MP4/M4V to MKV: Convert Video from MP4/M4V(MPEG-4 Video) to MKV(Matroska Video) with River Past Video Cleaner, MP4/M4V2MKV converter, conversion

What is MP4/M4V?

A video compression standard planned for late 1998. MPEG-4 extends the earlier MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 algorithms with synthesis of speech and video, fractal compression, computer visualisation and artificial intelligence-based image processing techniques.

MPEG.ORG is an excellent source for additional information on MPEG format and usage.

There are several ways to decode MP4 video. Most of the time, having Apple QuickTime installed is sufficient. Occasionally, a file is not compatible with QuickTime. You will need to install CCCP when that happens.

What is MKV?

Matroska aims to become THE standard of multimedia container formats. It was derived from a project called MCF, but differentiates from it significantly because it is based on EBML (Extensible Binary Meta Language), a binary derivative of XML. EBML enables the Matroska Development Team to gain significant advantages in terms of future format extensibility, without breaking file support in old parsers.

It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows. Matroska is similar in conception to other containers like AVI, MP4 or ASF, but is completely open source. Matroska file types are .MKV for video (and audio) and .MKA for audio-only files.

To encode MKV video, please have CCCP installed.

Launch River Past Video Cleaner

Once River Past Video Cleaner is installed properly, launch Video Cleaner.

Add File

Click on the "Add File" button on the tool bar. The standard file open dialog appears. Select "MP4 - MPEG-4" in its "Files of type" combo box.

Select the file you want to convert and click "Open". The file will be added to the conversion file list.

Note: To convert from MP4 files, you must have Apple QuickTime installed.

River Past Video Cleaner

Select output format

Use the setting panel on the bottom of the window to control the output format. Click on the toggle to the left of the "Output Format" label to expand the panel. Select "MKV - Matroska Video" as the "File Type".

Troubleshoot

If you don't see the MKV output option, you have a problem with your Matroska Pack installation.

We need Matroska Pack 1.1.2 or later to encode MKV video. Matroska 1.1.2 is included in CCCP. Please download and install CCCP.

Download CCCP

Note: To convert to MKV files, you must have Matroska Pack installed.

Change Video Settings

Click on the toggle to the left of the "Video Settings" label to expand the panel.

Select "Specify" under "Size" and/or "Frame rate" to enter the video resolution and/or frame rate.

You can change the compressor, quality, size, and frame rate of the video.

Change Audio Settings

Click on the toggle to the left of the "Audio Settings" label to expand the panel.

Select the audio compressor for the conversion. Depending on the compressor, you may also change the sample rate, channel (stereo or mono), bits/sample, and bitrate.

Do not use "MPEG Layer-3" as the audio compressor. It does not work correctly in video files and often causes the conversion to abort in the middle. If you prefer to have MP3 audio in the AVI file, download lame_enc.dll instead.