How to play MKV files on Windows, Mac OS or Linux.

The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free Container format developed by matroska that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks inside a single file. It is one of the contending formats to the popular AVI and MP4 formats. It aims to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows. MKV files are based on EBML (Extensible Binary Meta Language), a binary class of XML.

Matroska file types –

-          .mkv : Generally video files, as well those containing audio ( movies ) or video only

-          .mka : audio only files, can contain any supported audio compression format, such as MP2,  MP3, Vorbis, AAC, AC3, DTS, PCM and soon MPC ( musepack )

-          .mks : a so called ‘elementary’ matroska stream containing any subtitles stream

What is Container format?

Whenever you play a movie on your computer, one video stream and one audio stream is handled at the same time. In layman terms, lets say you pack an MP3 audio file and a video file, into a single file by using a so-called container format file, comparable to a ZIP file.

This container and the software coming with it take care of the correct timing of the audio and video playback when the file is played (opened). ZIP or RAR could be a perfect container to pack one or more audio/video streams together into one single file for distribution purpose, but WinZip does not care about the correct timing of video and audio files on playback.

Example of good containers – AVI ( most DivX movies you will get will have an .avi extension ), or the MPEG container ( .mpg , .mpeg ), Quicktime ( .mov ), Realmedia ( .rm ), MP4 ( .mp4 ), etc. .

How to play matroska files on Computer?

1)       Using VideoLAN VLC media player

VLC player supports all the video and audio streams you will find in an MKV file. You need not to install any codecs or filters to play mkv files.

2)       Using Media Player Classic

Media Player Classic has a built in DVD player with real-time zoom, support for AVI subtitles, QuickTime and RealVideo support (requires QuickTime and/or Real Player); built-in MPEG2/SVCD/DVD codec. To play mkv file you need to install updated Matroska Pack. To do so follow simple steps below -

Open Media Player Classic and navigate to View –> Options then Select Internal Filters situated on the left and then uncheck to disable Matroska. Now Install the Matroska Pack. You should now be able to play the mkv files.

3)       Convert mkv file format to avi,wmv,mov,mp4 or other media format.

  You can convert the file format from mkv to other video formats supported to your player. The file can be converted online using media convert.

 Programs that can open mkv files 

 Mac OS 

 MPlayer

 VideoLAN VLC media player

 Apple QuickTime Player with the Perian component installed

 Windows 

 Windows Media Player with Matroska DirectShow playback pack

 Media Player Classic

 Core Media Player with CDL plugin

 VideoLAN VLC media player

 Matroska Splitter

 NERO Show Time with K-Lite Codec Pack

 Linux 

 VideoLAN VLC media player

Important download information for other media players to play .mkv files-

To download the updated codecs or plugins and video players for windows, Mac OS or Linix as mentioned above visit the download link of matroska.

On the download page you will find the link to the very latest DirectShow parser filter, to play your .mkv files on Microsoft Windows with every DirectShow based player such as Windows Media player (6.4/7/8/9), Zoomplayer and BSplayer. The best playback support from Windows is currently achieved with The Core Media Player, if the matroska CDL plugin was used.

For Linux PCs, as well as for MacOSX and the X-Box emulation you need to get the latest version of mplayer. RPMs are available from Mosu’s mkvtoolnix site.

Related posts:

1. How to Play VIDEO_TS files in Windows, Mac or Linux?
2. How to Open or Play RMVB Files in Windows,Mac,LINUX or Ubuntu
3. What is FLAC File and how to play Flac files on Windows, Mac OS or Linux.
4. Repair, fix and play broken AVI files with Fix Player
5. How to Fix, Play Broken or Partially Downloaded File on Windows, Mac or Linux
6. What is .daa file and how to open or play .daa files on Windows, Mac or Linux
7. How to Open or Play AMR file on Windows and Mac OS
8. How to Play RMVB files with .srt Subtitles in Mac and Windows
9. Play RAR Movie or Video Files without Extracting its Content
10. 10 Best Free Skype Call Recorders (Windows/Mac/Linux)

Tagged as: Audio & Video, Files