[HOW-TO] Quickly Convert MKV/FLV to MP4 w/o Trancoding

[RG.REBOOT]

So, first off, hello everyone.

I felt that I should share this piece of information, as I love repacking MKV's into MP4's, as I use a PlayStation 3 to play my movies. And as you probably know, PS3's, can't play MKV files.

On an off hand, I do understand why most people use MKV's, and that is that everyone claims that they are the smallest.

This is both true and false.

Depending on the audio form, MP4's when compared to MKV's are usually the same size. Why you may ask?

The raw video files!

MKV and MP4 filetypes are usually just 'container' files. They hold the raw video and audio and perhaps subtitles that need to be played.

Please note that this tutorial may not be supported by all videos.

Without further ado, let's begin.

STEP 1 : PROGRAMS

Before we begin, you will need to retrieve a few programs to help in the demuxing of these raw files.

I have decided to be a kind gentleman and include all the programs you will need into rar files. Please click the link of the filetype you will be demuxing.

If newer versions of the programs are available, go for it. Also, I've found that YAMB sometimes asks for MP4Box. That's up to you.

FLV

FLVExtract

YAMB 2.1.0.0b2

MKV

tsMuxeR 1.10.6

YAMB 2.1.0.0b2

Download and extract the included folders to an easy to access location.

STEP 2.1 : FLV MUXING

(If you are working with MKV's, just find your way down to 2.2)

First off, open the folder you just downloaded! You should find the following two files in it.

Find the FLV file you will be working with. For me, I will be using a trailer that I grabbed from hulu (I may make a tutorial about grabbing hulu FLV's later, if enough people request)

First, you will be needing to open FLVExtract. So go ahead and open it.

You should see a simple box that says 'Drop FLV files here.'. All you're going to do now is drag and drop the FLV file you are going to be demuxing.

Once completed, you should end up with a window like this.

Be sure to remember the 'Avg Frame Rate'. This is the number that you will be using with YAMB to properly sync up the audio and video.

Next, you will notice that in the FLV files homespot, there are two new files. Don't be alarmed these are the demuxed audio/video files.

There should be a .264 (video) and a .aac (audio)

You may get different audio filetypes, but that shouldn't matter.

Now, open up YAMB.

Double click the MP4 option (golden disk)

Next you should see a box that looks like the following.

Drag and drop the .264 and .aac files into this window.

Next, SINGLE CLICK on the video file, and press 'Properties'.

Next to the Frame-Rate box, enter the fps you memorized from before. Mine is 24.008.

Press 'OK'.

Now, just choose the output location, which in my case will be the source folder, and hit 'Next'.

After creating the new MP4 file, you should be able to see a progress box with no errors. (If you have any errors, don't be afraid to leave a comment or send a PM)

Congratulations! Your newly made MP4 is ready for viewing with no quality loss or size increase from transcoding! As you may have noticed, the new MP4 file may be slightly smaller too.

STEP 2.2 : MKV MUXING

MKV's are beautiful files. Supported mainly on VLC, the average chum or rather, 'newb', does not know how to use this. While at the same time, MP4's are supported on almost every single system out there.

Let us begin, shall we?

Extract your MKV.rar's contents, which should be two files, to an easily accessible place.

Have an MKV ready, and open the tsMuxeR 1.10.6 folder. Inside, you will see four different files. Click on 'tsMuxerGUI.exe'.

You should have a window like the following.

Next, you're going to drag your MKV file into the 'Input Files' window, (the top window) and drop it.

You should see at least two tracks pop up; a video and an audio track.

Be sure both are selected, and under the 'Output' options, select the 'Demux' circle.

Set a destination folder, and press 'Start demuxing'.

The following window should pop up.

Once it finishes demuxing the a/v tracks, press 'OK' and exit tsMuxeR.

In the destination folder, you should see two new files, one being a .264 and the other being an .aac and/or an .ac3 file.

The .264 is raw video, and the .aac or .ac3 is raw audio.

Next, open up YAMB and double click the MP4 option (goldish cd)

Drag and drop the .264 and .aac/.ac3 files into this window.

The fps should already be set by tsMuxeR, and no further settings are required.

Select and output file, in my case it will be 'Bates Motel S01E08.mp4'.

Press 'Next' and allow YAMB to do it's work. This could take some time, but in total shouldn't take that long.

Once finished, test your MP4 with WMP or VLC. Make sure the audio matches up, and the video is the same quality.

Here's a size/quality comparison of the two.

Top is MKV, bottom is MP4. No quality difference.

I sincerely hope this tutorial helped any of you beginners out there.

Good day, and good night.

[ayjayjay]

this is awesome!! thank you
One important question: I was converting a matroska file, and got all the way to the last step, the part where I was supposed to hit "'Next' and let yamb do its work"... only it said that "the path of the mp4 box is missing" and "Yamb cannot find mp4 box. please, provide a correct path in settings". So i searched around online for what that meant and what I was supposed to do, but all of the mp4 box files I tried to DL, 'windows could not find the program to open it with'. I have an old windows vista, but not too old. I've been DL torrents just fine, and just ran into the matroska file needing converting.
Any suggestions on where/how to get an mp4 box to finish the conversion/yamb-ing?

thanks!

[bert16]

I'm sure all this works, but you can avoid all this hassle by using Aone Software's Ultra Video Joiner. Simply select the file (mkv in this case) and convert it to your favorite format in one click. You can convert from mkv to something else, but not to mkv. I grabbed this at the Pirate Bay with a working serial and everything. I've tested it and it works great.

[jingo500]

Getting a 404 on the flv link. The mkv one works fine though

[NIK]

Try this then https://pirates-forum.org/Thread-7000-FL...Losslessly

It's simpler anyway, and by coincidence I used it for the first time a couple of days ago to convert some FLV files I'd webripped.