Help with Demuxing MKV files!

[SSJ3KLASH]

I recently found a way to demux the video stream from MKV files using MKVextract GUI. Yes I use downloaded anime footage that are in MKV or OGM format, I am kinda poor. The point is that I usualy use virtualdubmod but some recent MKv files I downloaded seem to give an error when opening in Virtualdub. The error I get is:"Only handle [S_Text/] subs for the moment".
The MKVs have mutiple sub that consist of ssa and subs from the DVD directly. Other MKV files open fine in VirtualDub. I used MKVextract GUI then And it thought that all my problems have been solved , because it extracts the video stream so that I can use it in AVIsynth and VirtualDub. But recently the Providers of these MKV files started to encode using H.264 codec. I Thought that this wouldn't be a problem, but when I started to extract the video stream MKVextract aks me for a output extension. I dont know which extension to choose, because I tried to use .mkv, .avi, .mp4 and these files dont open in virtualdub neither in Windows media player or VLC. In the beginning my MKVextract Gui was outdated and wasn't extracting at all. I got the new MKVextract GUI, but the extracted video can't be opened at all.
I am looking on the net for any ways to solve this problem, but I either I dont understand what their saying or am doing the wrong thing. If only Virtualdub could open the MKV files the I didn't have to resort to this method. I tried dr.divx to convert the MKV files to avi but it only results in a video that plays the file in fast foward in just 30 sec
I have tried anything I could do, but I know there are some Pro encoder out there that know a solution.

Many Thanx in advance.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I've noticed several fansub goups are doing there part to ensure DVDs will be purchased for editing purposes. I doubt it's intentional, but as the standards of online distro become more and more complex and further from an editible format, this community is bound to change.

It's more a matter of whether all that extra time and effort to get around actually buying the DVDs is worth it, or not.

Good luck with what you find.

[DJ_Izumi]

Yeah... Groups are using a more efficent video codec to PREVENT piracy. Ha ha ha.

You can use directshowsource in AVIsynth to feed the file into Vdub or anything else and away you go. A sorta laggy route but it's the best option at this point.

[badmartialarts]

Try a .264 extension for the video stream, although I'm not sure if VDub will be able to read a .264 stream any better than a .mp4 one.

[DJ_Izumi]

Vdub can't display h264 frames itself under any circumstances. But if you use avisynth to decode and output the file as uncompressed video that can be read by Vdub, or what ever else you wanna use, it'll work.

[Qyot27]

Try a .264 extension for the video stream, although I'm not sure if VDub will be able to read a .264 stream any better than a .mp4 one.

Not with MKVExtract GUI. One has to use the CLI to get the .264 stream out of there correctly. But even in that case, it's only good for then piping it through avc2avi to cram the frames into the AVI container (which is extremely discouraged). It's far more efficient to just use Graphedit+DirectShowSource to open it. The only 'advantage' putting it in AVI has is the ability to snap to the existing keyframes, but I wouldn't call that much of an advantage considering the other issues that arise from putting AVC streams in AVI.

[DJ_Izumi]

When you have an h264 stream in an AVI, VirtualDub still can't decode it. :/

[Qyot27]

When you have an h264 stream in an AVI, VirtualDub still can't decode it. :/

It can if you've got ffdshow's VFW interface installed and set to decode H264.

[SSJ3KLASH]

Well, all I want is to extract the video stream to encode it with a lossless codec. It is only the MKV files that have a H.264 codec that seem to give the problem. It is strange that you can mux a MKV with H.264, but not Demux it.
MKVextract GUI works fine with other codecs except H.264. At least the AVISynth method seems to work for now , I think this the best way to solve the problem and it does work in vitualdub so nothing can stop me now .
Thanx a lot you guys .