1MKVMERGE(1) User Commands MKVMERGE(1)
2
6 mkvmerge - Merge multimedia streams into a Matroska(TM) file
7
9 mkvmerge [global options] {-o out} [options1] {file1}
10 [[options2] {file2}] [@options-file.json]
11
13 This program takes the input from several media files and joins their
14 streams (all of them or just a selection) into a Matroska(TM) file; see
15 the Matroska(TM) website[1].
16 Important
18 The order of command line options is important. Please read the
19 section "Option order" if you're new to the program.
20 Global options
22 -v, --verbose
23 Increase verbosity.
24 -q, --quiet
26 Suppress status output.
27 -o, --output file-name
29 Write to the file file-name. If splitting is used then this
30 parameter is treated a bit differently. See the explanation for the
31 --split option for details.
32 -w, --webm
34 Create a WebM compliant file. This is also turned on if the output
35 file name's extension is "webm". This mode enforces several
36 restrictions. The only allowed codecs are VP8, VP9 video and Opus,
37 Vorbis audio tracks. The DocType header item is changed to "webm".
38 For chapters and tags only a subset of elements are allowed.
40 mkvmerge(1) will automatically remove all elements not allowed by
41 the specification.
42 --title title
44 Sets the general title for the output file, e.g. the movie name.
45 --default-language language-code
47 Sets the default language code that will be used for tracks for
48 which no language is set with the --language option and for which
49 the source container doesn't provide a language.
50 The default language code is 'und' for 'undefined'.
52 Segment info handling (global options)
54 --segmentinfo filename.xml
55 Read segment information from a XML file. This file can contain the
56 segment family UID, segment UID, previous and next segment UID
57 elements. An example file and a DTD are included in the MKVToolNix
58 distribution.
59 See the section about segment info XML files below for details.
61 --segment-uid SID1,SID2,...
63 Sets the segment UIDs to use. This is a comma-separated list of
64 128-bit segment UIDs in the usual UID form: hex numbers with or
65 without the "0x" prefix, with or without spaces, exactly 32 digits.
66 If SID starts with = then its rest is interpreted as the name of a
68 Matroska file whose segment UID is read and used.
69 Each file created contains one segment, and each segment has one
71 segment UID. If more segment UIDs are specified than segments are
72 created then the surplus UIDs are ignored. If fewer UIDs are
73 specified than segments are created then random UIDs will be
74 created for them.
75 Chapter and tag handling (global options)
77 --chapter-language language-code
78 Sets the ISO 639-2 language code that is written for each chapter
79 entry. Defaults to 'eng'. See the section about chapters below for
80 details.
81 This option can be used both for simple chapter files and for
83 source files that contain chapters but no information about the
84 chapters' language, e.g. MP4 and OGM files.
85 The language set with this option is also used when chapters are
87 generated with the --generate-chapters option.
88 --chapter-charset character-set
90 Sets the character set that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for
91 simple chapter files. See the section about text files and
92 character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts between
93 character sets.
94 This switch does also apply to chapters that are copied from
96 certain container types, e.g. Ogg/OGM and MP4 files. See the
97 section about chapters below for details.
98 --chapter-sync d[,o[/p]]
100 Adjust the timestamps of the chapters in the following source file
101 by d ms. Alternatively you can use the --sync option with the
102 special track ID -2 (see section special track IDs).
103 o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts. p defaults
105 to 1 if omitted. Both o and p can be floating point numbers.
106 Defaults: no manual sync correction (which is the same as d = 0 and
108 o/p = 1.0).
109 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
111 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
112 --generate-chapters mode
114 mkvmerge(1) can create chapters automatically. The following two
115 modes are currently supported:
116 · 'when-appending' – This mode creates one chapter at the start
118 and one chapter whenever a file is appended.
119 Note
121 mkvmerge(1) requires a video or an audio track to be
122 present in order to be able to determine when a new file is
123 appended. If one or more video tracks are muxed the first
124 one is used. Otherwise the first audio track is used.
125 · 'interval:time-spec' – This mode creates one chapter at fixed
127 intervals given by time-spec. The format is either the form
128 HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn or a number followed by one of the units
129 's', 'ms' or 'us'.
130 Example: --generate-chapters interval:45s
132 The names for the new chapters are controlled by the option
134 --generate-chapters-name-template. The language is set with
135 --chapter-language which must occur before --generate-chapters.
136 --generate-chapters-name-template template
138 This sets the name template for chapter names generated by the
139 option --generate-chapters. If the option is not used then default
140 'Chapter <NUM:2>' will be used.
141 There are several variables that can be used in the template that
143 are replaced by their actual values when a chapter is generated.
144 The string '<NUM>' will be replaced by the chapter number. The
145 string '<START>' will be replaced by the chapter's start timestamp.
146 The strings '<FILE_NAME>' and '<FILE_NAME_WITH_EXT>' are only
148 filled when generating chapters for appended files. They will be
149 replaced by the appended file's name wihtout respectively with its
150 extension. Note that only the file's base name and extension are
151 inserted, not its directory or drive components.
152 You can specify a minimum number of places for the chapter number
154 with '<NUM:places>', e.g. '<NUM:3>'. The resulting number will be
155 padded with leading zeroes if the number of places is less than
156 specified.
157 You can control the format used by the start timestamp with
159 <START:format>. The format defaults to '%H:%M:%S' if none is given.
160 Valid format codes are:
161 · %h – hours
163 · %H – hours zero-padded to two places
165 · %m – minutes
167 · %M – minutes zero-padded to two places
169 · %s – seconds
171 · %S – seconds zero-padded to two places
173 · %n – nanoseconds with nine places
175 · %<1-9>n – nanoseconds with up to nine places (e.g. three places
177 with %3n)
178 --cue-chapter-name-format format
180 mkvmerge(1) supports reading CUE sheets for audio files as the
181 input for chapters. CUE sheets usually contain the entries
182 PERFORMER and TITLE for each index entry. mkvmerge(1) uses these
183 two strings in order to construct the chapter name. With this
184 option the format used for this name can be set.
185 If this option is not given then mkvmerge(1) defaults to the format
187 '%p - %t' (the performer, followed by a space, a dash, another
188 space and the title).
189 If the format is given then everything except the following meta
191 characters is copied as-is, and the meta characters are replaced
192 like this:
193 · %p is replaced by the current entry's PERFORMER string,
195 · %t is replaced by the current entry's TITLE string,
197 · %n is replaced by the current track number and
199 · %N is replaced by the current track number padded with a
201 leading zero if it is < 10.
202 --chapters file-name
204 Read chapter information from the file file-name. See the section
205 about chapters below for details.
206 --global-tags file-name
208 Read global tags from the file file-name. See the section about
209 tags below for details.
210 General output control (advanced global options)
212 --track-order FID1:TID1,FID2:TID2,...
213 This option changes the order in which the tracks for an input file
214 are created. The argument is a comma separated list of pairs IDs.
215 Each pair contains first the file ID (FID1) which is simply the
216 number of the file on the command line starting at 0. The second is
217 a track ID (TID1) from that file. If some track IDs are omitted
218 then those tracks are created after the ones given with this option
219 have been created.
220 --cluster-length spec
222 Limit the number of data blocks or the duration of data in each
223 cluster. The spec parameter can either be a number n without a unit
224 or a number d postfixed with 'ms'.
225 If no unit is used then mkvmerge(1) will put at most n data blocks
227 into each cluster. The maximum number of blocks is 65535.
228 If the number d is postfixed with 'ms' then mkvmerge(1) puts at
230 most d milliseconds of data into each cluster. The minimum for d is
231 '100ms', and the maximum is '32000ms'.
232 mkvmerge(1) defaults to putting at most 65535 data blocks and
234 5000ms of data into a cluster.
235 Programs trying to find a certain frame can only seek directly to a
237 cluster and have to read the whole cluster afterwards. Therefore
238 creating larger clusters may lead to imprecise or slow seeking.
239 --no-cues
241 Tells mkvmerge(1) not to create and write the cue data which can be
242 compared to an index in an AVI. Matroska(TM) files can be played
243 back without the cue data, but seeking will probably be imprecise
244 and slower. Use this only if you're really desperate for space or
245 for testing purposes. See also option --cues which can be specified
246 for each input file.
247 --clusters-in-meta-seek
249 Tells mkvmerge(1) to create a meta seek element at the end of the
250 file containing all clusters. See also the section about the
251 Matroska(TM) file layout.
252 --disable-lacing
254 Disables lacing for all tracks. This will increase the file's size,
255 especially if there are many audio tracks. This option is not
256 intended for everyday use.
257 --enable-durations
259 Write durations for all blocks. This will increase file size and
260 does not offer any additional value for players at the moment.
261 --disable-track-statistics-tags
263 Normally mkvmerge(1) will write certain tags with statistics for
264 each track. If such tags are already present then they will be
265 overwritten. The tags are BPS, DURATION, NUMBER_OF_BYTES and
266 NUMBER_OF_FRAMES.
267 Enabling this option prevents mkvmerge(1) from writing those tags
269 and from touching any existing tags with same names.
270 --timestamp-scale factor
272 Forces the timestamp scale factor to factor. Valid values are in
273 the range 1000..10000000 or the special value -1.
274 Normally mkvmerge(1) will use a value of 1000000 which means that
276 timestamps and durations will have a precision of 1ms. For files
277 that will not contain a video track but at least one audio track
278 mkvmerge(1) will automatically chose a timestamp scale factor so
279 that all timestamps and durations have a precision of one audio
280 sample. This causes bigger overhead but allows precise seeking and
281 extraction.
282 If the special value -1 is used then mkvmerge(1) will use sample
284 precision even if a video track is present.
285 File splitting, linking, appending and concatenation (more global options)
287 --split specification
288 Splits the output file after a given size or a given time. Please
289 note that tracks can only be split right before a key frame.
290 Therefore the split point may be a bit off from what the user has
291 specified.
292 At the moment mkvmerge(1) supports four different modes.
294 1. Splitting by size.
296 Syntax: --split [size:]d[k|m|g]
298 Examples: --split size:700m or --split 150000000
300 The parameter d may end with 'k', 'm' or 'g' to indicate that
302 the size is in KB, MB or GB respectively. Otherwise a size in
303 bytes is assumed. After the current output file has reached
304 this size limit a new one will be started.
305 The 'size:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility reasons.
307 2. Splitting after a duration.
309 Syntax: --split [duration:]HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ds
311 Examples: --split duration:00:60:00.000 or --split 3600s
313 The parameter must either have the form HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn for
315 specifying the duration in up to nano-second precision or be a
316 number d followed by the letter 's' for the duration in
317 seconds. HH is the number of hours, MM the number of minutes,
318 SS the number of seconds and nnnnnnnnn the number of
319 nanoseconds. Both the number of hours and the number of
320 nanoseconds can be omitted. There can be up to nine digits
321 after the decimal point. After the duration of the contents in
322 the current output has reached this limit a new output file
323 will be started.
324 The 'duration:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility
326 reasons.
327 3. Splitting after specific timestamps.
329 Syntax: --split timestamps:A[,B[,C...]]
331 Example: --split timestamps:00:45:00.000,01:20:00.250,6300s
333 The parameters A, B, C etc must all have the same format as the
335 ones used for the duration (see above). The list of timestamps
336 is separated by commas. After the input stream has reached the
337 current split point's timestamp a new file is created. Then the
338 next split point given in this list is used.
339 The 'timestamps:' prefix must not be omitted.
341 4. Keeping specific parts by specifying timestamp ranges while
343 discarding others.
344 Syntax: --split
346 parts:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
347 Examples:
349 1. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,00:05:50-00:10:30
351 2. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,+00:05:50-00:10:30
353 3. --split parts:-00:02:45,00:05:50-
355 The parts mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges of
357 timestamps while discarding others. The ranges to keep have to
358 be listed after the parts: keyword and be separated by commas.
359 A range itself consists of a start and an end timestamp in the
360 same format the other variations of --split accept (e.g. both
361 00:01:20 and 80s refer to the same timestamp).
362 If a start timestamp is left out then it defaults to the
364 previous range's end timestamp. If there was no previous range
365 then it defaults to the start of the file (see example 3).
366 If an end timestamp is left out then it defaults to the end of
368 the source files which basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the
369 rest (see example 3).
370 Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be
372 changed so that consecutive ranges are written to the same
373 file. For that the user has to prefix the start timestamp with
374 a +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and
375 instead append the range to the same file the previous range
376 was written to. Timestamps will be adjusted so that there will
377 be no gap in the output file even if there was a gap in the two
378 ranges in the input file.
379 In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
381 contain the content starting from 00:01:20 until 00:02:45. The
382 second file will contain the content starting from 00:05:50
383 until 00:10:30.
384 In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file
386 will contain both the content starting from 00:01:20 until
387 00:02:45 and the content starting from 00:05:50 until 00:10:30.
388 In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
390 contain the content from the start of the source files until
391 00:02:45. The second file will contain the content starting
392 from 00:05:50 until the end of the source files.
393 Note
395 Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting
396 at key frame positions. This applies to both the start and
397 the end of each range. So even if an end timestamp is
398 between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will continue outputting
399 the frames up to but excluding the following key frame.
400 5. Keeping specific parts by specifying frame/field number ranges
402 while discarding others.
403 Syntax: --split
405 parts-frames:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
406 Examples:
408 1. --split parts-frames:137-258,548-1211
410 2. --split parts-frames:733-912,+1592-2730
412 3. --split parts-frames:-430,2512-
414 The parts-frames mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges
416 of frame/field numbers while discarding others. The ranges to
417 keep have to be listed after the parts-frames: keyword and be
418 separated by commas. A range itself consists of a start and an
419 end frame/field number. Numbering starts at 1.
420 If a start number is left out then it defaults to the previous
422 range's end number. If there was no previous range then it
423 defaults to the start of the file (see example 3).
424 If an end number is left out then it defaults to the end of the
426 source files which basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the rest
427 (see example 3).
428 Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be
430 changed so that consecutive ranges are written to the same
431 file. For that the user has to prefix the start number with a
432 +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and instead
433 append the range to the same file the previous range was
434 written to. Timestamps will be adjusted so that there will be
435 no gap in the output file even if there was a gap in the two
436 ranges in the input file.
437 Note
439 Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting
440 at key frame positions. This applies to both the start and
441 the end of each range. So even if an end frame/field number
442 is between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will continue
443 outputting the frames up to but excluding the following key
444 frame.
445 In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
446 contain the content starting from the first key frame at or
447 after 137 up to but excluding the first key frame at or after
448 258. The second file will contain the content starting from 548
449 until 1211.
450 In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file
452 will contain both the content starting from 733 until 912 and
453 the content starting from 1592 until 2730.
454 In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
456 contain the content from the start of the source files until
457 430. The second file will contain the content starting from
458 2512 until the end of the source files.
459 This mode considers only the first video track that is output.
461 If no video track is output no splitting will occur.
462 Note
464 The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based
465 on the number of Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A
466 single Matroska(TM) block contains either a full frame (for
467 progressive content) or a single field (for interlaced
468 content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two
469 and simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one
470 wanted to split after the 25th full frame with interlaced
471 content one would have to use 50 (two fields per full
472 frame) as the split point.
473 6. Splitting after specific frames/fields.
475 Syntax: --split frames:A[,B[,C...]]
477 Example: --split frames:120,237,891
479 The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers.
481 Numbering starts at 1. The list of frame/field numbers is
482 separated by commas. After the input stream has reached the
483 current split point's frame/field number a new file is created.
484 Then the next split point given in this list is used.
485 The 'frames:' prefix must not be omitted.
487 This mode considers only the first video track that is output.
489 If no video track is output no splitting will occur.
490 Note
492 The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based
493 on the number of Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A
494 single Matroska(TM) block contains either a full frame (for
495 progressive content) or a single field (for interlaced
496 content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two
497 and simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one
498 wanted to split after the 25th full frame with interlaced
499 content one would have to use 50 (two fields per full
500 frame) as the split point.
501 7. Splitting before specific chapters.
503 Syntax: --split chapters:all or --split chapters:A[,B[,C...]]
505 Example: --split chapters:5,8
507 The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers.
509 Numbering starts at 1. The list of chapter numbers is separated
510 by commas. Splitting will occur right before the first key
511 frame whose timestamp is equal to or bigger than the start
512 timestamp for the chapters whose numbers are listed. A chapter
513 starting at 0s is never considered for splitting and discarded
514 silently.
515 The keyword all can be used instead of listing all chapter
517 numbers manually.
518 The 'chapters:' prefix must not be omitted.
520 Note
522 The Matroska(TM) file format supports arbitrary deeply
523 nested chapter structures called 'edition entries' and
524 'chapter atoms'. However, this mode only considers the
525 top-most level of chapters across all edition entries.
526 For this splitting mode the output filename is treated differently
528 than for the normal operation. It may contain a printf like
529 expression '%d' including an optional field width, e.g. '%02d'. If
530 it does then the current file number will be formatted
531 appropriately and inserted at that point in the filename. If there
532 is no such pattern then a pattern of '-%03d' is assumed right
533 before the file's extension: '-o output.mkv' would result in
534 'output-001.mkv' and so on. If there's no extension then '-%03d'
535 will be appended to the name.
536 --link
538 Link files to one another when splitting the output file. See the
539 section on file linking below for details.
540 --link-to-previous segment-UID
542 Links the first output file to the segment with the segment UID
543 given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
544 below for details.
545 If SID starts with = then its rest is interpreted as the name of a
547 Matroska file whose segment UID is read and used.
548 --link-to-next segment-UID
550 Links the last output file to the segment with the segment UID
551 given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
552 below for details.
553 If SID starts with = then its rest is interpreted as the name of a
555 Matroska file whose segment UID is read and used.
556 --append-mode mode
558 Determines how timestamps are calculated when appending files. The
559 parameter mode can have two values: 'file' which is also the
560 default and 'track'.
561 When mkvmerge appends a track (called 'track2_1' from now on) from
563 a second file (called 'file2') to a track (called 'track1_1') from
564 the first file (called 'file1') then it has to offset all
565 timestamps for 'track2_1' by an amount. For 'file' mode this amount
566 is the highest timestamp encountered in 'file1' even if that
567 timestamp was from a different track than 'track1_1'. In track mode
568 the offset is the highest timestamp of 'track1_1'.
569 Unfortunately mkvmerge cannot detect which mode to use reliably.
571 Therefore it defaults to 'file' mode. 'file' mode usually works
572 better for files that have been created independently of each
573 other; e.g. when appending AVI or MP4 files. 'track' mode may work
574 better for sources that are essentially just parts of one big file,
575 e.g. for VOB and EVO files.
576 Subtitle tracks are always treated as if 'file' mode were active
578 even if 'track' mode actually is.
579 --append-to SFID1:STID1:DFID1:DTID1[,...]
581 This option controls to which track another track is appended. Each
582 spec contains four IDs: a file ID, a track ID, a second file ID and
583 a second track ID. The first pair, "source file ID" and "source
584 track ID", identifies the track that is to be appended. The second
585 pair, "destination file ID" and "destination track ID", identifies
586 the track the first one is appended to.
587 If this option has been omitted then a standard mapping is used.
589 This standard mapping appends each track from the current file to a
590 track from the previous file with the same track ID. This allows
591 for easy appending if a movie has been split into two parts and
592 both file have the same number of tracks and track IDs with the
593 command mkvmerge -o output.mkv part1.mkv +part2.mkv.
594 +
596 A single '+' causes the next file to be appended instead of added.
597 The '+' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore
598 the following two commands are equivalent:
599 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
601 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv +file2.mkv
602 [ file1 file2 ]
604 If multiple file names are contained in a pair of square brackets
605 then the second and all following files will be appended to the
606 first file named within the brackets.
607 This is an alternative syntax to using '+' between the file names.
609 Therefore the following two commands are equivalent:
610 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
612 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv '[' file1.mkv file2.mkv ']'
613 =
615 Normally mkvmerge(1) looks for files in the same directory as an
616 input file that have the same base name and only differ in their
617 running number (e.g. 'VTS_01_1.VOB', 'VTS_01_2.VOB', 'VTS_01_3.VOB'
618 etc) and treats all of those files as if they were concatenated
619 into a single big file. This option, a single '=', causes mkvmerge
620 not to look for those additional files.
621 The '=' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore
623 the following two commands are equivalent:
624 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv = file1.mkv
626 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv =file1.mkv
627 ( file1 file2 )
629 If multiple file names are contained in a pair of parenthesis then
630 those files will be treated as if they were concatenated into a
631 single big file consisting of the content of each of the files one
632 after the other.
633 This can be used for e.g. VOB files coming from a DVD or MPEG
635 transport streams. It cannot be used if each file contains its own
636 set of headers which is usually the case with stand-alone files
637 like AVI or MP4.
638 Putting a file name into parenthesis also prevents mkvmerge(1) from
640 looking for additional files with the same base name as described
641 in option =. Therefore these two command lines are equivalent:
642 $ mkvmerge -o out.mkv = file.mkv
644 $ mkvmerge -o out.mkv '(' file.mkv ')'
645 Several things should be noted:
647 1. There must be spaces both after the opening and before the
649 closing parenthesis.
650 2. Every parameter between parenthesis is interpreted as a file
652 name. Therefore all options applying to this logical file must
653 be listed before the opening parenthesis.
654 3. Some shells treat parenthesis as special characters. Hence you
656 must escape or quote them as shown in the example above.
657 Attachment support (more global options)
659 --attachment-description description
660 Plain text description of the following attachment. Applies to the
661 next --attach-file or --attach-file-once option.
662 --attachment-mime-type MIME type
664 MIME type of the following attachment. Applies to the next
665 --attach-file or --attach-file-once option. A list of officially
666 recognized MIME types can be found e.g. at the IANA homepage[2].
667 The MIME type is mandatory for an attachment.
668 --attachment-name name
670 Sets the name that will be stored in the output file for this
671 attachment. If this option is not given then the name will be
672 derived from the file name of the attachment as given with the
673 --attach-file or the --attach-file-once option.
674 --attach-file file-name, --attach-file-once file-name
676 Creates a file attachment inside the Matroska(TM) file. The MIME
677 type must have been set before this option can used. The difference
678 between the two forms is that during splitting the files attached
679 with --attach-file are attached to all output files while the ones
680 attached with --attach-file-once are only attached to the first
681 file created. If splitting is not used then both do the same.
682 mkvextract(1) can be used to extract attached files from a
684 Matroska(TM) file.
685 Options that can be used for each input file
687 -a, --audio-tracks [!]n,m,...
688 Copy the audio tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can
689 be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
690 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all audio
691 tracks.
692 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
694 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
695 their tracks.
696 Default: copy all tracks of this kind.
698 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
700 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
701 -d, --video-tracks [!]n,m,...
703 Copy the video tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can
704 be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
705 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all video
706 tracks.
707 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
709 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
710 their tracks.
711 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
713 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
714 -s, --subtitle-tracks [!]n,m,...
716 Copy the subtitle tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
717 can be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
718 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all subtitle
719 tracks.
720 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
722 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
723 their tracks.
724 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
726 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
727 -b, --button-tracks [!]n,m,...
729 Copy the button tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
730 can be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
731 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all button
732 tracks.
733 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
735 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
736 their tracks.
737 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
739 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
740 --track-tags [!]n,m,...
742 Copy the tags for tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
743 can be obtained with the --identify switch (see section track IDs).
744 They're not simply the track numbers. Default: copy tags for all
745 tracks.
746 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
748 everything but the IDs listed after the !.
749 -m, --attachments [!]n[:all|first],m[:all|first],...
751 Copy the attachments with the IDs n, m etc to all or only the first
752 output file. Each ID can be followed by either ':all' (which is the
753 default if neither is entered) or ':first'. If splitting is active
754 then those attachments whose IDs are specified with ':all' are
755 copied to all of the resulting output files while the others are
756 only copied into the first output file. If splitting is not active
757 then both variants have the same effect.
758 The default is to copy all attachments to all output files.
760 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
762 everything but the IDs listed after the !.
763 -A, --no-audio
765 Don't copy any audio track from this file.
766 -D, --no-video
768 Don't copy any video track from this file.
769 -S, --no-subtitles
771 Don't copy any subtitle track from this file.
772 -B, --no-buttons
774 Don't copy any button track from this file.
775 -T, --no-track-tags
777 Don't copy any track specific tags from this file.
778 --no-chapters
780 Don't copy chapters from this file.
781 -M, --no-attachments
783 Don't copy attachments from this file.
784 --no-global-tags
786 Don't copy global tags from this file.
787 --chapter-charset character-set
789 Sets the charset that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for
790 chapter information contained in the source file. See the section
791 about text files and character sets for an explanation how
792 mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.
793 --chapter-language language-code
795 Sets the ISO 639-2 language code that is written for each chapter
796 entry. This option can be used for source files that contain
797 chapters but no information about the chapters' languages, e.g. for
798 MP4 and OGM files.
799 -y, --sync TID:d[,o[/p]]
801 Adjust the timestamps of the track with the id TID by d ms. The
802 track IDs are the same as the ones given with --identify (see
803 section track IDs).
804 o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts. p defaults
806 to 1 if omitted. Both o and p can be floating point numbers.
807 Defaults: no manual sync correction (which is the same as d = 0 and
809 o/p = 1.0).
810 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
812 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
813 --cues TID:none|iframes|all
815 Controls for which tracks cue (index) entries are created for the
816 given track (see section track IDs). 'none' inhibits the creation
817 of cue entries. For 'iframes' only blocks with no backward or
818 forward references ( = I frames in video tracks) are put into the
819 cue sheet. 'all' causes mkvmerge(1) to create cue entries for all
820 blocks which will make the file very big.
821 The default is 'iframes' for video and subtitle tracks and 'none'
823 for audio tracks. See also option --no-cues which inhibits the
824 creation of cue entries regardless of the --cues options used.
825 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
827 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
828 --default-track TID[:bool]
830 Sets the 'default' flag for the given track (see section track IDs)
831 if the optional argument bool is not present. If the user does not
832 explicitly select a track himself then the player should prefer the
833 track that has his 'default' flag set. Only one track of each kind
834 (audio, video, subtitles, buttons) can have his 'default' flag set.
835 If the user wants no track to have the default track flag set then
836 he has to set bool to 0 for all tracks.
837 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
839 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
840 --forced-track TID[:bool]
842 Sets the 'forced' flag for the given track (see section track IDs)
843 if the optional argument bool is not present. A player must play
844 all tracks for which this flag is set to 1.
845 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
847 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
848 --blockadd TID:level
850 Keep only the BlockAdditions up to the level level for the given
851 track. The default is to keep all levels. This option only affects
852 certain kinds of codecs like WAVPACK4.
853 --track-name TID:name
855 Sets the track name for the given track (see section track IDs) to
856 name.
857 --language TID:language
859 Sets the language for the given track (see section track IDs). Both
860 ISO 639-2 language codes and ISO 639-1 country codes are allowed.
861 The country codes will be converted to language codes
862 automatically. All languages including their ISO 639-2 codes can be
863 listed with the --list-languages option.
864 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
866 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
867 -t, --tags TID:file-name
869 Read tags for the track with the number TID from the file
870 file-name. See the section about tags below for details.
871 --aac-is-sbr TID[:0|1]
873 Tells mkvmerge(1) that the track with the ID TID is SBR AAC (also
874 known as HE-AAC or AAC+). This options is needed if a) the source
875 file is an AAC file (not for a Matroska(TM) file) and b) the AAC
876 file contains SBR AAC data. The reason for this switch is that it
877 is technically impossible to automatically tell normal AAC data
878 from SBR AAC data without decoding a complete AAC frame. As there
879 are several patent issues with AAC decoders mkvmerge(1) will never
880 contain this decoding stage. So for SBR AAC files this switch is
881 mandatory. The resulting file might not play back correctly or even
882 not at all if the switch was omitted.
883 If the source file is a Matroska(TM) file then the CodecID should
885 be enough to detect SBR AAC. However, if the CodecID is wrong then
886 this switch can be used to correct that.
887 If mkvmerge wrongfully detects that an AAC file is SBR then you can
889 add ':0' to the track ID.
890 --reduce-to-core TID
892 Some audio codecs have a lossy core and optional extensions that
893 implement lossless decoding. This option tells mkvmerge(1) to only
894 copy the core but not the extensions. By default mkvmerge(1) copies
895 both the core and the extensions.
896 Currently only DTS tracks are affected by this option. TrueHD
898 tracks that contain an embedded AC-3 core are instead presented as
899 two separate tracks for which the user can select which track to
900 copy. For DTS such a scheme would not work as the HD extensions
901 cannot be decoded by themselves – unlike the TrueHD data.
902 --remove-dialog-normalization-gain TID
904 Some audio codecs contain header fields that tell the decoder or
905 player to apply a (usually negative) gain for dialog normalization.
906 This option tells mkvmerge(1) to remove or minimize that gain by
907 modifying the corresponding header fields.
908 Currently only AC-3, DTS and TrueHD tracks are affected by this
910 option.
911 --timestamps TID:file-name
913 Read the timestamps to be used for the specific track ID from
914 file-name. These timestamps forcefully override the timestamps that
915 mkvmerge(1) normally calculates. Read the section about external
916 timestamp files.
917 --default-duration TID:x
919 Forces the default duration of a given track to the specified
920 value. Also modifies the track's timestamps to match the default
921 duration. The argument x must be postfixed with 's', 'ms', 'us',
922 'ns', 'fps', 'p' or 'i' to specify the default duration in seconds,
923 milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, 'frames per second',
924 'progressive frames per second' or 'interlaced frames per second'
925 respectively. The number x itself can be a floating point number or
926 a fraction.
927 If the default duration is not forced then mkvmerge will try to
929 derive the track's default duration from the container and/or the
930 encoded bitstream for certain track types, e.g. AVC/H.264 or
931 MPEG-2.
932 This option can also be used to change the FPS of video tracks
934 without having to use an external timestamp file.
935 --fix-bitstream-timing-information TID[:0|1]
937 Normally mkvmerge(1) does not change the timing information
938 (frame/field rate) stored in the video bitstream. With this option
939 that information is adjusted to match the container timing
940 information. The container timing information can come from various
941 sources: from the command line (see option --default-duration), the
942 source container or derived from the bitstream.
943 Note
945 This has only been implemented for AVC/H.264 video tracks so
946 far.
947 --nalu-size-length TID:n
949 Forces the NALU size length to n bytes. This parameter is only used
950 if the AVC/H.264 elementary stream packetizer is used. If left out
951 it defaults to 4 bytes, but there are files that contain frames or
952 slices that are all smaller than 65536 bytes. For such files you
953 can use this parameter and decrease the size to 2.
954 --compression TID:n
956 Selects the compression method to be used for the track. Note that
957 the player also has to support this method. Valid values are
958 'none', 'zlib' and 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2'.
959 The compression method 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2' is a special
961 compression method called 'header removal' that is only available
962 for MPEG4 part 2 video tracks.
963 The default for some subtitle types is 'zlib' compression. This
965 compression method is also the one that most if not all playback
966 applications support. Support for other compression methods other
967 than 'none' is not assured.
968 Options that only apply to video tracks
970 -f, --fourcc TID:FourCC
971 Forces the FourCC to the specified value. Works only for video
972 tracks in the 'MS compatibility mode'.
973 --display-dimensions TID:widthxheight
975 Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
976 properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
977 display width and display height. These values can be set with this
978 option, e.g. '1:640x480'.
979 Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
981 the --aspect-ratio-factor option (see below). These options are
982 mutually exclusive.
983 --aspect-ratio TID:ratio|width/height
985 Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
986 properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
987 display width and display height. With this option mkvmerge(1) will
988 automatically calculate the display width and display height based
989 on the image's original width and height and the aspect ratio given
990 with this option. The ratio can be given either as a floating point
991 number ratio or as a fraction 'width/height', e.g. '16/9'.
992 Another way to specify the values is to use the
994 --aspect-ratio-factor or --display-dimensions options (see above
995 and below). These options are mutually exclusive.
996 --aspect-ratio-factor TID:factor|n/d
998 Another way to set the aspect ratio is to specify a factor. The
999 original aspect ratio is first multiplied with this factor and used
1000 as the target aspect ratio afterwards.
1001 Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
1003 --display-dimensions options (see above). These options are
1004 mutually exclusive.
1005 --cropping TID:left,top,right,bottom
1007 Sets the pixel cropping parameters of a video track to the given
1008 values.
1009 --colour-matrix TID:n
1011 Sets the matrix coefficients of the video used to derive luma and
1012 chroma values from red, green and blue color primaries. The
1013 parameter n is an integer rangeing from 0 and 10.
1014 Valid values and their meaning are:
1016 0: GBR, 1: BT709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: FCC, 5: BT470BG,
1018 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: YCOCG, 9: BT2020 non-constant
1019 luminance, 10: BT2020 constant luminance
1020 --colour-bits-per-channel TID:n
1022 Sets the number of coded bits for a colour channel. A value of 0
1023 indicates that the number of bits is unspecified.
1024 --chroma-subsample TID:hori,vert
1026 The amount of pixels to remove in the Cr and Cb channels for every
1027 pixel not removed horizontally/vertically.
1028 Example: For video with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, the parameter
1030 should be set to TID:1,1.
1031 --cb-subsample TID:hori,vert
1033 The amount of pixels to remove in the Cb channel for every pixel
1034 not removed horizontally/vertically. This is additive with
1035 --chroma-subsample.
1036 Example: For video with 4:2:1 chroma subsampling, the parameter
1038 --chroma-subsample should be set to TID:1,0 and Cb-subsample should
1039 be set to TID:1,0.
1040 --chroma-siting TID:hori,vert
1042 Sets how chroma is sited horizontally/vertically (0: unspecified,
1043 1: top collocated, 2: half).
1044 --colour-range TID:n
1046 Sets the clipping of the color ranges (0: unspecified, 1: broadcast
1047 range, 2: full range (no clipping), 3: defined by
1048 MatrixCoefficients/TransferCharacteristics).
1049 --colour-transfer-characteristics TID:n
1051 The transfer characteristics of the video.
1052 Valid values and their meaning are:
1054 0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: gamma
1056 2.2 curve, 5: gamma 2.8 curve, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8:
1057 linear, 9: log, 10: log sqrt, 11: IEC 61966-2-4, 12: ITU-R BT.1361
1058 extended colour gamut, 13: IEC 61966-2-1, 14: ITU-R BT.2020 10 bit,
1059 15: ITU-R BT.2020 12 bit, 16: SMPTE ST 2084, 17: SMPTE ST 428-1;
1060 18: ARIB STD-B67 (HLG)
1061 --colour-primaries TID:n
1063 Sets the colour primaries of the video.
1064 Valid values and their meaning are:
1066 0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: ITU-R
1068 BT.470M, 5: ITU-R BT.470BG, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: FILM,
1069 9: ITU-R BT.2020, 10: SMPTE ST 428-1, 22: JEDEC P22 phosphors
1070 --max-content-light TID:n
1072 Sets the maximum brightness of a single pixel (Maximum Content
1073 Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value of n
1074 should be a non-negtive integer.
1075 --max-frame-light TID:n
1077 Sets the maximum brightness of a single full frame (Maximum
1078 Frame-Average Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1079 The value of n should be a non-negtive integer.
1080 --chromaticity-coordinates
1082 TID:red-x,red-y,green-x,green-y,blue-x,blue-y
1083 Sets the red/green/blue chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE
1084 1931.
1085 --white-colour-coordinates TID:x,y
1087 Sets the white colour chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE
1088 1931.
1089 --max-luminance TID:float
1091 Sets the maximum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1092 The value should be less than 9999.99.
1093 --min-luminance TID:float
1095 Sets the minimum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1096 The value should be less than 999.9999.
1097 --projection-type TID:method
1099 Sets the video projection method used. Valid values are 0
1100 (rectangular projection), 1 (equirectangular projection), 2
1101 (cubemap projection) and 3 (mesh projection).
1102 --projection-private TID:data
1104 Sets private data that only applies to a specific projection. Data
1105 must be given as hex numbers with or without the "0x" prefix, with
1106 or without spaces.
1107 --projection-pose-yaw TID:float
1109 Specifies a yaw rotation to the projection.
1110 --projection-pose-pitch TID:float
1112 Specifies a pitch rotation to the projection.
1113 --projection-pose-roll TID:float
1115 Specifies a roll rotation to the projection.
1116 --field-order TID:n
1118 Sets the field order for the video track with the track ID TID. The
1119 order must be one of the following numbers:
1120 0: progressive; 1: interlaced with top field displayed first and
1122 top field stored first; 2: undetermined field order; 6: interlaced
1123 with bottom field displayed first and bottom field stored first; 9:
1124 interlaced with bottom field displayed first and top field stored
1125 first; 14: interlaced with top field displayed first and bottom
1126 field stored first
1127 --stereo-mode TID:n|keyword
1129 Sets the stereo mode for the video track with the track ID TID. The
1130 mode can either be a number n between 0 and 14 or one of these
1131 keywords:
1132 'mono', 'side_by_side_left_first', 'top_bottom_right_first',
1134 'top_bottom_left_first', 'checkerboard_right_first',
1135 'checkerboard_left_first', 'row_interleaved_right_first',
1136 'row_interleaved_left_first', 'column_interleaved_right_first',
1137 'column_interleaved_left_first', 'anaglyph_cyan_red',
1138 'side_by_side_right_first', 'anaglyph_green_magenta',
1139 'both_eyes_laced_left_first', 'both_eyes_laced_right_first'.
1140 Options that only apply to text subtitle tracks
1142 --sub-charset TID:character-set
1143 Sets the character set for the conversion to UTF-8 for UTF-8
1144 subtitles for the given track ID. If not specified the charset will
1145 be derived from the current locale settings. Note that a charset is
1146 not needed for subtitles read from Matroska(TM) files or from Kate
1147 streams, as these are always stored in UTF-8. See the section about
1148 text files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1)
1149 converts between character sets.
1150 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
1152 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
1153 Other options
1155 -i, --identify file-name
1156 Will let mkvmerge(1) probe the single file and report its type, the
1157 tracks contained in the file and their track IDs. If this option is
1158 used then the only other option allowed is the filename.
1159 The output format used for the result can be changed with the
1161 option --identification-format.
1162 -J file-name
1164 This is a convenient alias for "--identification-format json
1165 --identify file-name".
1166 -F, --identification-format format
1168 Determines the output format used by the --identify option. The
1169 following formats are supported: text (the default if this option
1170 isn't used) and json.
1171 1. The text format is short and human-readable. It consists of one
1173 line per item found (container, tracks, attachments etc.).
1174 This format is not meant to be parsed. The output will be
1176 translated into the language mkvmerge(1) uses (see also
1177 --ui-language).
1178 2. The json format outputs a machine-readable JSON representation.
1180 This format follows the JSON schema described in the following
1181 file:
1182 mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v12.json[3]
1184 All versions of the JSON schema are available both online and
1186 in the released source code archives.
1187 --probe-range-percentage percentage
1189 File types such as MPEG program and transport streams (.vob, .m2ts)
1190 require parsing a certain amount of data in order to detect all
1191 tracks contained in the file. This amount is 0.3% of the source
1192 file's size or 10 MB, whichever is higher.
1193 If tracks are known to be present but not found then the percentage
1195 to probe can be changed with this option. The minimum of 10 MB is
1196 built-in and cannot be changed.
1197 -l, --list-types
1199 Lists supported input file types.
1200 --list-languages
1202 Lists all languages and their ISO 639-2 code which can be used with
1203 the --language option.
1204 --priority priority
1206 Sets the process priority that mkvmerge(1) runs with. Valid values
1207 are 'lowest', 'lower', 'normal', 'higher' and 'highest'. If nothing
1208 is given then 'normal' is used. On Unix like systems mkvmerge(1)
1209 will use the nice(2) function. Therefore only the super user can
1210 use 'higher' and 'highest'. On Windows all values are useable for
1211 every user.
1212 Selecting 'lowest' also causes mkvmerge(1) to select idle I/O
1214 priority in addition to the lowest possible process priority.
1215 --command-line-charset character-set
1217 Sets the character set to convert strings given on the command line
1218 from. It defaults to the character set given by system's current
1219 locale. This settings applies to arguments of the following
1220 options: --title, --track-name and --attachment-description.
1221 --output-charset character-set
1223 Sets the character set to which strings are converted that are to
1224 be output. It defaults to the character set given by system's
1225 current locale.
1226 -r, --redirect-output file-name
1228 Writes all messages to the file file-name instead of to the
1229 console. While this can be done easily with output redirection
1230 there are cases in which this option is needed: when the terminal
1231 reinterprets the output before writing it to a file. The character
1232 set set with --output-charset is honored.
1233 --flush-on-close
1235 Tells the program to flush all data cached in memory to storage
1236 when closing files opened for writing. This can be used to prevent
1237 data loss on power outages or to circumvent certain problems in the
1238 operating system or drivers. The downside is that multiplexing will
1239 take longer as mkvmerge will wait until all data has been written
1240 to the storage before exiting. See issues #2469 and #2480 on the
1241 MKVToolNix bug tracker for in-depth discussions on the pros and
1242 cons.
1243 --ui-language code
1245 Forces the translations for the language code to be used (e.g.
1246 'de_DE' for the German translations). Entering 'list' as the code
1247 will cause the program to output a list of available translations.
1248 --abort-on-warnings
1250 Tells the program to abort after the first warning is emitted. The
1251 program's exit code will be 1.
1252 --debug topic
1254 Turn on debugging for a specific feature. This option is only
1255 useful for developers.
1256 --engage feature
1258 Turn on experimental features. A list of available features can be
1259 requested with mkvmerge --engage list. These features are not meant
1260 to be used in normal situations.
1261 --gui-mode
1263 Turns on GUI mode. In this mode specially-formatted lines may be
1264 output that can tell a controlling GUI what's happening. These
1265 messages follow the format '#GUI#message'. The message may be
1266 followed by key/value pairs as in
1267 '#GUI#message#key1=value1#key2=value2...'. Neither the messages nor
1268 the keys are ever translated and always output in English.
1269 @options-file.json
1271 Reads additional command line arguments from the file options-file.
1272 See the section about option files for further information.
1273 --capabilities
1275 Lists information about optional features that have been compiled
1276 in and exit. The first line output will be the version information.
1277 All following lines contain exactly one word whose presence
1278 indicates that the feature has been compiled in. These features
1279 are:
1280 · 'FLAC' -- reading raw FLAC files and handling FLAC tracks in
1282 other containers, e.g. Ogg(TM) or Matroska(TM).
1283 -h, --help
1285 Show usage information and exit.
1286 -V, --version
1288 Show version information and exit.
1289
1291 For each file the user can select which tracks mkvmerge(1) should take.
1292 They are all put into the file specified with -o. A list of known (and
1293 supported) source formats can be obtained with the -l option.
1294 Important
1296 The order of command line options is important. Please read the
1297 section "Option order" if you're new to the program.
1298
1300 The order in which options are entered is important for some options.
1301 Options fall into two categories:
1302 1. Options that affect the whole program and are not tied to any input
1304 file. These include but are not limited to --command-line-charset,
1305 --output or --title. These can appear anywhere on the command line.
1306 2. Options that affect a single input file or a single track in an
1308 input file. These options all apply to the following input file on
1309 the command line. All options applying to the same input (or to
1310 tracks from the same input file) file can be written in any order
1311 as long as they all appear before that input file's name. Examples
1312 for options applying to an input file are --no-chapters or
1313 --chapter-charset. Examples for options applying to a single track
1314 are --default-duration or --language.
1315 The options are processed from left to right. If an option appears
1317 multiple times within the same scope then the last occurence will be
1318 used. Therefore the title will be set to "Something else" in the
1319 following example:
1320 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --title 'This and that' input.avi --title 'Something else'
1322 The following example shows that using the --language option twice is
1324 OK because they're used in different scopes. Even though they apply to
1325 the same track ID they apply to different input files and therefore
1326 have different scopes:
1327 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --language 0:fre français.ogg --language 0:deu deutsch.ogg
1329
1331 Let's assume you have a file called MyMovie.avi and the audio track in
1332 a separate file, e.g. 'MyMovie.wav'. First you want to encode the audio
1333 to OggVorbis(TM):
1334 $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie.ogg MyMovie.wav
1336 After a couple of minutes you can join video and audio:
1338 $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
1340 If your AVI already contains an audio track then it will be copied as
1342 well (if mkvmerge(1) supports the audio format). To avoid that simply
1343 do
1344 $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
1346 After some minutes of consideration you rip another audio track, e.g.
1348 the director's comments or another language to 'MyMovie-add-audio.wav'.
1349 Encode it again and join it up with the other file:
1350 $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie-add-audio.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.wav
1352 $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
1353 The same result can be achieved with
1355 $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
1357 Now fire up mplayer(TM) and enjoy. If you have multiple audio tracks
1359 (or even video tracks) then you can tell mplayer(TM) which track to
1360 play with the '-vid' and '-aid' options. These are 0-based and do not
1361 distinguish between video and audio.
1362 If you need an audio track synchronized you can do that easily. First
1364 find out which track ID the Vorbis track has with
1365 $ mkvmerge --identify outofsync.ogg
1367 Now you can use that ID in the following command line:
1369 $ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -A source.avi -y 12345:200 outofsync.ogg
1371 This would add 200ms of silence at the beginning of the audio track
1373 with the ID 12345 taken from 'outofsync.ogg'.
1374 Some movies start synced correctly but slowly drift out of sync. For
1376 these kind of movies you can specify a delay factor that is applied to
1377 all timestamps -- no data is added or removed. So if you make that
1378 factor too big or too small you'll get bad results. An example is that
1379 an episode I transcoded was 0.2 seconds out of sync at the end of the
1380 movie which was 77340 frames long. At 29.97fps 0.2 seconds correspond
1381 to approx. 6 frames. So I did
1382 $ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -y 23456:0,77346/77340 outofsync.mkv
1384 The result was fine.
1386 The sync options can also be used for subtitles in the same manner.
1388 For text subtitles you can either use some Windows software (like
1390 SubRipper(TM)) or the subrip(TM) package found in transcode(1)'s
1391 sources in the 'contrib/subrip' directory. The general process is:
1392 1. extract a raw subtitle stream from the source:
1394 $ tccat -i /path/to/copied/dvd/ -T 1 -L | tcextract -x ps1 -t vob -a 0x20 | subtitle2pgm -o mymovie
1396 2. convert the resulting PGM images to text with gocr:
1398 $ pgm2txt mymovie
1400 3. spell-check the resulting text files:
1402 $ ispell -d american *txt
1404 4. convert the text files to a SRT file:
1406 $ srttool -s -w -i mymovie.srtx -o mymovie.srt
1408 The resulting file can be used as another input file for mkvmerge(1):
1410 $ mkvmerge -o mymovie.mkv mymovie.avi mymovie.srt
1412 If you want to specify the language for a given track then this is
1414 easily done. First find out the ISO 639-2 code for your language.
1415 mkvmerge(1) can list all of those codes for you:
1416 $ mkvmerge --list-languages
1418 Search the list for the languages you need. Let's assume you have put
1420 two audio tracks into a Matroska(TM) file and want to set their
1421 language codes and that their track IDs are 2 and 3. This can be done
1422 with
1423 $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut without-lang-codes.mkv
1425 As you can see you can use the --language switch multiple times.
1427 Maybe you'd also like to have the player use the Dutch language as the
1429 default language. You also have extra subtitles, e.g. in English and
1430 French, and want to have the player display the French ones by default.
1431 This can be done with
1432 $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut --default-track 3 without-lang-codes.mkv --language 0:eng english.srt --default-track 0 --language 0:fre french.srt
1434 If you do not see the language or default track flags that you've
1436 specified in mkvinfo(1)'s output then please read the section about
1437 default values.
1438 Turn off the compression for an input file.
1440 $ mkvmerge -o no-compression.mkv --compression -1:none MyMovie.avi --compression -1:none mymovie.srt
1442
1444 Regular track IDs
1445 Some of the options for mkvmerge(1) need a track ID to specify which
1446 track they should be applied to. Those track IDs are printed by the
1447 readers when demuxing the current input file, or if mkvmerge(1) is
1448 called with the --identify option. An example for such output:
1449 $ mkvmerge -i v.mkv
1451 File 'v.mkv': container: Matroska(TM)
1452 Track ID 0: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC, DIV3)
1453 Track ID 1: audio (A_MPEG/L3)
1454 Do not confuse the track IDs that are assigned to the tracks that are
1456 placed in the output MKV file with the track IDs of the input files.
1457 Only the input file track IDs are used for options needing these
1458 values.
1459 Also note that each input file has its own set of track IDs. Therefore
1461 the track IDs for file 'file1.ext' as reported by 'mkvmerge --identify'
1462 do not change no matter how many other input files are there or in
1463 which position 'file1.ext' is used.
1464 Track IDs are assigned like this:
1466 · AVI files: The video track has the ID 0. The audio tracks get IDs
1468 in ascending order starting at 1.
1469 · AAC, AC-3, MP3, SRT and WAV files: The one 'track' in that file
1471 gets the ID 0.
1472 · Most other files: The track IDs are assigned in order the tracks
1474 are found in the file starting at 0.
1475 The options that use the track IDs are the ones whose description
1477 contains 'TID'. The following options use track IDs as well:
1478 --audio-tracks, --video-tracks, --subtitle-tracks, --button-tracks and
1479 --track-tags.
1480 Special track IDs
1482 There are several IDs that have special meaning and do not occur in the
1483 identification output.
1484 The special track ID '-1' is a wild card and applies the given switch
1486 to all tracks that are read from an input file.
1487 The special track ID '-2' refers to the chapters in a source file.
1489 Currently only the --sync option uses this special ID. As an
1490 alternative to --sync -2:... the option --chapter-sync ... can be
1491 used.
1492
1494 Note
1495 This section applies to all programs in MKVToolNix even if it only
1496 mentions mkvmerge(1).
1497 Introduction
1499 All text in a Matroska(TM) file is encoded in UTF-8. This means that
1500 mkvmerge(1) has to convert every text file it reads as well as every
1501 text given on the command line from one character set into UTF-8. In
1502 return this also means that mkvmerge(1)'s output has to be converted
1503 back to that character set from UTF-8, e.g. if a non-English
1504 translation is used with --ui-language or for text originating from a
1505 Matroska(TM) file.
1506 mkvmerge(1) does this conversion automatically based on the presence of
1508 a byte order marker (short: BOM) or the system's current locale. How
1509 the character set is inferred from the locale depends on the operating
1510 system that mkvmerge(1) is run on.
1511 Byte order markers (BOM)
1513 Text files that start with a BOM are already encoded in one
1514 representation of UTF. mkvmerge(1) supports the following five modes:
1515 UTF-8, UTF-16 Little and Big Endian, UTF-32 Little and Big Endian. Text
1516 files with a BOM are automatically converted to UTF-8. Any of the
1517 parameters that would otherwise set the character set for such a file
1518 (e.g. --sub-charset) is silently ignored.
1519 Linux and Unix-like systems including macOS
1521 On Unix-like systems mkvmerge(1) uses the setlocale(3) system call
1522 which in turn uses the environment variables LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CYPE.
1523 The resulting character set is often one of UTF-8 or the ISO-8859-*
1524 family and is used for all text file operations and for encoding
1525 strings on the command line and for output to the console.
1526 Windows
1528 On Windows the default character set used for converting text files is
1529 determined by a call to the GetACP() system call.
1530 Reading the command line is done with the GetCommandLineW() function
1532 which already returns a Unicode string. Therefore the option
1533 --command-line-charset is ignored on Windows.
1534 Output to the console consists of three scenarios:
1536 1. If the output is redirected with the option --redirect-output then
1538 the default charset is UTF-8. This can be changed with
1539 --output-charset.
1540 If the output is redirected with cmd.exe itself, e.g. with mkvinfo
1542 file.mkv > info.txt, then the charset is always UTF-8 and cannot be
1543 changed.
1544 Otherwise (when writing directly to the console) the Windows
1546 function WriteConsoleW() is used and the option --output-charset is
1547 ignored. The console should be able to output all Unicode
1548 characters for which the corresponding language support is
1549 installed (e.g. Chinese characters might not be displayed on
1550 English Windows versions).
1551 Command line options
1553 The following options exist that allow specifying the character sets:
1554 · --sub-charset for text subtitle files and for text subtitle tracks
1556 stored in container formats for which the character set cannot be
1557 determined unambiguously (e.g. Ogg files),
1558 · --chapter-charset for chapter text files and for chapters and file
1560 titles stored in container formats for which the character set
1561 cannot be determined unambiguously (e.g. Ogg files for chapter
1562 information, track and file titles etc; MP4 files for chapter
1563 information),
1564 · --command-line-charset for all strings on the command line,
1566 · --output-charset for all strings written to the console or to a
1568 file if the output has been redirected with the --redirect-output
1569 option. On non-Windows systems the default for the output charset
1570 is the system's current charset. On Windows it defaults to UTF-8
1571 both for redirecting with --redirect-output and with cmd.exe
1572 itself, e.g. mkvinfo file.mkv > info.txt.
1573
1575 An option file is a file mkvmerge(1) can read additional command line
1576 arguments from. This can be used in order to circumvent certain
1577 limitations of the shell or the operating system when executing
1578 external programs like a limited command line length.
1579 An option file contains JSON-formatted data. Its content must be a
1581 valid JSON array consisting solely of JSON strings. The file's encoding
1582 must be UTF-8. The file should not start with a byte order marker
1583 (BOM), but if one exists, it will be skipped.
1584 The rules for escaping special characters inside JSON are the ones in
1586 the official JSON specification, RFC 7159[4].
1587 The command line 'mkvmerge -o "my file.mkv" -A "a movie.avi" sound.ogg'
1589 could be converted into the following JSON option file called e.g.
1590 'options.json':
1591 [
1593 "-o",
1594 "c:\\Matroska\\my file.mkv",
1595 "--title",
1596 "#65",
1597 "-A",
1598 "a movie.avi",
1599 "sound.ogg"
1600 ]
1601
1603 There are several text and bitmap subtitle formats that can be embedded
1604 into Matroska(TM). Text subtitles must be recoded to UTF-8 so that they
1605 can be displayed correctly by a player (see the section about text
1606 files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts
1607 between character sets). Kate subtitles are already encoded in UTF-8
1608 and do not have to be re-encoded.
1609 The following subtitle formats are supported at the moment:
1611 · Subtitle Ripper (SRT) files
1613 · Substation Alpha (SSA) / Advanced Substation Alpha scripts (ASS)
1615 · Universal Subtitle Format (USF) files
1617 · OggKate streams
1619 · VobSub bitmap subtitle files
1621 · PGS bitmap subtitle files as found on BluRay discs
1623
1625 Matroska(TM) supports file linking which simply says that a specific
1626 file is the predecessor or successor of the current file. To be
1627 precise, it's not really the files that are linked but the Matroska(TM)
1628 segments. As most files will probably only contain one Matroska(TM)
1629 segment the following explanations use the term 'file linking' although
1630 'segment linking' would be more appropriate.
1631 Each segment is identified by a unique 128 bit wide segment UID. This
1633 UID is automatically generated by mkvmerge(1). The linking is done
1634 primarily via putting the segment UIDs (short: SID) of the
1635 previous/next file into the segment header information. mkvinfo(1)
1636 prints these SIDs if it finds them.
1637 If a file is split into several smaller ones and linking is used then
1639 the timestamps will not start at 0 again but will continue where the
1640 last file has left off. This way the absolute time is kept even if the
1641 previous files are not available (e.g. when streaming). If no linking
1642 is used then the timestamps should start at 0 for each file. By default
1643 mkvmerge(1) does not use file linking. If you want that you can turn it
1644 on with the --link option. This option is only useful if splitting is
1645 activated as well.
1646 Regardless of whether splitting is active or not the user can tell
1648 mkvmerge(1) to link the produced files to specific SIDs. This is
1649 achieved with the options --link-to-previous and --link-to-next. These
1650 options accept a segment SID in the format that mkvinfo(1) outputs: 16
1651 hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff prefixed with '0x' each, e.g.
1652 '0x41 0xda 0x73 0x66 0xd9 0xcf 0xb2 0x1e 0xae 0x78 0xeb 0xb4 0x5e 0xca
1653 0xb3 0x93'. Alternatively a shorter form can be used: 16 hexadecimal
1654 numbers between 0x00 and 0xff without the '0x' prefixes and without the
1655 spaces, e.g. '41da7366d9cfb21eae78ebb45ecab393'.
1656 If splitting is used then the first file is linked to the SID given
1658 with --link-to-previous and the last file is linked to the SID given
1659 with --link-to-next. If splitting is not used then the one output file
1660 will be linked to both of the two SIDs.
1661
1663 The Matroska(TM) specification states that some elements have a default
1664 value. Usually an element is not written to the file if its value is
1665 equal to its default value in order to save space. The elements that
1666 the user might miss in mkvinfo(1)'s output are the language and the
1667 default track flag elements. The default value for the language is
1668 English ('eng'), and the default value for the default track flag is
1669 true. Therefore if you used --language 0:eng for a track then it will
1670 not show up in mkvinfo(1)'s output.
1671
1673 Maybe you also want to keep some photos along with your Matroska(TM)
1674 file, or you're using SSA subtitles and need a special TrueType(TM)
1675 font that's really rare. In these cases you can attach those files to
1676 the Matroska(TM) file. They will not be just appended to the file but
1677 embedded in it. A player can then show those files (the 'photos' case)
1678 or use them to render the subtitles (the 'TrueType(TM) fonts' case).
1679 Here's an example how to attach a photo and a TrueType(TM) font to the
1681 output file:
1682 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv -A video.avi sound.ogg \
1684 --attachment-description "Me and the band behind the stage in a small get-together" \
1685 --attachment-mime-type image/jpeg \
1686 --attach-file me_and_the_band.jpg \
1687 --attachment-description "The real rare and unbelievably good looking font" \
1688 --attachment-mime-type application/octet-stream \
1689 --attach-file really_cool_font.ttf
1690 If a Matroska(TM) containing attachments file is used as an input file
1692 then mkvmerge(1) will copy the attachments into the new file. The
1693 selection which attachments are copied and which are not can be changed
1694 with the options --attachments and --no-attachments.
1695
1697 The Matroska(TM) chapter system is more powerful than the old known
1698 system used by OGM files. The full specifications can be found at the
1699 Matroska(TM) website[1].
1700 mkvmerge(1) supports two kinds of chapter files as its input. The first
1702 format, called 'simple chapter format', is the same format that the OGM
1703 tools expect. The second format is a XML based chapter format which
1704 supports all of Matroska(TM)'s chapter functionality.
1705 The simple chapter format
1707 This format consists of pairs of lines that start with 'CHAPTERxx=' and
1708 'CHAPTERxxNAME=' respectively. The first one contains the start
1709 timestamp while the second one contains the title. Here's an example:
1710 CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
1712 CHAPTER01NAME=Intro
1713 CHAPTER02=00:02:30.000
1714 CHAPTER02NAME=Baby prepares to rock
1715 CHAPTER03=00:02:42.300
1716 CHAPTER03NAME=Baby rocks the house
1717 mkvmerge(1) will transform every pair or lines into one Matroska(TM)
1719 ChapterAtom. It does not set any ChapterTrackNumber which means that
1720 the chapters all apply to all tracks in the file.
1721 As this is a text file character set conversion may need to be done.
1723 See the section about text files and character sets for an explanation
1724 how mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.
1725 The XML based chapter format
1727 The XML based chapter format looks like this example:
1728 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
1730 <!DOCTYPE Chapters SYSTEM "matroskachapters.dtd">
1731 <Chapters>
1732 <EditionEntry>
1733 <ChapterAtom>
1734 <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:30.000</ChapterTimeStart>
1735 <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:20.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
1736 <ChapterDisplay>
1737 <ChapterString>A short chapter</ChapterString>
1738 <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
1739 </ChapterDisplay>
1740 <ChapterAtom>
1741 <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:46.000</ChapterTimeStart>
1742 <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:10.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
1743 <ChapterDisplay>
1744 <ChapterString>A part of that short chapter</ChapterString>
1745 <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
1746 </ChapterDisplay>
1747 </ChapterAtom>
1748 </ChapterAtom>
1749 </EditionEntry>
1750 </Chapters>
1751 With this format three things are possible that are not possible with
1753 the simple chapter format:
1754 1. The timestamp for the end of the chapter can be set,
1756 2. chapters can be nested,
1758 3. the language and country can be set.
1760 The mkvtoolnix distribution contains some sample files in the doc
1762 subdirectory which can be used as a basis.
1763 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
1765 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
1766 Chapters (master)
1768 EditionEntry (master)
1769 EditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1770 EditionFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1771 EditionFlagDefault (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1772 EditionFlagOrdered (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1773 ChapterAtom (master)
1774 ChapterAtom (master)
1775 ChapterUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1776 ChapterTimeStart (unsigned integer)
1777 ChapterTimeEnd (unsigned integer)
1778 ChapterFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1779 ChapterFlagEnabled (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1780 ChapterSegmentUID (binary, valid range: 1 <= length in bytes)
1781 ChapterSegmentEditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1782 ChapterPhysicalEquiv (unsigned integer)
1783 ChapterTrack (master)
1784 ChapterTrackNumber (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1785 ChapterDisplay (master)
1786 ChapterString (UTF-8 string)
1787 ChapterLanguage (UTF-8 string)
1788 ChapterCountry (UTF-8 string)
1789 ChapterProcess (master)
1790 ChapterProcessCodecID (unsigned integer)
1791 ChapterProcessPrivate (binary)
1792 ChapterProcessCommand (master)
1793 ChapterProcessTime (unsigned integer)
1794 ChapterProcessData (binary)
1795 General notes
1797 When splitting files mkvmerge(1) will correctly adjust the chapters as
1798 well. This means that each file only includes the chapter entries that
1799 apply to it, and that the timestamps will be offset to match the new
1800 timestamps of each output file.
1801 mkvmerge(1) is able to copy chapters from Matroska(TM) source files
1803 unless this is explicitly disabled with the --no-chapters option. The
1804 chapters from all sources (Matroska(TM) files, Ogg files, MP4 files,
1805 chapter text files) are usually not merged but end up in separate
1806 ChapterEditions. Only if chapters are read from several Matroska(TM) or
1807 XML files that share the same edition UIDs will chapters be merged into
1808 a single ChapterEdition. If such a merge is desired in other situations
1809 as well then the user has to extract the chapters from all sources with
1810 mkvextract(1) first, merge the XML files manually and mux them
1811 afterwards.
1812
1814 Introduction
1815 Matroska(TM)'s tag system is similar to that of other containers: a set
1816 of KEY=VALUE pairs. However, in Matroska(TM) these tags can also be
1817 nested, and both the KEY and the VALUE are elements of their own. The
1818 example file example-tags-2.xml shows how to use this system.
1819 Scope of the tags
1821 Matroska(TM) tags do not automatically apply to the complete file. They
1822 can, but they also may apply to different parts of the file: to one or
1823 more tracks, to one or more chapters, or even to a combination of both.
1824 The Matroska(TM) specification[5] gives more details about this fact.
1825 One important fact is that tags are linked to tracks or chapters with
1827 the Targets Matroska(TM) tag element, and that the UIDs used for this
1828 linking are not the track IDs mkvmerge(1) uses everywhere. Instead the
1829 numbers used are the UIDs which mkvmerge(1) calculates automatically
1830 (if the track is taken from a file format other than Matroska(TM)) or
1831 which are copied from the source file if the track's source file is a
1832 Matroska(TM) file. Therefore it is difficult to know which UIDs to use
1833 in the tag file before the file is handed over to mkvmerge(1).
1834 mkvmerge(1) knows two options with which you can add tags to
1836 Matroska(TM) files: The --global-tags and the --tags options. The
1837 difference is that the former option, --global-tags, will make the tags
1838 apply to the complete file by removing any of those Targets elements
1839 mentioned above. The latter option, --tags, automatically inserts the
1840 UID that mkvmerge(1) generates for the tag specified with the TID part
1841 of the --tags option.
1842 Example
1844 Let's say that you want to add tags to a video track read from an AVI.
1845 mkvmerge --identify file.avi tells you that the video track's ID (do
1846 not mix this ID with the UID!) is 0. So you create your tag file, leave
1847 out all Targets elements and call mkvmerge(1):
1848 $ mkvmerge -o file.mkv --tags 0:tags.xml file.avi
1850 Tag file format
1852 mkvmerge(1) supports a XML based tag file format. The format is very
1853 closely modeled after the Matroska(TM) specification[5]. Both the
1854 binary and the source distributions of MKVToolNix come with a sample
1855 file called example-tags-2.xml which simply lists all known tags and
1856 which can be used as a basis for real life tag files.
1857 The basics are:
1859 · The outermost element must be <Tags>.
1861 · One logical tag is contained inside one pair of <Tag> XML tags.
1863 · White spaces directly before and after tag contents are ignored.
1865 Data types
1867 The new Matroska(TM) tagging system only knows two data types, a UTF-8
1868 string and a binary type. The first is used for the tag's name and the
1869 <String> element while the binary type is used for the <Binary>
1870 element.
1871 As binary data itself would not fit into a XML file mkvmerge(1)
1873 supports two other methods of storing binary data. If the contents of a
1874 XML tag starts with '@' then the following text is treated as a file
1875 name. The corresponding file's content is copied into the Matroska(TM)
1876 element.
1877 Otherwise the data is expected to be Base64 encoded. This is an
1879 encoding that transforms binary data into a limited set of ASCII
1880 characters and is used e.g. in email programs. mkvextract(1) will
1881 output Base64 encoded data for binary elements.
1882 The deprecated tagging system knows some more data types which can be
1884 found in the official Matroska(TM) tag specs. As mkvmerge(1) does not
1885 support this system anymore these types aren't described here.
1886 Known tags for the XML file format
1888 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
1889 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
1890 Tags (master)
1892 Tag (master)
1893 Targets (master)
1894 TargetTypeValue (unsigned integer)
1895 TargetType (UTF-8 string)
1896 TrackUID (unsigned integer)
1897 EditionUID (unsigned integer)
1898 ChapterUID (unsigned integer)
1899 AttachmentUID (unsigned integer)
1900 Simple (master)
1901 Simple (master)
1902 Name (UTF-8 string)
1903 TagLanguage (UTF-8 string)
1904 DefaultLanguage (unsigned integer)
1905 String (UTF-8 string)
1906 Binary (binary)
1907
1909 With a segment info XML file it is possible to set certain values in
1910 the "segment information" header field of a Matroska(TM) file. All of
1911 these values cannot be set via other command line options.
1912 Other "segment information" header fields can be set via command line
1914 options but not via the XML file. This includes e.g. the --title and
1915 the --timestamp-scale options.
1916 There are other elements that can be set neither via command line
1918 options nor via the XML files. These include the following elements:
1919 DateUTC (also known as the "muxing date"), MuxingApp, WritingApp and
1920 Duration. They're always set by mkvmerge(1) itself.
1921 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
1923 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
1924 Info (master)
1926 SegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
1927 SegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
1928 PreviousSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
1929 PreviousSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
1930 NextSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
1931 NextSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
1932 SegmentFamily (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
1933 ChapterTranslate (master)
1934 ChapterTranslateEditionUID (unsigned integer)
1935 ChapterTranslateCodec (unsigned integer)
1936 ChapterTranslateID (binary)
1937
1939 The Matroska(TM) file layout is quite flexible. mkvmerge(1) will
1940 render a file in a predefined way. The resulting file looks like this:
1941 [EBML head] [segment {meta seek #1} [segment information] [track
1943 information] {attachments} {chapters} [cluster 1] {cluster 2} ...
1944 {cluster n} {cues} {meta seek #2} {tags}]
1945 The elements in curly braces are optional and depend on the contents
1947 and options used. A couple of notes:
1948 · meta seek #1 includes only a small number of level 1 elements, and
1950 only if they actually exist: attachments, chapters, cues, tags,
1951 meta seek #2. Older versions of mkvmerge(1) used to put the
1952 clusters into this meta seek element as well. Therefore some
1953 imprecise guessing was necessary to reserve enough space. It often
1954 failed. Now only the clusters are stored in meta seek #2, and meta
1955 seek #1 refers to the meta seek element #2.
1956 · Attachment, chapter and tag elements are only present if they were
1958 added.
1959 The shortest possible Matroska(TM) file would look like this:
1961 [EBML head] [segment [segment information] [track information] [cluster
1963 1]]
1964 This might be the case for audio-only files.
1966
1968 mkvmerge(1) allows the user to chose the timestamps for a specific
1969 track himself. This can be used in order to create files with variable
1970 frame rate video or include gaps in audio. A frame in this case is the
1971 unit that mkvmerge(1) creates separately per Matroska(TM) block. For
1972 video this is exactly one frame, for audio this is one packet of the
1973 specific audio type. E.g. for AC-3 this would be a packet containing
1974 1536 samples.
1975 Timestamp files that are used when tracks are appended to each other
1977 must only be specified for the first part in a chain of tracks. For
1978 example if you append two files, v1.avi and v2.avi, and want to use
1979 timestamps then your command line must look something like this:
1980 $ mkvmerge ... --timestamps 0:my_timestamps.txt v1.avi +v2.avi
1982 There are four formats that are recognized by mkvmerge(1). The first
1984 line always contains the version number. Empty lines, lines containing
1985 only whitespace and lines beginning with '#' are ignored.
1986 Timestamp file format v1
1988 This format starts with the version line. The second line declares the
1989 default number of frames per second. All following lines contain three
1990 numbers separated by commas: the start frame (0 is the first frame),
1991 the end frame and the number of frames in this range. The FPS is a
1992 floating point number with the dot '.' as the decimal point. The ranges
1993 can contain gaps for which the default FPS is used. An example:
1994 # timestamp format v1
1996 assume 27.930
1997 800,1000,25
1998 1500,1700,30
1999 Timestamp file format v2
2001 In this format each line contains a timestamp for the corresponding
2002 frame. This timestamp must be given in millisecond precision. It can be
2003 a floating point number, but it doesn't have to be. You have to give at
2004 least as many timestamp lines as there are frames in the track. The
2005 timestamps in this file must be sorted. Example for 25fps:
2006 # timestamp format v2
2008 0
2009 40
2010 80
2011 Timestamp file format v3
2013 In this format each line contains a duration in seconds followed by an
2014 optional number of frames per second. Both can be floating point
2015 numbers. If the number of frames per second is not present the default
2016 one is used. For audio you should let the codec calculate the frame
2017 timestamps itself. For that you should be using 0.0 as the number of
2018 frames per second. You can also create gaps in the stream by using the
2019 'gap' keyword followed by the duration of the gap. Example for an audio
2020 file:
2021 # timestamp format v3
2023 assume 0.0
2024 25.325
2025 7.530,38.236
2026 gap, 10.050
2027 2.000,38.236
2028 Timestamp file format v4
2030 This format is identical to the v2 format. The only difference is that
2031 the timestamps do not have to be sorted. This format should almost
2032 never be used.
2033
2035 mkvmerge(1) exits with one of three exit codes:
2036 · 0 -- This exit codes means that muxing has completed successfully.
2038 · 1 -- In this case mkvmerge(1) has output at least one warning, but
2040 muxing did continue. A warning is prefixed with the text
2041 'Warning:'. Depending on the issues involved the resulting file
2042 might be ok or not. The user is urged to check both the warning and
2043 the resulting file.
2044 · 2 -- This exit code is used after an error occurred. mkvmerge(1)
2046 aborts right after outputting the error message. Error messages
2047 range from wrong command line arguments over read/write errors to
2048 broken files.
2049
2051 mkvmerge(1) uses the default variables that determine the system's
2052 locale (e.g. LANG and the LC_* family). Additional variables:
2053 MKVMERGE_DEBUG, MKVTOOLNIX_DEBUG and its short form MTX_DEBUG
2055 The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --debug
2056 option.
2057 MKVMERGE_ENGAGE, MKVTOOLNIX_ENGAGE and its short form MTX_ENGAGE
2059 The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --engage
2060 option.
2061
2063 mkvinfo(1), mkvextract(1), mkvpropedit(1), mkvtoolnix-gui(1)
2064
2066 The latest version can always be found at the MKVToolNix homepage[6].
2067
2069 Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
2070 Developer
2071
2073 1. the Matroska(TM) website
2074 http://www.matroska.org/
2075 2. the IANA homepage
2077 http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
2078 3. mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v12.json
2080 https://mkvtoolnix.download/doc/mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v12.json
2081 4. RFC 7159
2083 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159
2084 5. Matroska(TM) specification
2086 http://matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html
2087 6. the MKVToolNix homepage
2089 https://mkvtoolnix.download/
2090MKVToolNix 40.0.0 2019-11-09 MKVMERGE(1)