For most users, getting a matroska (MKV) file into Quicktime is as simple as installing the Perian codec. It makes things joyously simple. You can even do file->save as to rewrap your video as something else. Great!

It gets problematic when you have a really big (over 2gig) MKV file. QT will just crash! Oh no!

So, here’s my workaround. Not for the faint of heart.

Start by getting the current CVS version of MPEG4IP. You’ll need SDL and libtoolize to build it.

Also get mkvtoolnix and install that.

Extract the video and audio tracks from the mkv file using mkvextract:

mkvextract tracks <mkv filename> 1:part1.h264 2:part1.ac3

This will need to grind for a while, but eventually you’ll have your demuxed tracks.

Next, you need to use mp4creator to wrap the H.264 elementary stream in a proper mp4 box. You’ll probably get a warning about an invalid SEI message. Ignore that.

/usr/local/bin/mp4creator -create=part1.h264 -rate=29.97 “My Video.mp4”

Next, we need to add the audio. Unfortunately, mp4creator can’t handle ac3 audio. You’ll either need to convert the audio to AAC, and then use mp4creator to merge them, or use Quicktime Pro. I prefer the latter – open the ac3 file in QT, select all, copy, then open your mp4 and select add->add to movie.

Now, when you go to save, Quicktime will likely yell at you. You need to mark an in point a second into the video, and an outpoint a second from the end, and then select edit->trim. Then you can do “file->save as” and move on.

What a pain, hu?

I know, I know, I just posted saying that I’m somewhat disenchanted with the iTunes Store (and just wait till I post my rant about iPhone 1.1.1) … however, iTunes itself is still my digital media jukebox of choice.

With that in mind, and with the impending arrival of an appleTV, I’ve decided to commit to iTunes as my complete digital media manager. Not just audio – video too.

There are two routes to getting video into iTunes. If you want the video to work seamlessly on iPods, iPhones and AppleTVs, you need to use something like Quicktime Pro or Visual Hub to transcode the video. This is a slow, lossy process and I have no interest in that.

Option two is to wrap the video in a Quicktime wrapper. This doesn’t touch the video data at all, just makes it look like a Quicktime file. It’ll still have XVid or Windows Media (or whatever) data inside. To do this, open the file in Quicktime, and do file->save as. Make sure to create a new file, not a reference file. The resulting mov can be dropped directly into iTunes. If you add the Perian codec to your appleTV, the files will work with that device as well (I hope, I don’t have a TV yet to test this with).

That’s great if you just have a few files, but what if you’ve got hundreds of gigabytes of video? You need automation! Other folks have created Applescripts to do this, but Quicktime 7.2 broke them all. So, I’ve created one that works with 7.2. Make sure you’ve got interface scripting turned on in the “universal access” system preference panel. Then just drop a load of videos onto this droplet and let it go to work.

SaveAsMov.zip – SaveAsMov script

From there, you’ll need to properly organize all your videos. Check out Doug’s Applescripts for Itunes page for a load of scripts to make this easier. I particularly like “set video kind” and “track names with incremented number.”

Dig it.