Matroska open source A/V container format officially released

[ChristianHJW]

Hi,

i have the big pleasure to officially announce that the matroska multimedia container project has finally left alpha status and turned into public beta status on May 1st. By following the links below you will be able to obtain various tools to create, edit and play matroska audio and video files on your computers. Supported Operating Systems are currently Windows and Linux, but it seems at least playback is working now on Mac OSX and OpenBeOS also, again using mplayer compilations for these OSes.

The beta release of these tools is the last and maybe most important of the three initial steps to make matroska a living reality in the opensource community. After almost 18 months of development, always in contact with developers from various other opensource projects in the multimedia environment, we were able to come up with a working specification for the container end of 2002. From this spec our chief developer and project administrator, Steve 'robux4' Lhomme, could code a working basic I/O library called libmatroska, which was released in alpha version to interested OSS developers beginning of this year. Since then all efforts were undertaken to make file creation and playback possible, and in the meantime the main library was steadily developed further to its actual status.

The matroska container is mainly aiming to replace the good old AVI , but it is also ment to be a powerful and open alternative to other, mainly proprietary, containers such as ASF, MP4, MOV, RM, MPX and even MPEG. It uses the extensions .mkv for video and .mka for audio only files .

Here the main features of matroska :

- opensource, open standard, GPL and QPL licensed main library
- supports arbitrary file sizes, ideal for PCM audio and prepared for HDTV
- allows arbitrary number of audio, video and subtitles streams in one file
- attempting to support every existing audio and video codec under the sun
- extensible by using EBML as underlying framework, a binary structure based on XML
- enhanced container features such as menues, chapters, tags, file attachements
- perfect sync thanks to timestamps for data blocks
- x-platform design approach right from the start
etc.


Links :

The release page ( constantly updated ) : !!!! http://www.matroska.org/announce.html !!!!
matroska's homepage : http://www.matroska.org
The project page : http://corecodec.org/projects/matroska
CVS tree : https://corecodec.org/scm/?group_id=20


Here a listing of the tools that are released today :

LINUX :

All existing tools, as well for matroska file creation as well as for playback, were made by Moritz 'mosu' Bunkus, the author of the well known 'Ogmtools' . He was implementing playback support into mplayer for Linux, and the matroska support code was commited to mplayer CVS a few hours ago. His file creation tools, and this includes the sources, can be found here : http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/ . The program, in its current status, will allow you to transmux every AVI, OGM or matroska file into a new matroska file, plus to add several external audio streams from either WAV or Ogg sources ( Vorbis ) as well as AC3 and MP3 audio, and SRT subtitles.

Currently Supported codecs :

Video : all VfW/VCM codecs ( DivX, XviD, etc. ) ; Audio : Vorbis, MP2, MP3, AC3, PCM ; Subtitles : SRT


WINDOWS :

File creation : The VirtualdubMod Team around Julien 'Cyrius' Coloos and Tobias 'Belgabor' Minnich have implemented matroska reading, editing and writing support in such a professional way that Windows users will not have to suffer from any major drawbacks compared to the well established AVI format. The program is released from its usual place on http://sf.net/projects/virtualdubmod .
Supported codecs are all : VfW/VCM codecs ( DivX, XviD, WMV9 VCM, ON2VP3, HuffYuf, H.264, 3ivx, MPEG4V3/2, etc. ) ; Audio : all ACM codecs , Vorbis, MP2, MP3, AC3, PCM

Playback, DirectShow parser : Our core developer Jan 'myFUN' Schlenker created the basis, and the great development team from 'The Core Media Player' , mainly Ludovic 'BlackSun' Vialle and Christophe 'Toff' Paris, were pushing it to the actual release status. Please note that there is currently work done on the implementation of better subtitle support, while basic UTF8 text subs are working already from dvobsub ( to follow soon ). The latest version of the filter will correct a couple of bugs the first release had, and make seeking in the files possible, you can get it from the link on the announce page ; unzip it into any directory and run regsvr32 x:\path\mkxds.dll from a command line or use the NSIS installer version.

Playback : The Core Media Player Team have made a special release of their feature pumped DirectShow player, the TCMP RC4 'matroska release edition' , to be downloaded here : http://www.corecoded.com . Its coming with the latest parser filter and will install it automatically, plus it can easily be registered to playback matroska files.
There is also a matroska CDL plugin now available that will allow to read tags from the files, as well as read Aspect ratio flags from the video track headers and autocorrect the output resolution accordingly.

MPA2MKA and WAV2MKA : Both programs allow the user to transmux PCM or MP2/3 audio file into matroska audio files and were developed by John 'spyder' Cannon and Jory 'jcsston' Stone . Link : http://matroska.sourceforge.net/downloads/mpa2mka.zip and http://matroska.sourceforge.net/downloads/wav2mka.zip .


Future Features/Codecs ( still to come ):

- Menues
- Chapters
- MPEG 1/2 video support
- special mode 2 form 2 burning with ECC/EDC
- Image Subtitles ( BMP and PNG )
- Gstreamer plugin
- Vegas video plugin
- Xine playback patch
- AAC audio support
- Theora support
- streaming server ( UDP and HTTP )
- file attachements ( lyrics, cover images, etc. )
- p2p plugins including file ID
- Nero plugin
- winamp plugin
etc.


We hope you will find the container useful and are looking forward to your feedback. Please adress all feedback either to the mailing list matroska-general at freelists dot org , join us on IRC.CORECODEC.COM #matroska or turn to the new A/V formats section here.

Thank you very much for your interest and my apologies to those who may feel bothered by the long postl

Christian Wiesner

[Toast B|M]

very interesting.
meaning i can encode files(excuse me but i am still reading the article)!?!? like DVD>matroska.
btw whats the file extension and stuff!?!

[ChristianHJW]

quoted from my post above :

It uses the extensions .mkv for video and .mka for audio only files

[The Edge]

About time ChristianHJW
Currenly testing Matroska and with new directshow filter (v0.4.0). I can finally seek...

Keep up the hard work!

Edge

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by The Edge About time ChristianHJW

.. .. well, I've been here ever since, but admittedly was not very active, and so i was not surprised my old account had been deleted and i had to reregister ;( ...

Currenly testing Matroska and with new directshow filter (v0.4.0). I can finally seek...Keep up the hard work! Edge

.. we will, my promise !

[ChristianHJW]

New version of the DirectShow parser to be expected for the weekened, and BTW, we have WMV9 working nicely together with Vorbis from matroska now .... M$ meeting Xiph.org, in one container !!!

[ChristianHJW]

Anamorphic encoding in matroska 720 x 432 with AAC 5.1

Hi,

i decided to upload a nice matroska test sample, trying to show the advantages of anamorphic encodings. Please, if you are not interested in this subject at all, dont download the file, i guess my provider will kill me if the bandwidth i expect will become reality ( the sample has about 10 MB ).

Here the Link ( use 'save target as' and "StarwarsAAC5_1anamorphicXviD.mkv" as file name, including the ", to get the correct extension ) and the details :

Video :

Res : 720 x 432 , anamorphic ;
Output res on playback : 720 x 304 ( 1:2.35 )
Codec : XviD 2 pass ( I like both, DivX5 and XviD )
Settings : Bitrate 1250 kbps, VHQ 4, 5 B-frames, packed bitstream, QPEL, h.263 quant
Framerate : 25 fps ( PAL source 720 x 576 )

Audio :

AAC 5.1, 220 kbps, 44.1 KHz, PsyTel aacenc 2.15

Note : sound quality sucks, there is still a bug in this old version of aaceenc.exe, but the new NeroDigital AAC pluginwas released today, and it should give nice results

Total :

2 x 700 MB ( No subs yet, i was too lazy to rip them ), but it wouldnt add much


How to make it :

1. Encode Movie in 2-pass using VirtualdubMod, into AVI or MKV ( doesnt matter ). The important thing here that is different from making a 'normal' rip, is that you dont use any resizing, you just crop the picture ( either in AVISynth/Gknot or in VdubMod directly ). Make sure that the final encoding resolution will follow the multiples of 8 rule. This may make it necessary to crop 2 - 3 lines into the picture on top and bottom ( worst case ), but with > 400 lines in total you wont notice that, i promise
2. Add the original AC3 to the streams list in VdubMod, mark the start and end frame and mux it into another MKV
3. Demux the AC3 from this new MKV
4. Feed the AC3 into BeSweet with the -6chwav switch, normal azid settings
5. Feed this WAV into aacenc.exe ( ver 2.15 ), with the follwing CLI : E:\\FlaskDivX\\AACencoder\\aacenc.exe -br 220 -if E:\\FlaskDivX\\AACencoder\\starwars.wav
6. Download latest mkvtoolnix from Mosu's site, search for the win32 binaries of it ( cmpiled with cygwin ). Direct link for 0.4.2 : http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkv...lnix-0.4.2.zip
7. Use the following CLI :
E:\FlaskDivX\mkvtoolnix\mkvmerge.exe -o testAR.mkv --aspect-ratio 2.35 testnosound.mkv starwars.aac
If you'r not a CLI expert ( like i am ), simply copy mkvtoolnix and the sound.aac and the video.mkv into the c:\ root directory ...

For playback :

1. Download the Core Media Player from http://corecoded.com . This is not mandatory, as you may do the resizing in other players also manually

2. get the latest alpha matroska CDL plugin and install it . Note this is highly experimental !!

3. Download and install the newest matroska DirectShow parser ( 0.4.2 ) from http://www.matroska.org/announce.html

4. get the binaries of CoreAAC, the 5.1 capable AAC DirectShow filter, from Rarewares, courtesy to rjamorim

5. If you dont have a 5.1 setup ( like me ), you will need the great channel downmixer filter from trombettworks, or you cant hear sound

Tell me what you think guys !! . I plan to upload another sample file soon, being the same file with exactly same settings, but resized to 720 x 304 and with MPEG quant, for comparison.

[ChristianHJW]

New matroska DShow parser available from the Downloads page.

This new filter is adding

- CoreVorbis support
- DTS support ( untested ; muxing with either next VirtualdubMod or mkvmerger since 0.4.2 )
- Support for the new subtitles mediatypes, for working UTF8 subs playback in DVobSub ( Gabest is late, bug him to update it .. lol )

Important :

This new filter will be necessary to be able to play files created with next VirtualdubMod and mkvmerger release. The old filters may have difficulties recognizing the number of video/audio tracks correctly, with new files. Old files are still 100% supported and spec compliant, we just added a new EBML element to make handling of framerate easier for Cyrius and Mosu, and the old filters may have a problem with the new element.

Important 2 :

While this new filter works fine for one half of the team, its having problems for the 2nd half . We have no idea why, so dont delete you v0.4.2 installer yet ....

[The Edge]

Wooohoo.......I can try my subtitles now!
Cheers!

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by The Edge
Wooohoo.......I can try my subtitles now!
Cheers!

YES !!!!! 30 mins ago Gabest put the new vsfilter.dll online on his Guliverkli Project Page

So, finally, everybody making MKV files with UTF8 subs in VdubMod or mkvmerge can see them, and in correct UTF8 language ....

[SKD_Tech]

I am just about to start my next Matroska test with the movie "The Fast and The Furious"

Also I downloaded the DS Parser filter where do I put mkxds.dll???

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by SKD_Tech I am just about to start my next Matroska test with the movie "The Fast and The Furious"

Great ! Thanks for the interest. Dont forget to use the latest VirtualdubMod for that !

Also I downloaded the DS Parser filter where do I put mkxds.dll???

Whereever you want, normally the installer coming with it should copy it automatically into c:\winNT\system32 ?

[SKD_Tech]

Yes I ran install.bat I was just wondering if I had to do anything with the .dll

[ChristianHJW]

Hi,

with the long changelog of the bugfix build of VirtualdubMod from 10/06/03 , please allow me to point you to a specific feature that Cyrius has built into this version, demonstrating very impressively the advanced editing possibilities of matroska. Do the following :

1. Use mkvmerger with the following CLI ( or jcsston's GUI for it, all avaialble from the matroska Downloads Page ) :

mkvmerge.exe -o output.mkv input.avi input.aac input.dts

The resulting file will be a matroska file with the video from the AVI, the audio from the AVI ( if it had one ), an AAC audio stream and a DTS audio stream.

So far so good, nothing unusual you might say

2. Now load the MKV in latest VirtualdubMod and have a look at the streams list :

It will report 2 or 3 audio streams there, and only the audio from the AVI ( if it had one ) will be named precisely. The other 2 are named

Source : matroska file
Decription : matroska audio stream 1, [tag 0x000 , ?] ; ID A_AAC/MPEG2/LC , x ch, xxxxx KHz , xxx kbps

Source : matroska file
Decription : matroska audio stream 2, [tag 0x000 , ?] ; ID A_DTS , 5.1 ch, xxxxx KHz , xxx kbps


Now, you are certainly aware that there are no ACM codecs for AAC or DTS, same as for AC3. But you are used to be able to edit AVI/OGM/MKV files with AC3 audio nicely, maybe without knowing what effort it took to make sure the AC3 audio is handled correctly on editing, means that no AC3 frame is cut in 2 pieces or the like.

3. Now try to edit the file, like cutting out a piece. You will notice its working great, just like you are used to with AC3 !

The big difference now is, this will work for any audio stream you will be able to mux into matroska, out of the box, even for future audio formats !!!! No time consuming adaption of VdubMod for MPC audio, once its here.

Of course, you cant listen to them in Preview mode, because there is no AAC or DTS decoder available in VdubMod ( yet ), but for editing its important to see the video part i think, audio has lower priority.

Test it and tell us how you like it !!

[The Edge]

Yes I ran install.bat I was just wondering if I had to do anything with the .dll

The *.dll is not copied to the %SystemRoot%\System32 folder by the install.bat file.

Just make sure that when you run the install.bat that you don't delete the mkxds.dll later on.

Test it and tell us how you like it !!

Very greatful ChristianHJW!!! Can't believe how fast matroska is developing. Good man.



Edge