How To Change An Mkv File To Mp4

How exercise I catechumen MKV files to MP4 for free?

A problem people often confront is converting videos from mkv to mp4 container/file formats for free and easily. Information technology is really effortless to catechumen mkv to mp4 using open up-source software so that you don't take to pay a dime! In this post, we will understand how to convert mkv to mp4 format using –

VLC role player
FFmpeg
Handbrake

And then, allow's get going with a quick introduction to the MKV file format.

What is the MKV File Format?

Matroska Multimedia Container is a file format that tin can concord unlimited video, audio, film, or subtitle tracks in one file [from Wikipedia]. The file format is completely open up sourced, and it is similar to MP4 and other media containers.

The different file extensions associated with Matroska are –

mkv for video
mka for audio
mks for subtitles

Though the mkv file format is open up to all; you might encounter systems that exercise non play or back up the mkv extension or container format. In this situations, it is necessary to convert mkv to another organization-compatible file format, such as the mp4 file format.

Let'southward learn how to brand this conversion in the next couple of sections.

Convert MKV to MP4 using VLC Player

The VLC media player is a complimentary, open-source, cross-platform media player and streaming media server adult by the VideoLAN project. It is a groovy playback software for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Apart from just playing media (audio + video), it can besides give you detailed information about the video, its codec, metadata, take screenshots, and even catechumen videos from ane format to another.

In this section, let'southward learn how to utilise VLC Role player to convert mkv files to mp4 files.

After installing VLC on your operating organisation, open it and click on the "Media" tab.

Convert MKV to MP4 using VLC Player for Free

Choose "Convert / Salvage".

Click on the "+Add" button and choose your input mkv file. Later adding that file using the Add together pick, click on the "Convert/Relieve" button at the lesser of the screen, which should have gotten enabled now.

Now, choose the "Catechumen" option and selection the "Video – H.264 + MP3 (MP4)" selection as the output profile. And so, determine the destination file proper noun and location and hit "Beginning".

After a few seconds or minutes (depending on the size of your mkv video, you'll take the converted mp4 file at the location y'all specified.

When you use VLC player to convert mkv to mp4, information technology takes a lot of time because VLC thespian basically re-encodes the video and then wraps it into an mp4 container. If your file is very long, information technology could have a lot of fourth dimension to complete the conversion.

This is a straightforward manner of converting mkv to mp4 that does non crave the use of the command line. Still, some people prefer the command line as they might want to run this entire process on a headless server or embed the conversion process in a shell script.

The all-time option in those situations is to use FFmpeg which we will explore next.

Catechumen MKV to MP4 using FFmpeg

FFmpeg is the #one open-source video processing and video compression library in the world and you tin can accept my word for it. It can practice a ton of different things, is very stable, and is used heavily in commercial video applications as well.

If yous haven't installed FFmpeg on your arrangement, information technology is very easy to exercise then. Follow our instructions for installing FFmpeg on Windows, Linux, and MacOS and come up back here.

With FFmpeg installed, here is the commandline to convert mkv to mp4 losslessly.

          ffmpeg -i inputVideoName.mkv -c:v re-create -c:a copy outputVideoName.mp4

That's it. One line in FFmpeg and y'all tin convert mkv files to mp4 files. Here is what the different parameters hateful –

-i inputVideoName.mkv : this is name of your input file in mkv container format.
-c:v copy -c:a copy : this tells FFmpeg to simple re-create the video and audio from one video container to another and in this case, information technology is from the mkv container to the mp4 container.
outputVideoname.mp4 : this is the name of the destination mp4 file.

Because yous are telling FFmpeg to directly copy the sound and video from one container format to another, there is no re-encoding involved and this copy-functioning is extremely fast.

If yous are non comfortable using the commandline, then I urge you to try the next choice, i.east., using Handbrake to convert mkv to mp4. Let's take a look at that next.

Catechumen MKV to MP4 using Handbrake

If you lot prefer a GUI-based arroyo instead of the terminal and command lines, then Handbrake is a slap-up option for video format conversion and video conversion. Handbrake is a gratuitous, open-source tool that users tin install on Windows, Mac, Linux. Check out our article on the installation and usage of Handbrake if y'all are new to it.

After installed Handbrake on your system, open the GUI which looks every bit follows –

Convert mkv to mp4 using Handbrake — **Handbrake GUI**

Using the File -> Open Source menu, open the mkv file. Handbrake volition display all the relevant data about the mkv file.

Adjacent, if you want to convert the mkv file into mp4 file format, then choose MPEG-4 (avformat) in the Summary tab.

Then choose a file name in the bottom "Salve As" dialog box and press the "First" button to begin the container conversion process. When you lot use Handbrake to catechumen mkv to mp4, information technology takes a lot of time because it re-encodes the video and and so wraps it into an mp4 container. If your file is very long, it could have a lot of time to complete the conversion. Notwithstanding, Handbrake also gives you the selection of optimizing the mp4 file for delivery over email, WhatsApp, or other messaging platforms.

That'due south it. Later the conversion is complete, you lot should accept the mp4 version of the file in the output folder that you specified.

FAQ 1: Does converting MKV to MP4 lose quality?

Well, the best fashion to put it is that there are both lossy and lossless ways of converting an mkv file to mp4 format. Let's learn more than near this –

Lossless: You are just transferring the video from the mkv container to an mp4 container without modifying the video in the lossless pick. This can be achieved past using FFmpeg and doing a copy operation (also called transmuxing).
Lossy: All the same, if you lot want to modify the video quality or the video resolution, the video quality will change because the software you're using for conversion will demand to re-encode the video. This is generally termed lossy conversion and can exist accomplished using Handbrake, VLC, and FFmpeg.

Decision

In this post, nosotros learned 3 simple ways of converting MKV files to MP4 format using either VLC, Handbrake, or FFmpeg. All three techniques work well and it depends on whether you like to use GUI-based tools or the commandline for your work.

Practice check them out and give it a shot.

Give thanks you, take care, and happy Streaming!