MP4 vs MKV

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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shapper
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:30 pm

MP4 vs MKV

Post by shapper »

Hello,

I am encoding my movies with H.264. Should I use MP4 or MKV format?

What are the differences?

Thanks,
Miguel
belloq
Bright Spark User
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:09 am

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by belloq »

Depends on what you what to do with the final output, that is, what's the destination player device/software.

However, in general, I would recommend MP4.
shapper
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Mar 29, 2009 8:30 pm

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by shapper »

I am using Western Digital TV (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/produc ... anguage=en) to watch the movies on a TV.

I was able to see MKV files with no problem ... But I also had some problems with some movies when encoding to MKV.

So I am not sure if I should start using MP4.

Thanks,
Miguel
fred_be9300
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu May 07, 2009 10:04 pm

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by fred_be9300 »

I suppose you should ask on a WDTV related forum, like wdtvforum.com or on avsforum.com.

Anyway, I also have the WDTV, and AFAIR, mp4 container is more restricted in supported audio codecs, e.g. I'm not sure you can have AC-3 in MP4. So that's the kind of thing you could consider.
belloq
Bright Spark User
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:09 am

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by belloq »

fred_be9300 wrote:Anyway, I also have the WDTV, and AFAIR, mp4 container is more restricted in supported audio codecs, e.g. I'm not sure you can have AC-3 in MP4. So that's the kind of thing you could consider.
Not sure if you're meaning that the WDTV may not support AC3 in MP4, but AC3 in MP4 is definitely supported in the MPEG-4 standard. That's why it's available in HB.

(Just chiming in. I don't have a WDTV.)
peterjcat
Novice
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2007 12:00 pm

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by peterjcat »

Probably more accurate to say that until fairly recently AC3 was not supported in the MP4 standard, and many (especially hardware) players haven't caught up yet. I would be surprised if the WDTV could read it, the NMTs definitely can't, so for those purposes MKV is probably better.
belloq
Bright Spark User
Posts: 223
Joined: Sun Oct 12, 2008 5:09 am

Re: MP4 vs MKV

Post by belloq »

True enough. That said, the WDTV manual doesn't list AC3 as available in the mp4 file format/container. It does specifically call out Dolby Digital in AVI, DVR-MS, and MKV files. Neither do the release notes for the 4 available firmware updates list anything about AC3 in MP4. They keep making updates for the MKV container.
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