diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 428d5eba1..2766603ca 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@
   greatly speeds up processing files from which only small portions must be
   read. Part of the fix of #2824.
 
+## Build system changes
+
+* libEBML v1.4.0 and libMatroska v1.6.0 are now required.
+
 
 # Version 47.0.0 "Black Flag" 2020-05-30
 
diff --git a/ac/matroska.m4 b/ac/matroska.m4
index fef8dbf3c..0a325e2ed 100644
--- a/ac/matroska.m4
+++ b/ac/matroska.m4
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@ dnl Test for libEBML and libMatroska, and define MATROSKA_CFLAGS and MATROSKA_LI
 dnl
 
 EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL=no
-PKG_CHECK_MODULES([EBML],[libebml >= 1.3.7],[],[EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL=yes])
-PKG_CHECK_MODULES([MATROSKA],[libmatroska >= 1.5.0],[],[EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL=yes])
+PKG_CHECK_MODULES([EBML],[libebml >= 1.4.0],[],[EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL=yes])
+PKG_CHECK_MODULES([MATROSKA],[libmatroska >= 1.6.0],[],[EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL=yes])
 
 if test x"$EBML_MATROSKA_INTERNAL" = xyes; then
   if ! test -f lib/libebml/ebml/EbmlTypes.h ; then