Extracting H264 from a MKV Container...

[Dreakon]

I have a video file here. It runs fine in Media Player Classic, but I throw the file through MKVextract.exe (part of the mkvtoolnix package) to extract the video alone and it goes to hell.

Here's what the mkv file looks like playing normally in Media Player Classic:


Here's what it looks like after I extract the video using MKVextract.exe and/or VirtualDubMod and play it in Media Player Classic:

(note, its the same frame and everything, the entire video stream is messed up)

I honestly have no idea why its doing this. I've extracted other H264 video files from other MKV containers and this hasn't happened, tons of times. This is news to me and I don't even know where to start looking for help. the mkvtoolnix package is updated to the latest, as is Virtual Dub Mod.

Hope someone here has a few hints to get this working for me.


P.S: Something wierd though, the video plays fine if I play it in VirtualDubMod rather than Media Player Classic. Media Player Classic gets the mucked up mess you see up there though. Windows Media Player also doesn't play it right.

[FinalResolve]

I had this problem a while back, so I just tried a different extractor (AVI-Mux_GUI) and it worked. But I still don't know what the problem was.

[Dreakon]

I had this problem a while back, so I just tried a different extractor (AVI-Mux_GUI) and it worked. But I still don't know what the problem was.

Bleh, just tried AVI-Mux_GUI with no luck. It's like the only time this video stream is satisfied is when it's in a MKV container.

[Purge]

does it work in vlc?

[Dreakon]

does it work in vlc?

Actually... yeah. I really don't want to switch players and I want this to work in Media Player Classic, but it working in VLC has made me very confused...

[Purge]

if it worked it vlc - then my guess is that the codec being used by your other players is stuffing it up.

is there a reason you need the vid stream on its own because simply leaving it in the mkv container is a simple fix .

[Dreakon]

is there a reason you need the vid stream on its own because simply leaving it in the mkv container is a simple fix .

I could be wrong, but I think video editing is tough in a container like that. You guys would probably know better than me though.

Either way, a fix for me was to multi-pass reencode the video file in x264 and apparently the result works just fine. Thanks for all the help though.

[Blue Mandrake]

P.S: Something wierd though, the video plays fine if I play it in VirtualDubMod rather than Media Player Classic. Media Player Classic gets the mucked up mess you see up there though. Windows Media Player also doesn't play it right.

i've got the same problems, but i can watch my video without any problems in Winamp. but actually i was not albe to fix it. i last try was to install the k-lite codec pack, but this also doesn't work.

maybe i should save my vid as a .wmv

[Qyot27]

is there a reason you need the vid stream on its own because simply leaving it in the mkv container is a simple fix .

I could be wrong, but I think video editing is tough in a container like that. You guys would probably know better than me though.

If you want to edit with it, leave it in MKV, and when you go to load it into VDub, tell it to use the DirectShowSource AviSynth template, or write up your own AviSynth script using DirectShowSource and feed that script to VDub. Once it's in VDub, go through the normal spiel to save it as a Huffy/Lagarith/MJPEG/other-lossless-or-lossy-but-keyframes-only AVI.

[Tab.]

VLC allows you to export to a different container as well if you don't want to recompress (which you'll have to with AVISynth).