Converting MKV to MP4 on Mac OSX

So I’ve been using QuickTime Player to re-encode most videos into 1080p, 720p, and 480p resolutions and that’s been working out great so far. The only problem is it doesn’t seem to understand MKV files, making it unable to re-encode them.

I’ve been searching for a tool for Mac that can do that job. On Windows, I’ve have an arsenal of tools that I used to use (e.g. Yamb, MeGUI). On Mac, everything I’ve tried seemed to do a rather poor job. Audio/Video quality was bad and often times would just fail trying to re-encode the file.

Today I happened to find this thread, which was extremely helpful: Why is it so freaking hard to convert .mkv to .MP4? Despite the topic, there were some really good information on which tools to try:

So the first one I tried was FFMpeg, because it was free and I was able to quickly install using HomeBrew. The command to run looked easy enough:
ffmpeg -i video.mkv -vcodec copy video.mp4

The video output was flawless, but the audio was all garbled up. Not that it was unrecognizable, but the audio had a much deeper pitch than the original. I’m pretty sure there’s some options I could pass into it to increase the audio quality, but I decided try some of the other suggestions.

I tried Subler next and this one failed hard. I selected the tracks I wanted followed by how to encode it, but every configuration I tried errored out with no message or log.

I looked at iVI next, but it was linked to a $10 app on the app store, and I wasn’t willing to purchase it w/o confirming that it would do the job. Later I found out their website actually allowed you to download a trial. They should probably mention that on their app store.

iFlicks looked more like a media manager that made videos compatible with your iDevice, so I skipped that one.

From the thread, HandBrake was suggested if I wanted to passthrough the video and audio, but I knew I needed to re-encode the audio track, so I skipped this one too.

I finally ended up at MP4Tools. I had skipped this initially because it sounded like a tool I’ve tried on Windows which was rather bad. But it turned out this tool was the best for the job on the Mac. Interface was pretty straight forward and at the outputted file’s video/audio quality was top notch. This is shareware and I ended up paying the $6 registration fee because this app’s going to save me a lot of time in the future.

Hope this post helps anyone looking for a better way to convert MKVs to MP4 on Mac OSX.

HD-Trailers.NET Downloader

BrianAz has been working a tool that’ll automatically download the latest trailers from our site:

HD-Trailers.NET Downloader

A tool to download the trailers from the HD-Trailers.net Blog. Schedule this to run once a night and it will download all the new trailers.

HD-Trailers.net Blog is the most comprehensive movie trailer site out there. They post links to all the newest HD trailers.

I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but the idea is rather neat.

If you have any questions, you can always direct them to BrianAz. There’s also a thread on Media Browser BBS on this particular tool: HD Movie Trailer Downloader Tool

Converting .mov to .mp4 Guide

For the past few months, Alex had been providing us with 1080p MP4 HD trailers which you can use to play on your PS3 (PlayStation 3). I thought it’d be neat and in the spirit of this site to provide a guide/tutorial on how he accomplishes the conversion.

Alex has kindly written up a tutorial on how he converts the .mov HD trailers to .mp4 files: Convert .mov to .mp4

He usually uses Quicktime Pro to do the conversion, but since Quicktime Pro isn’t free, he went and searched for a free alternative:

So after a small research, I came across a program called Yamb. Produces the same results as QuickTime Pro… for free!

Alex is also intending to do another tutorial for converting using Quicktime Pro and you can expect that shortly.

We hope you’ll find it useful.

Update:

As a continuation from yesterday’s posted guide, Alex has provided an update on how to use QuickTime Pro for the conversion. The guide is still located at:

Convert .mov to .mp4

Any comments and feedback are welcomed.

Free Download: Xilisoft Video Converter

Xilisoft Video ConverterFor those interested in converting these HD videos to something playable on other devices (such as PS3), Giveaway of the Day is currently giving away: Xilisoft Video Converter

Normally a $35 software, you have till 11:59pm PST today (June 17th) to download, install, and activate it.

Xilisoft Video Converter is powerful, versatile video conversion software which converts between all popular video formats such as convert AVI to MPEG, WMV to AVI, WMV to MPEG or H.264 video, convert AVI files to iPod formats, etc.

No other programs like Xilisoft Video Converter supports so comprehensive video formats including AVI, MPEG, WMV, DivX, MP4, MPEG-4 AVC, RM, MOV, XviD, 3GP, FLV, VOB (the video format used in DVD), DAT (the video format used in VCD, SVCD), etc. In addition, the video converter provides an easy way to convert video file to popular audio file, like MP2, MP3, WMA, WAV, RA, M4A, AAC, AC3, OGG, etc. The video converter also supports APE, CUE decoding and audio CD ripping.

Xilisoft Video Converter supports popular multimedia devices such as PSP, iPod, iPhone, Archos, mobile phone, Zune, etc. All conversions, such as AVI to MPEG, WMV to MPEG, WMV to AVI, MKV to AVI, MKV to MPEG, are very easy and fast with the best quality. Free download Xilisoft Video Converter to have a wonderful experience right now!

For more details, visit Xilisoft’s website.

No Sound on Yahoo! Trailers

I noticed lately when I play Yahoo! HD movie trailers in my browser, there’s been no sound and it always turns out to be that the volume is set to the lowest. I thought I might’ve accidentally lowered the volume, but if I increase the volume and reload that trailer, the volume goes all the way back down again. I then went ahead and tried an Apple HD movie trailer and they don’t have this problem. If you’re downloading the trailer, it doesn’t have this problem as your application most likely retains its settings, but for some reason if you use the Quicktime player in your browser, their trailer is able to control your volume setting.

I’ve verified this is the case on Firefox and when I tried it on IE7, the same thing occurred. So if you’re trying to watch a Yahoo! HD movie trailer in you browser and you get no sound, just go check the volume control as that’s very likely to have been lowered to no sound.

PS3 Video 9

I was browsing some threads over at AVForums checking up on some referrals that were linking to my site and I found out about this interesting application called: PS3 Video 9. It turns out you can use PS3 Video 9 and convert these HD trailers into .mp4 format which you can then use to play back on your PS3. Assuming you have a nice TV and a PS3, but no HTPC (Home Theater PC) hooked up to it, this is a easy workaround to play these nice high-def trailers on your TV.