MKV format

[sabelv]

hey, if i burn a high res movie (MKV format) to a dvd, can i play it on my dvd player (pioneer dv-220)

 

[GlocksRock]

no, it won't work, you would have to transcode the video to a format your dvd player can read.

 

[its phillip]

MKV is just a container. Anyway, look for a program called MKV to VOB. Convert to vob, then burn a video dvd.

 

[m_vanmeter]

you might consider a media box like the "Western Digital TV Live Plus". It will play the MKV files in their native format and you can feed the box with a "share" on your computer or the digital files on a USB hard drive or stick drive.

 

[sabelv]

okay, but is vob the best format readable by a dvd player? like it has the best quality? im looking to convert it so my dvd player can read it, but i dont know what the best format is (near lossless if possible)

 

[BMXTRIX]

sabelv - you have to understand that DVDs are not DVDs.

That is, the disc you stick into your DVD player with a commercially purchased DVD has MPEG2 data which has been compressed to 720x480i video which is Redbook standardized for playback in 100% of all DVD players in the USA (or your specific region of the world). The fact it MAY play back CDs, or VCDs, DVD-A, or SACD is just an extra, but to play back a DVD itself the disc must be formatted with proper DVD VIDEO structure on the disc itself.

The MKV file format isn't lossless. It is just something which holds video in it. I can't be to specific about MKV itself, but let's put it this way - if there way an old VHS tape copy of a movie in lousy quality - and it was coverted to low-resolution video... that video could then be put into a .MKV file. It would still be a lousy cruddy video.

Now, if you start with a HD video, and it is in .MKV format, you won't have any luck with a true DVD conversion, because DVD is limited to 720x480 resolution and the .MKV file will have to be down converted to that resolution for proper Redbook DVD standard playback.

I'm personally going to do some things this year (money permitting) to play with media servers including a product called Popcorn Hour and one called Dune Base 3.0 which are media playback devices. These will connect over my home network to videos I will have stored on my computer and they will play the videos back without issue. No DVD required. Straight from my PC, over my network to the media player, to my TV (and receiver).

 

[sabelv]

i see.. your reply basically have everything i wanna know bout dvd, thx a lot man, but still, if i want to make a dvd, what format should i use? (for the best image quality)

 

[BMXTRIX]

i see.. your reply basically have everything i wanna know bout dvd, thx a lot man, but still, if i want to make a dvd, what format should i use? (for the best image quality)

Ha, unfortunately, most of my knowledge goes the other way. Instead of something TO DVD, I typically go from DVD to a file on my PC.

The few DVDs I've made I've started with high quality .AVI files which I've then used DVD authoring software to create a DVD from. The final encode was done by the software.

I believe software such as Nero Burning ROM can do the conversion on the fly and will often use the maximum disk space available with the proper MPEG2 conversions required for Redbook standard DVD playback.

http://www.nero.com/enu/nero10-overview.html

It really has been YEARS since I've converted video files to a DVD. The DVDs which I have copied I have used DVDShrink along with some other product to get a nice copy of my discs for use in our car. They are recompressed to fit onto a 4.7GB DVD and the quality definitely takes a hit.

I'm more interested now in building a media server and ripping all my DVDs/BDs to multiple hard drives and playing them back over my network reliably. That's going to be a several month process to even get started on.

 

[s162216]

Basically for the DVD to be compliant to the DVD-Video standard the video must be in a VOB container for it to be a DVD-Video otherwise it will not play properly in some/most players as it identifies as a DVD-Data. Within the VOB container is MPEG-2 video so basically you just need to convert it to the VOB structure format, all you need is a program like this:

http://www.nch.com.au/burn/index.html

Select 'burn as DVD-Video' or whatever it calls it and it will automatically convert the video and write it to DVD.

Hope this helps