articles needs to be quoted from a reliable source. Fleet Command (talk) 16:52, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

FleetCommand: Get the hell over yourself. 24.126.139.64 (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

FleetCommand: Why make Wikipedia less user-friendly than it already is by requiring a login?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.206.92 (talk • contribs) 04:14, 5 February 2011

Wikipedia does not require a login. But all users must always sign their posts on talk pages, whether they are logged in or not. This is an official Wikipedia guideline.—J. M. (talk) 05:11, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

uh.. then why is the section on Samsung even here? The 'source' is a GIZMODO ARTICLE for one, and if you google for "Samsung MKV" you get... well, 99% of the posts are saying what an epic fuck around it is to get working. If you can get it working at all. Samsung has told people "that MKV/MP4 support is a new feature with no documentation"— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.206.92 (talk • contribs) 04:14, 5 February 2011

Trotsky:Maybe Samsung should look at the superb documentation provided by the MkvToolNix project and stop whining.

Wikipedia requires reliable sources. Internet forums posts are not reliable sources, and therefore cannot be cited in Wikipedia articles. If you can find a reliable source that says Matroska files do not work well with Samsung players, it could be mentioned in the article.—J. M. (talk) 05:11, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Content in Matroska

I've tagged this section as it appears to be entirely original research, while I believe many would generally agree with the statements it still requires a reliable source. Luthair (talk) 17:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Binary format

"the use of the Extensible Binary Meta Language (EBML) instead of a binary format" <-- but EBML is a binary format, so this statement doesn't make sense. Should it read "... instead of another binary format" ? Boardhead (talk) 17:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section (redux)

I just tried to find some reviews from reliable sources. They are all positive or neutral. I am perplexed. MkV is a hog, doesn't work well with lots of players, especially older version of the players, is incompatible with DVD players, and is despised by everyone I know. Where are the negative reviews? This product is not all sunshine and lolly pops. The article needs a criticism section badly. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

A few problems here, MKV is typically used with newer codecs such as h.264 which is likely the source of your problems rather than the container. h.264 is a more advanced codec which does require more computing power to decode, but thats the trade-off for increased quality at lower bitrate. Luthair (talk) 03:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

If that were true, the video would not be MKV but MP4. MKV is best used for dealing with video 'inside', and then converting it to MP4 or AVI for anyone else outside where it was produced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.151.16.8 (talk) 15:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Like the person I replied to originally you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding between media codecs, media containers, and their purpose. Matroska, like MP4 is simply a container format used to wrap other data. (ie, audio/video streams) Luthair (talk) 13:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

ps3 not compatible?

anyone know if there is a way to make the ps3 play this file format? anyone know an easy way to convert this to avi with free software? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.160.131.17 (talk) 02:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

mkv2vob converts mkv to ps3 compatible format. 178.140.89.5 (talk) 18:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

If you have a media server, like mediatomb, or PS3MediaServer, they can play it just fine as well. Converting it on the fly, that is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.213.3.20 (talk) 03:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Old Matroska logotype

I think old logotype should be added to history section. Old Matroska logotype represents 3 Matryoshka dolls. After redesign made by CoreCodec this meaning was lost in new logotype. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Matroska.svg - good quality old logo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.140.89.5 (talk) 18:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Western Digital WD TV (2nd Gen) is not compatible with matroska!

http://kurzurl.net/azcZ7 If you want to buy a matroska compatible player, don't buy a WD TV (2nd Gen). Other manufacturers released a bugfix firmware, but not WD. Best regards --Akapuma (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

player list

I can see in the player list both MPlayer and its frontend, SMPLayer, which is not standalone application. Shouldn't this be fixed?

I think you forgot Media Player Classic HC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.14.158 (talk) 21:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Hardware requirements

I currently use a very slow computer, and I find myself having to give up on trying to watch .mkv video because of the choppy playback they give. If this format is more demanding on your hardware than for instance AVI, which I don't experience problems with, then I suggest this be discussed in the article. __meco (talk) 16:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It is very, very unlikely that mkv has a higher performance need than any other container (like avi). Perhaps the mkv file you are testing is higher resolution or uses a codec with higher computational need than your avi file?--Regression Tester (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's been this way with several mkv files, so it appears to be consistent. __meco (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Let me try it differently: The computational need to demux a file format is at least a magnitude smaller than decoding any (useful) video format, therefore even if demuxing mkv has measurably higher performance needs than demuxing avi (which at least would need a credible source), it could never signicantly influence overall decoding speed.--Regression Tester (talk) 00:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the several mkv files contain similar content in terms on resolution & codec needed. Therefore, they'd all play the same. If you played a file with whose contents were a different format then it may play fine. It could be the codec that's more demanding, not it being a mkv file! Dannman (talk) 11:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Criticism section needed :Inability to play a MKV file

Many threads are out on the WWW about MKV files not playing on video players and that it is too cpu intensive for weaker computers and wont render an image.

Mkv is buggy on large files that are packaged in RAR compression.

I myself had this issue and had to use free software transcoder MKC converter like GOTSent or FREEMAKE.

--24.31.243.165 (talk) 05:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

First of all, the "Criticism" section, just like everything else on Wikipedia, must be backed up by reliable sources. Web forums are not reliable sources. Second, I doubt you can find reliable sources for your claims, because from a technical point if view, it is all total nonsense.—J. M. (talk) 11:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Unique ID

In the properties mkv file have a Unique ID. What does it mean? 93.81.176.168 (talk) 19:00, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Metadata

• mp3-files can contain metadata in the ID3-Tag format.
• ogg-files can contain metadata in the Vorbis comment-Tag format.
• m4v-files can contain metadata in the Extensible Metadata Platform-Tag format.

Is there a tag-format for metadata supported by Matroska? For Director, Writer, actors, year, etc. Semsi Paco Virchow (talk) 12:08, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I found something here: matroska tag and matroska tag video example. But it seems a bit "hacky". I am searching for something like Vorbis comment but for matroska and Videos, and of course some program to do the tagging like say puddletag Semsi Paco Virchow (talk) 12:13, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup

I feel the hardware and software support sections ought to be removed, they largely lack citations and other container formats such as AVI, MP4 and Ogg do not contain these sections; it largely functions as advertising. Similarly the link to the CCCP article ought to also be removed.

I also question the presence of the SubStation Alpha link as supported subtitles and a/v codecs are not exhaustively listed on container pages. Luthair (talk) 04:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Scene groups changed mp4 for mkv

Scene groups changed mp4 for mkv. I think this is relevant because wide use. Pirates Frustrated After TV Release Groups Swap .MP4 for .MKV --Kizar (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2016 (UTC)