How to change container without transcoding video or audio?

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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motti.shneor
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 7:06 am

How to change container without transcoding video or audio?

Post by motti.shneor »

Hi.

I have a set of .AVI files. I don't like this container and I'd like to have an .MKV or QuickTime, or even an .MP4 instead.

I am not exactly sure that the audio and video formats within my .AVI are compatible with .MP4 container, but they must be compatible with .MKV or QuickTime.

My .AVI contains

1 video stream of MPEG-4 Video (DivX) 720x576 at 25fps, Planar 4:2:0 YUV
1 audio stream of MPEG audio layer 1/2/3 (mpg a) 48000Hz, Stereo, at 128kb/s

Can I use HandBrake to just re-wrap these streams into a decent .MKV, QuickTime or .QuickTime without losing video/audio quality by transcoding? I'd like to have the same content exactly re-packed, re-interleaved, whatever is needed, just not an .AVI.

Is this possible?
GregiBoy
Veteran User
Posts: 908
Joined: Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:23 pm

Re: How to change container without transcoding video or audio?

Post by GregiBoy »

No. Use MKVMerge
Deleted User 13735

Re: How to change container without transcoding video or audio?

Post by Deleted User 13735 »

Container interchangeability is much more limited than you think.
And no, Handbrake does not do that.
Devore
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:57 pm

Re: How to change container without transcoding video or audio?

Post by Devore »

MKVMerge (from mkvtoolnix) will create an MKV from a wide variety of other containers. For other formats (like MP4) there are also tools, just search around for something like "mp4 muxer/multiplexer". Although, mp4 can be very sticky about the stream formats, mkv handles pretty much anything. Also, if you're doing this just because your player doesn't play your AVI files, it might still not be able to recognize the formats within the MKV file, in which case transcoding will be necessary.
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