Help needed: .mkv to .wmv-hd

46797 Views 109 Replies 29 Participants Last post by Questi4110, Dec 23, 2009

Nox

Discussion Starter · May 10, 2007

I'd like to demux, remux then reencode an .mkv to .wmv. The problem is, past the very basics, I don't know what I'm doing.

So far I've demuxed the .mkv and extracted two files .ac3 (audio), and an .h264 (video).

Can anyone direct me to programs to remux these together and reencode them to .wmv? I've tried Canopus Procoder 2, WMEncoder, and VideoRedo. None of these programs recognize the .h264 video file (though, I can play it on my PC).

Any help would be appreciated.

1 - 20 of 110 Posts

getnate12345

· #2 · May 10, 2007

Try the WM Stream Editor, I will try it later tonight. Plesase reply if you are successful, I would like to get that working too.

I wanted to test out the new MP4 decoding ability but all the MP4's I create dont work. I ge some kind of error after I put it on a USB flash drive and try to play it. Your approach may work better, MUX the components into a WMV instead of an MP4. Then I could stream it over the network too! Great idea.

-Nate

getnate12345

· #3 · May 10, 2007

It looks like the WM Steam Editor is legacy code and doesnt come with Windows Media Encoder anymore.

I found another muxer: this guys WMV Muxer: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120320

Nox

Discussion Starter · #4 · May 10, 2007

I was just writing a response to you...

I have WM Stream Editor, but it only recognizes .wmv, .wma, and .asf if I try to add them to the source.

I just tried the WMV Muxer from Doom9, the problem with my situation, is the .h264 file. Nothing knows what it is. I tried renaming the file extension to .mp4, and that doesn't help either.

What is an .h264 file? I know h264 is a codec, but I've never before seen it used as an extension.

So, unless I can change this .h264 file, I'm pretty much stuck where I'm at.

EDIT: Wait a sec... that last program accepts .mkv files directly. I skipped right over that. I'll try it now and see where it goes.

EDIT2: I get this ==>"Could not render input file, (hresult = 0x80040154)

Cause: Class not registered".

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Nox

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 10, 2007

I just tried River Past Video Cleaner. It's the same issue as with every other program I've tried to use. It does not recognize the .h264 extension of the video file.

The WMVmuxer read it as a V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC. But it's still unusable.

wooga

· #6 · May 10, 2007

I use Canopus Procoder 2 to convert mkv to wmv.

In order to get Canopus to recognize an mkv file, however, you need to create an avs script. Essentially, an avs script is just a text file with a .avs extension. Within the avs script is the path for the target file. This takes about 5 seconds to do.

Canopus will let you open the .avs file. Canopus will then recognize the mkv file and allow you to convert to wmv.

Converting a high def 720p file usually takes me about 4 times the length of the original file on a 3ghz machine. Without losing any noticeable video quality, this is much faster than any other program I've tried (TPMGEnc was something on the order of 36:1 time for converting).

Supposedly (according to Canopus' website), ProCoder 3 will recognize mkv and mp4 files natively. The website is not shipping ProCoder 3 yet.

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Nox

Discussion Starter · #7 · May 10, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by wooga /forum/post/0

I use Canopus Procoder 2 to convert mkv to wmv.

In order to get Canopus to recognize an mkv file, however, you need to create an avs script. Essentially, an avs script is just a text file with a .avs extension. Within the avs script is the path for the target file. This takes about 5 seconds to do.

Okay. I'm all for it. So how do I do this?

EDIT: never mind... I figured it out. Thx.

EDIT2: Um...no, I didn't. I made a txt file with the path. Changed it to .avs. Ran it with Canopus. Canopus opened, but it it showed a 10 minute file of nothing.

I'm totally lost.

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getnate12345

· #8 · May 10, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by wooga /forum/post/0

I use Canopus Procoder 2 to convert mkv to wmv.

In order to get Canopus to recognize an mkv file, however, you need to create an avs script. Essentially, an avs script is just a text file with a .avs extension. Within the avs script is the path for the target file. This takes about 5 seconds to do.

Canopus will let you open the .avs file. Canopus will then recognize the mkv file and allow you to convert to wmv.

Converting a high def 720p file usually takes me about 4 times the length of the original file on a 3ghz machine. Without losing any noticeable video quality, this is much faster than any other program I've tried (TPMGEnc was something on the order of 36:1 time for converting).

Supposedly (according to Canopus' website), ProCoder 3 will recognize mkv and mp4 files natively. The website is not shipping ProCoder 3 yet.

The disadvantage to this method is that it requires a re-encode. If the streams could just be muxed then no re-encode is necessary and the file can be converted in ~2 minutes (~15 minutes if audio needs to be converted).

Originally I was re-muxing to MP4 but my videos were not compatible with Xbox360. I think I will try another muxer like MP4box. The last hurdle is to get the MP4 to show up in the Media Library of WMP11. For some reason WMP wont let me add MP4's to the library.

tbass2k

· #9 · May 10, 2007

Is possible to stream .mkv files without doing some kind of re-encode (which takes forever)? I'm honestly trying to figure out what advantage this spring update gave us as far as video playback is concerned. I was using winavi to convert pretty much everything into wmv before the update; do I still have to do that with everything that isn't .wmv? I know the update says it plays h264 and mp4, what extensions does this include?

Shaner1

· #10 · May 10, 2007

I've tried multiple programs and finally found this one, by far it's the best I've used. If you follow the instructions you should find faster encodes, great quality, and it's easy to use. With the Minimum/Maximum Complexity option set to fastest my encode times were cut in half and the quality remained.

I just uploaded it and here's the link. Give it a shot.

360 Encoding Pack

Cheers

getnate12345

· #11 · May 11, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by getnate12345 /forum/post/0

The disadvantage to this method is that it requires a re-encode. If the streams could just be muxed then no re-encode is necessary and the file can be converted in ~2 minutes (~15 minutes if audio needs to be converted).

Originally I was re-muxing to MP4 but my videos were not compatible with Xbox360. I think I will try another muxer like MP4box. The last hurdle is to get the MP4 to show up in the Media Library of WMP11. For some reason WMP wont let me add MP4's to the library.

I figured out my problem. The video I was trying to remux was using h.264 High Profile @ Level 5.1 (I used YAMB v1.6.0 to find this info). Xbox only supports h.264 @ Level 4.1 which means I will have to convert this video to watch it on the 360. Bummer, it so much faster to remux (2 minutes vs 4 hours).

Nox

Discussion Starter · #12 · May 12, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaner1 /forum/post/0

I've tried multiple programs and finally found this one, by far it's the best I've used. If you follow the instructions you should find faster encodes, great quality, and it's easy to use. With the Minimum/Maximum Complexity option set to fastest my encode times were cut in half and the quality remained.

I just uploaded it and here's the link. Give it a shot.

360 Encoding Pack

Cheers

Thanks for the help. I downloaded it and installed everything exactly as the directions in it said. Everything went smooth until I hit the encode button.

I got an error "Could not open input stream". Then a pop-up appeared telling me the program encountered a problem and had to close.

This is either because I'm not making the .avs file correctly, or it's because the video file uses the extension .h264 (which is the same problem every program I've tried to use has).

It wasn't the .avs file because I changed it and tested a different .mkv (a small sample) and it worked.

Now I'm back to the original problem from my original post. How do I reencode out of the .h264 extension??

EDIT: I've tried several sample .mkv files all around 1 minute to 1 1/2 minutes long. Every time, the first 10-40 seconds have broken video that blinks with a gray screen. The remaining minute of the samples encode perfectly. Any idea why that is?

EDIT2: I've done more samples. Tried multipass, and like Shaner said, it crashes. Also, some files' video blink gray screens all the way through, while some only during the beginning 1/4 of the sample. I hate to try a full movie and after 8 hours of encoding find that the first 1/4 of it is trash!

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rodbeezy

· #13 · May 14, 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaner1 /forum/post/0

I've tried multiple programs and finally found this one, by far it's the best I've used. If you follow the instructions you should find faster encodes, great quality, and it's easy to use. With the Minimum/Maximum Complexity option set to fastest my encode times were cut in half and the quality remained.

I just uploaded it and here's the link. Give it a shot.

Cheers

Seems I have some issues getting the thing started. Particularly when using the 5.1 channel audio parameters in WMEnc. 2 channel options seem to work. Everytime I try the 5.1 options, I get this error msg:

FAILED(hr=0xc00d0bb8) in converter.Initial( EncParams.szIn, FALSE, EncParams.szOut, EncParams.pProfile, FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, -1)

Some info on my input test mkv according to MediaInfo:

2 audio streams: First is 48KHz, 6 channels, A_EAC3, Second is 48KHz, 5 channels, AC3

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Nox

Discussion Starter · #14 · May 14, 2007

Still no luck with my situation. I'm ready to give up on this whole .wmv encoding.

I've encountered another problem, but this time with wmfdist11.exe. Trying to install it in Vista I get "not enough storage is available to process this command", then "installation did not complete".

Is it not Vista compatible?

Shaner1

· #15 · May 14, 2007

Hi guys,

Sorry for the late response...

To rodbeezy: Make sure that ffdshow is set up for 5.1 output. You can change this in the ffdshow audio decoder configuration. Go to the Mixer option in the list on the left side and select either "same as input" or "3/2 - 5 channels" with LFE toggled. I use same as input in case I encode anything that has a 2 channel source.

Nox:

I run this on Windows XP, not sure if it runs on Vista. I'm not sure what the problem could be. Every mkv I have tried has worked with no problem. I also haven't had the gray screen issue either. I'm no pro at this, just got lucky with the instructions working for me. The only problem I had was the same one Rob posted about.

Try the doom9 forums, you might find an answer there. Sorry, wish I could help. The only other advice I could give would be to make sure all your other codecs are uninstalled and then give it another shot. Although you probably already did that as I think it's stated to do so in the instructions.

Cheers

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rodbeezy

· #16 · May 14, 2007

Shaner, thx for the pointer. Now I just need to sit and tap my fingers as my athlon xp 2400 gets the damn video going...

snrsuave

· #17 · May 14, 2007

Just to chime in...

I've been able to get Windows Media Encoder to work converting my .mkv with AC3 or DTS 5.1 audio to WMV-HD 5.1 WMV files, and in Vista! If any of you are running Vista and having problems, I think that might be because some codecs have problems with Vista. I found a codec pack called "Vista Codec Package" and installed that after I had uninstalled every codec pack I had. Once I did that, I loaded a .mkv file straight into WME and it worked. Plays back great through my 360!

Nox

Discussion Starter · #18 · May 15, 2007

I have that codec pack downloaded. I'll give it a whirl.

vertigo235

· #19 · May 15, 2007

I've been using Encode360, altough it's not that fast, the files work just fine.

http://dcunningham.net/encode360/

tumult

· #20 · May 16, 2007

snrsuave - a couple of questions on your success- is windows media encoder a seperate d/l or is it built into vista? also, once you d/l the vista codec, did you then have to reencode the .mkv file to wmv? if so, how long did it take/how big was the file?

thanks,

tum

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