How to convert matroska MKV to AVI on Linux ?

Posted on May 8, 2007 by admin

Today, I discover that my M3100 player doesn’t know how to play Mastroka files. Mastroka files are really kool since the subtitles are embeded in .. but that’s it, my player refuse to play open it.

This stuff can be repack in a AVI (xivd..) file with some open source tools. Here, a little script to do the hard stuff ;)

You can find the script here : http://svn.pythonfr.org/public/pythonfr/utils/video/mkv2avi.py

#!/usr/bin/python
# Little script to depack Matroska file, and repack them
# in a AVI + subtitle format.

import sys
import os

def message(msg):
    print "=" * 78
    print "= %s" % msg
    print "=" * 78

def usage():
    print "Mastroka repacker script"
    print "  Usage: "+sys.argv[0]+ " filename"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
       usage()
    else:
       filename = sys.argv[1]
       basename = filename[:-4]
       message("Unpacking file: %s" % filename)
       os.system("mkvextract tracks %s 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:%s.srt" % (filename,basename) )

       message("Repacking file: %s.avi" % basename)
       os.system("ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ogg  -i temp_video.avi  -vcodec copy  %s.avi" % (basename) )

       message("Cleaning files")
       os.system("rm temp_video.avi temp_audio.ogg")

/Enjoy Video

44 thoughts on “How to convert matroska MKV to AVI on Linux ?”

Anonymous on June 10, 2007 at 3:48 pm said:

This script depends on package mkvtoolnix
Rafael31 on September 25, 2007 at 8:18 pm said:

i have a problem with this…
built on Jan 28 2007 22:48:38, gcc: 4.1.2 20070106 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-21ubuntu7)
temp_audio.ogg: could not find codec parameters
Cleaning files
root@desktop:/Potter
When it finish remove the file .ogg and .avi
Please.
what i need?
Descore on December 1, 2007 at 2:57 pm said:

Cool script, thanks for that !!!
brett on January 8, 2008 at 12:22 am said:

Tried the script but then fell foul with the ffmpeg params.

After checking out the ffmpeg site I found the latest version as of 8/1/2008 supports .mkv:

ffmpeg -i cobra.mkv -target vcd cobra.avi
Albatross on April 13, 2008 at 5:09 pm said:

Thanks for that update, Brett, it was exactly what I needed.
Kevin on April 16, 2008 at 8:52 am said:

Thanks,

Very useful…
Keith Hanlan on April 19, 2008 at 4:57 am said:

I’m new to this so I’m a bit confused. I tried this on a 1.1GB 720p x264 encoding and wound up with a 26MB audio file with no video. The sound quality was seriously degraded as well. I commented out the temp_video.avi file, which looks to be about the right size, but I couldn’t find anything that could play it.

What am I missing here?

Thanks,
Keith
admin on April 19, 2008 at 12:53 pm said:

Keith, check the mkv contains a ogg file. It’s perhaps something else. (try the file command)
Keith Hanlan on April 20, 2008 at 11:07 pm said:

Thanks for your reply “jkx”.

“file *” returns the following:

keithh@pvr [106]: file *
temp_audio.ogg: ATSC A/52 aka AC-3 aka Dolby Digital stream, 48 kHz,, complete main (CM) 3 front/2 rear, LFE on,, 384 kbit/s reserved Dolby Surround mode
temp_video.avi: JVT NAL sequence, H.264 video @ L 51
XXXXX.hdtv.x264-bia.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 0 x 0, >30 fps,
XXXXX.hdtv.x264-bia.mkv: Matroska data

It managed to extract a decent sized ogg file but the file command gives no indication of whether or not it is an ogg file. It probably isn’t since it’s video. Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Was your script only intended to extract the audio?

keithh@pvr [105]: wc -c *
139198464 temp_audio.ogg
1012791223 temp_video.avi
25978426 XXXXX.hdtv.x264-bia.avi
1153155923 XXXXX.hdtv.x264-bia.mkv
2331132311 total

I mispoke when I said I commented out the temp_video.avi file. I meant to say that I commented out the *removal* of that file in your script.

It looks like the tools are willing to do what I need. Perhaps I need some different options. Any more suggestions that you might have would be very welcome.

Thanks again,
Keith
admin on April 20, 2008 at 11:53 pm said:

Hum, take care the ogg file is a 5.2 stream. I’m quite sure you need to resample (or tweak) ffmpeg to handle this.
jon on May 22, 2008 at 1:53 am said:

Hi -

Does the conversion decrease the quality of the video/audio?

Thanks
admin on May 22, 2008 at 8:06 am said:

No, the quality remains the same. In fact, it’s only a repack, not a real convert
Yoshii on June 16, 2008 at 9:54 am said:

Hi i got an error when i tried this script,
I put this script into a file called mkvtoavi and made it executeable
then in bash#

./mkvtoavi
File “./mkvtoavi”, line 9
print “=” * 78
^
IndentationError: expected an indented block

And i am not really good with scriptprogramming. but it seems it’s something thats missing :( please reply to my email as soon as you can :)
earthforce_1 on July 1, 2008 at 5:53 pm said:

Ok, figured out an answer to my own question, and got it down to one line with no intermediate files. Your modified .py script becomes:

#!/usr/bin/python
# Little script to depack Matroska file, and repack them
# in a AVI + subtitle format.

import sys
import os

def message(msg):
print “=” * 78
print “= %s” % msg
print “=” * 78

def usage():
print “Mastroka repacker script”
print ” Usage: “+sys.argv[0]+ ” filename”

if __name__ == “__main__”:
if len(sys.argv) < 2:
usage()
else:
filename = sys.argv[1]
basename = filename[:-4]
message(“Converting file: %s” % filename)
os.system(“mencoder %s -ovc lavc -oac lavc -o %s.avi” % (filename,basename) )
Steven on July 13, 2008 at 6:19 pm said:

To Yoshii, this script needs you to tab in some things to work…

#!/usr/bin/python
# Little script to depack Matroska file, and repack them
# in a AVI + subtitle format.

import sys
import os

def message(msg):
TAB—>print “=” * 78
TAB—>print “= %s” % msg
TAB—>print “=” * 78

def usage():
TAB—>print “Mastroka repacker script”
TAB—>print ” Usage: “+sys.argv[0]+ ” filename”

if __name__ == “__main__”:
TAB—>if len(sys.argv) TAB—>usage()
TAB—>else:
TAB—>TAB—>filename = sys.argv[1]
TAB—>TAB—>basename = filename[:-4]

message(“Unpacking file: %s” % filename)
os.system(“mkvextract tracks %s 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:%s.srt” % (filename,basename) )

message(“Repacking file: %s.avi” % basename)
os.system(“ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ogg -i temp_video.avi -vcodec copy %s.avi” % (basename) )

message(“Cleaning files”)
os.system(“rm temp_video.avi temp_audio.ogg”)
Daniel P. Clark on August 2, 2008 at 3:19 pm said:

What about importing the subtitles into the target avi?
admin on August 2, 2008 at 3:26 pm said:

To import the sub you can use Avidemux. I used this software a couple of times without issue.
Martin on September 16, 2008 at 3:47 pm said:

::SIGH::

I realize that people tend to “think” in their favorite language, but isn’t using python for this sort of like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer?

#!/bin/bash
[[ -z "$1" ]] && echo “usage: $0 filename” && exit
mencoder $1 -ovc lavc -oac lavc -o `basename $1 .${1#*.}`.avi
Timo on October 7, 2008 at 11:58 pm said:

Martin: that also re-encodes the streams, better use copy. Also, basename matches first ‘.’, which means that foo.bar.mkv becomes foo.avi..

Maybe use best of both approaches, and modify the original to just have:

message(“Converting %s to %s.avi” % (filename, basename))
os.system(“mencoder %s -ovc copy -oac copy -o %s.avi” % (filename, basename) )
Evert on October 13, 2008 at 6:35 pm said:

So which is better/quicker to use? ffmpeg or mencoder? 8-)
DaveC on October 24, 2008 at 12:39 am said:

mencoder has long been the most flexible OSS tool for producing and repacking AVI’s … ffmpeg is more useful at low level stuff where you need to re-encode.

using -ovc copy is both better and much faster, as it avoids re-encoding the video …. also mencoder’s default settings for video encoding are designed around non-HD quality and internet streaming, and you’ll end up having to dink around. I’m sticking with -oac lavc and leaving it to re-encode to the default non-Dolby “DVD style” audio (2 x 48kHz) since I don’t have surround sound set up yet and the file sizes are about 10% smaller.

My goal is to get stuff to play on the Sony PS3 which has become our DVD player – it happily plays files from CD-R and DVD-R (and presumably BD-RE though the blanks are kind pricey :-) and it will play AVI’s in HDTV formats, but it does not (as of the latest PS3 OS build) speak Matroska and likely never will (Sony being pro-proprietary)
David on December 8, 2008 at 9:41 am said:

This is very helpful, thanks!

I am able to use mencoder to convert mkv file to avi but it does not have audio. I read some sites online. They are saying it is because multple audio. I wonder if anyone has solution for it?

Thanks in advance!
None 1 on April 19, 2009 at 11:22 am said:

Cannot find the site to download mkvextract

Your request for http://corecodec.org/projects/mkvextractgui could not be fulfilled, because the connection to corecodec.org (69.45.6.150) could not be established.
None 1 on April 19, 2009 at 11:47 am said:

I did this manually. However, I have missed something (the python script only gave errors)

$ mkvextract tracks down-ltroi-720p.mkv 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:down-ltroi-720p.srt
$ mkdir temp
$ cd temp
$ mkvextract tracks ../down-ltroi-720p.mkv 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:down-ltroi-720p.srt
Extracting track 1 with the CodecID ‘V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC’ to the file ‘temp_video.avi’. Container format: AVC/h.264 elementary stream
Extracting track 2 with the CodecID ‘A_DTS’ to the file ‘temp_audio.ogg’. Container format: Digital Theater System (DTS)
Extracting track 3 with the CodecID ‘S_TEXT/UTF8′ to the file ‘down-ltroi-720p.srt’. Container format: SRT text subtitles
progress: 100%

$ ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ogg -i temp_video.avi -vcodec copy temp_video.avi
FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: –enable-gpl –enable-pp –enable-swscaler –enable-pthreads –enable-libvorbis –enable-libtheora –enable-libogg –enable-libgsm –enable-dc1394 –disable-debug –enable-libmp3lame –enable-libfaadbin –enable-libfaad –enable-libfaac –enable-xvid –enable-x264 –enable-liba52 –enable-amr_nb –enable-amr_wb –enable-shared –prefix=/usr
libavutil version: 1d.49.3.0
libavcodec version: 1d.51.38.0
libavformat version: 1d.51.10.0
built on Mar 17 2009 21:37:49, gcc: 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3)
[mp3 @ 0xb7ec6110]Could not find codec parameters (Audio: mp2, 112 kb/s)
temp_audio.ogg: could not find codec parameters
Steve on April 26, 2009 at 7:14 pm said:

sh -x conversion.sh
hangs on “import os”
Chris on May 15, 2009 at 4:43 pm said:

Sweet script, once I got the tabs sorted out it worked great! I’ve got 6 seasons of Ranma 1/2 to convert with this now!!! Thanks for the handy script.
admin on May 15, 2009 at 5:04 pm said:

I fixed the tab issue, and pushed the file on the SVN …
Stephen on September 17, 2009 at 2:24 pm said:

Hi, I took note of the comments re using mencoder above and updated the script so it works with quirky filenames (spaces, brackets etc).

After the else statement in the original script, change everything to:
filename = os.path.normpath('"'+sys.argv[1]+'"') basename = filename[:-5]
message("Converting %s to %s.avi\"" % (filename, basename)) os.system("mencoder %s -quiet -ovc copy -oac copy -o %s.avi\"" % (filename, basename))

Mencoder doesn’t like files with spaces in it. The filename needs to be passed to it within quotes, hence all the weird wrangling with quotes in the above.
James on January 6, 2010 at 6:22 am said:

Hi All! A newbie to linux here does anyone have the complete script/command they can post for me? I don’t understand most of what your talking about here. I am trying to convert .mkv file to .avi as the mkv’s will not play correctly on my system/PII450/100 256mb ram/ 15gb hdd-5gb free. thanks in advance, james
Fank on March 4, 2010 at 12:00 pm said:

I had the same performance problem on my Asus eee

On my Ubuntu 9.xx, I use the command:

ffmpeg -i infilename.m4v -target vcd outmoviefilename.avi

Do NOT use any filenames with “strange” characters like & or space for in and out files to simplify the syntax

Good luck

/F
Mirko on April 8, 2010 at 12:24 am said:

Thanks! :-)

Mirko
brahmix on April 8, 2010 at 5:08 pm said:

I had some issues with script too and this is the FFMPEG command line I ended up with: (1.1G mkv)

ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ac3 -i temp_video.h264 -b 2000 -r 25 -g 12 -qmin 3 -qmax 13 -s 1280×720 -vcodec libxvid -pass 1 -acodec ac3 -ab 224000 -ar 44100 -ac 1 -aspect 16:9 f.avi

NOTE:

I renamed the audio to use .ac3 (clearer)
and te video to use .h264 (clearer)

Do not use the ‘f.avi’ if you paste it into the script, use the %s as is.

used mkvinfo to get aspect ratios and audio codec info.
serfer2 on April 23, 2010 at 11:30 am said:

Cool !!!

works fine, simple and effective.

Thank you ;-)
Mode on May 5, 2010 at 12:30 pm said:

Brilliant. I just tried the script. It is easy and practical.
Zo on May 7, 2010 at 6:43 pm said:

None of these work for me, they all fail in one way or another.

@brahmix
this returns an error “SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ‘\xc3′ in file ./mkv2avi on line 31, but no encoding declared”

this command doesn’t work either

ffmpeg -i infilename.m4v ntsc-target vcd outmoviefilename.avi

I get

“Unable to find a suitable output format for ‘ntsc-target’” as the final error, but it required me to add ntsc prefix for -target.

anyone have any ideas?
Flojo on July 15, 2010 at 3:48 pm said:

For the \xc3 issue you need to remove

‘-s 1280×720′

For the original script I was getting the following error

mp2 @ 0x8cf19f0]encoding 6 channel(s) is not allowed in mp2
Error while opening codec for output stream #0.1 – maybe incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or height

Anyone know how to fix that?
previso on September 28, 2010 at 5:05 am said:

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Mkv+2+Avi+%28Matroska+to+Avi%29?content=74842

A Kommander script with GUI.
**REM** kmdr-executor mkv2avi-2.kmdr from console
Peter on October 23, 2010 at 10:23 pm said:

Thanks!

A real lifesaver. ffmpeg failed me on this.
ms on December 3, 2010 at 12:28 am said:

replace all instances of %s with ‘%s’ to fix the “weird filename” problem
for example, this line

os.system(“mkvextract tracks %s 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:%s.srt” % (filename,basename) )

should be

os.system(“mkvextract tracks ‘%s’ 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:’%s’.srt” % (filename,basename) )
starglider on December 31, 2010 at 12:59 pm said:

Python rulez!
Thank you for this script.
Espen Klem on January 23, 2011 at 7:58 pm said:

Dave, I had the same problem using “-oac copy”. Changed it to “-oac mp3lame” making the whole line look like this:

mencoder [filename].mkv -ovc xvid -xvidencopts fixed_quant=4 -vf harddup -oac mp3lame -o [filename].avi

I guess the recoding does the trick.
jagarsoft on January 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm said:

Hi. Thanks a lot for your script!!

It dumps an error:

[snip]
FFmpeg version SVN-r0.5.1-4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2009 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: –extra-version=4:0.5.1-1ubuntu1 –prefix=/usr –enable-avfilter –enable-avfilter-lavf –enable-vdpau –enable-bzlib –enable-libgsm –enable-libschroedinger –enable-libspeex –enable-libtheora –enable-libvorbis –enable-pthreads –enable-zlib –disable-stripping –disable-vhook –enable-runtime-cpudetect –enable-gpl –enable-postproc –enable-swscale –enable-x11grab –enable-libdc1394 –enable-shared –disable-static
libavutil 49.15. 0 / 49.15. 0
libavcodec 52.20. 1 / 52.20. 1
libavformat 52.31. 0 / 52.31. 0
libavdevice 52. 1. 0 / 52. 1. 0
libavfilter 0. 4. 0 / 0. 4. 0
libswscale 0. 7. 1 / 0. 7. 1
libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0
built on Mar 4 2010 12:35:30, gcc: 4.4.3
Input #0, aac, from ‘temp_audio.ogg’:
Duration: 00:40:25.85, bitrate: 217 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 217 kb/s

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 47.95 (48000/1001) -> 23.98 (48000/2002)
Input #1, h264, from ‘temp_video.avi’:
Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
Stream #1.0: Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280×720, 23.98 tbr, 1200k tbn, 47.95 tbc
Output #0, avi, to ‘myvideo.avi’:
Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1280×720, q=2-31, 90k tbn, 23.98 tbc
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #1.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.0 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding
[NULL @ 0x8c63110]error, non monotone timestamps 62562 >= 62562=3236.6kbits/s
av_interleaved_write_frame(): Error while opening file

Cleaning files

I’ve proved this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=786095&page=34
but didn’t work ;-(

PS: I keep looking in Google ;-)
jagarsoft on January 26, 2011 at 9:54 am said:

At last, I’ve found a set of options which don’t cause error:

os.system(“ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ogg -i temp_video.avi -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 950k -g 300 -bf 2 -acodec mp2 -ab 64k -vtag divx ‘%s’.avi” % (basename) )

PS: However, it’s not a optimal set of options :-( This was just a try!
j2quinn on February 25, 2011 at 11:27 am said:

for those who have a syntax error; it is due to the python version. you need to explicitly state python2 in the case of archlinux. script needs modification for python3.

jesse

Jkx@home

Titanium Exposé

How to convert matroska MKV to AVI on Linux ?

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44 thoughts on “How to convert matroska MKV to AVI on Linux ?”

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