mkvtoolnix/README

MKVToolNix 0.4.3
================

These tools allow information about (mkvinfo) or extraction
from (mkvdemux) or creation of (mkvmerge) or the splitting of
(mkvsplit) Matroska files. Matroska is a new multimedia file
format aiming to become THE new container format for the future. You
can find more information about it and its underlying technology, the
Extensible Binary Meta Language (EBML), at

http://www.matroska.org/

At the moment only mkvinfo and mkvmerge are available, but the others
will be as well.

MkvToolNix aims to become for Matroska what the OGMTools are for
OGM.

The full documentation for each command is now maintained in its
man page only. Type 'mkvmerge -h' to get you started.

This code comes under the GPL (see www.gnu.org or the file COPYING).
Modify as needed.

The newest version can always be found at
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/

Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>

Installation
------------

Installation is not trivial but not impossible either. You first need
libebml and libmatroska.

If you run Debian/unstable on a x86 then you can get binary
packages from my apt repository. Just add the following lines to
/etc/apt/sources.lst:

deb http://www.bunkus.org/debian/unstable/ ./
deb-src http://www.bunkus.org/debian/unstable/ ./

Run 'apt-get update' and 'apt-get install libebml-dev
libmatroska-dev mkvtoolnix'.

If you want to compile from source then get the two libraries via CVS:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.corecodec.org:/cvsroot/matroska login

Just hit the enter key if you're prompted for a password. Now check out
the sources themselves:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.corecodec.org:/cvsroot/matroska \
  co libmatroska
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.corecodec.org:/cvsroot/matroska \
  co libebml

Change to libebml/make/linux and run 'make'. Change to
libmatroska/make/linux. Once more run 'make'. As root run 'make
install' in both directories. This will install the libraries into
/usr/local/lib and the header files into /usr/local/include/ebml and
/usr/local/include/matroska respectively.

After you've compiled the two libraries you can now compile MkvToolNix
itself. If you want to use the GUI for mkvinfo then you also need
wxWindows v2.4.0 or later (http://www.wxwindows.org/). If configure
finds the wx-config script then support for the GUI will be enabled.

bunzip2 < mkvtoolnix-...tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
cd mkvtoolnix-...
./configure
make
make install

The last step must be run as root and is optional.

If the configure script cannot find the EBML and Matroska headers,
then you'll have to manually point it to their locations:

./configure --with-matroska-include=/where/i/put/libmatroska/src \
  --with-matroska-lib=/where/i/put/libmatroska/make/linux \
  --with-ebml-include=/where/i/put/libebml/src \
  --with-ebml-lib=/where/i/put/libebml/make/linux

Now run 'make' and 'make install'.

Example
-------

Here's a *very* brief example of how you could use mkvmerge
with mencoder in order to rip a DVD:

a) Extract the audio to PCM audio and let mencoder calculate the
video frame numbers:

mencoder -dvd 1 -ovc frameno -oac pcm -o frameno.avi

If you're low on disk space and can invest a bit more time then you
tell mencoder to encode to MP3 instead:

mencoder -dvd 1 -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=32 -o frameno.avi

b) Extract the audio again, this time to a plain WAV file:

mplayer -dvd 1 -vc dummy -vo null -hardframedrop -ao pcm -aofile audio.wav

At the moment selecting a non-existant video codec with -vc results
in the fastest audio dump.

c) Normalize the sound (optional)

normalize audio.wav

d) Encode the audio to Vorbis:

oggenc -q3 -oaudio-q3.ogg audio.wav

e) Somehow calculate the bitrate for your video. Use something like...

video_size = (target_size - audio-size) / 1.005
video_bitrate = video_size / length / 1024 * 8

target_size, audio_size in bytes
length in seconds
1.005 is the overhead caused by putting the streams into an Matroska file
  (about 0.5%, that's correct ;)).
video_bitrate will be in kbit/s

f) Use the two-pass encoding for the video:

mencoder -dvd 1 -oac copy -ovc lavc \
  -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1000:vhq:vqmin=2:vpass=1 \
  -vop scale=....,crop=..... \
  -o /dev/null

mencoder -dvd 1 -oac copy -ovc lavc \
  -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1000:vhq:vqmin=2:vpass=2 \
  -vop scale=....,crop=..... \
  -o movie.avi

g) Merge:

mkvmerge -o movie.mkv -A movie.avi audio-q3.ogg

-A is necessary in order to avoid copying the raw PCM (or MP3) audio as well.

Bug reports
-----------

If you're sure you've found a bug - e.g. if one of my programs crashes
with an obscur error message, or if the resulting file is missing part
of the original data, then by all means submit a bug report.

I use Anthill (http://www.bunkus.org/anthill/index.php) as my bug
database. You can submit your bug reports there. Please be as verbose
as possible - e.g. include the command line, if you use Windows or
Linux etc.pp. If at all possible please include sample files as well
so that I can reproduce the issue. If they are larger than 1M then
please upload them somewhere and post a link in the Anthill bug
report.