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 'undetermined'.
52 Segment info handling (global options)
54 --segmentinfo filename.xml
55 Read segment information from an XML file. This file can contain
56 the 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 This mode also works with split modes 'parts:' and
121 'parts-frames:'. For these modes one chapter will be generated
122 for each appended timestamp range (those whose start timestamps
123 are prefixed with '+').
124 Note
126 mkvmerge(1) requires a video or an audio track to be
127 present in order to be able to determine when a new file is
128 appended. If one or more video tracks are muxed the first
129 one is used. Otherwise the first audio track is used.
130 • 'interval:time-spec' – This mode creates one chapter at fixed
132 intervals given by time-spec. The format is either the form
133 HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn or a number followed by one of the units
134 's', 'ms' or 'us'.
135 Example: --generate-chapters interval:45s
137 The names for the new chapters are controlled by the option
139 --generate-chapters-name-template. The language is set with
140 --chapter-language which must occur before --generate-chapters.
141 --generate-chapters-name-template template
143 This sets the name template for chapter names generated by the
144 option --generate-chapters. If the option is not used then default
145 'Chapter <NUM:2>' will be used.
146 There are several variables that can be used in the template that
148 are replaced by their actual values when a chapter is generated.
149 The string '<NUM>' will be replaced by the chapter number. The
150 string '<START>' will be replaced by the chapter's start timestamp.
151 The strings '<FILE_NAME>' and '<FILE_NAME_WITH_EXT>' are only
153 filled when generating chapters for appended files. They will be
154 replaced by the appended file's name without respectively with its
155 extension. Note that only the file's base name and extension are
156 inserted, not its directory or drive components.
157 You can specify a minimum number of places for the chapter number
159 with '<NUM:places>', e.g. '<NUM:3>'. The resulting number will be
160 padded with leading zeroes if the number of places is less than
161 specified.
162 You can control the format used by the start timestamp with
164 <START:format>. The format defaults to '%H:%M:%S' if none is given.
165 Valid format codes are:
166 • %h – hours
168 • %H – hours zero-padded to two places
170 • %m – minutes
172 • %M – minutes zero-padded to two places
174 • %s – seconds
176 • %S – seconds zero-padded to two places
178 • %n – nanoseconds with nine places
180 • %<1-9>n – nanoseconds with up to nine places (e.g. three places
182 with %3n)
183 --cue-chapter-name-format format
185 mkvmerge(1) supports reading CUE sheets for audio files as the
186 input for chapters. CUE sheets usually contain the entries
187 PERFORMER and TITLE for each index entry. mkvmerge(1) uses these
188 two strings in order to construct the chapter name. With this
189 option the format used for this name can be set.
190 If this option is not given then mkvmerge(1) defaults to the format
192 '%p - %t' (the performer, followed by a space, a dash, another
193 space and the title).
194 If the format is given then everything except the following meta
196 characters is copied as-is, and the meta characters are replaced
197 like this:
198 • %p is replaced by the current entry's PERFORMER string,
200 • %t is replaced by the current entry's TITLE string,
202 • %n is replaced by the current track number and
204 • %N is replaced by the current track number padded with a
206 leading zero if it is < 10.
207 --chapters file-name
209 Read chapter information from the file file-name. See the section
210 about chapters below for details.
211 --global-tags file-name
213 Read global tags from the file file-name. See the section about
214 tags below for details.
215 General output control (advanced global options)
217 --track-order FID1:TID1,FID2:TID2,...
218 This option changes the order in which the tracks for an input file
219 are created. The argument is a comma separated list of pairs IDs.
220 Each pair contains first the file ID (FID1) which is simply the
221 number of the file on the command line starting at 0. The second is
222 a track ID (TID1) from that file. If some track IDs are omitted
223 then those tracks are created after the ones given with this option
224 have been created.
225 If this option isn't given, tracks will be sorted by their type
227 first & the order of their source file second. Video tracks come
228 first followed by audio & subtitle tracks. Other rarely used track
229 types come last.
230 --cluster-length spec
232 Limit the number of data blocks or the duration of data in each
233 cluster. The spec parameter can either be a number n without a unit
234 or a number d postfixed with 'ms'.
235 If no unit is used then mkvmerge(1) will put at most n data blocks
237 into each cluster. The maximum number of blocks is 65535.
238 If the number d is postfixed with 'ms' then mkvmerge(1) puts at
240 most d milliseconds of data into each cluster. The minimum for d is
241 '100ms', and the maximum is '32000ms'.
242 mkvmerge(1) defaults to putting at most 65535 data blocks and
244 5000ms of data into a cluster.
245 Programs trying to find a certain frame can only seek directly to a
247 cluster and have to read the whole cluster afterwards. Therefore
248 creating larger clusters may lead to imprecise or slow seeking.
249 --clusters-in-meta-seek
251 Tells mkvmerge(1) to create a meta seek element at the end of the
252 file containing all clusters. See also the section about the
253 Matroska(TM) file layout.
254 --timestamp-scale factor
256 Forces the timestamp scale factor to factor. Valid values are in
257 the range 1000..10000000 or the special value -1.
258 Normally mkvmerge(1) will use a value of 1000000 which means that
260 timestamps and durations will have a precision of 1ms. For files
261 that will not contain a video track but at least one audio track
262 mkvmerge(1) will automatically chose a timestamp scale factor so
263 that all timestamps and durations have a precision of one audio
264 sample. This causes bigger overhead but allows precise seeking and
265 extraction.
266 If the special value -1 is used then mkvmerge(1) will use sample
268 precision even if a video track is present.
269 --enable-durations
271 Write durations for all blocks. This will increase file size and
272 does not offer any additional value for players at the moment.
273 --no-cues
275 Tells mkvmerge(1) not to create and write the cue data which can be
276 compared to an index in an AVI. Matroska(TM) files can be played
277 back without the cue data, but seeking will probably be imprecise
278 and slower. Use this only if you're really desperate for space or
279 for testing purposes. See also option --cues which can be specified
280 for each input file.
281 --no-date
283 By default mkvmerge(1) sets the "date" segment information field to
284 the time & date when multiplexing started. With this option that
285 field is not written at all.
286 --disable-lacing
288 Disables lacing for all tracks. This will increase the file's size,
289 especially if there are many audio tracks. This option is not
290 intended for everyday use.
291 --disable-track-statistics-tags
293 Normally mkvmerge(1) will write certain tags with statistics for
294 each track. If such tags are already present then they will be
295 overwritten. The tags are BPS, DURATION, NUMBER_OF_BYTES and
296 NUMBER_OF_FRAMES.
297 Enabling this option prevents mkvmerge(1) from writing those tags
299 and from touching any existing tags with same names.
300 --disable-language-ietf
302 Normally mkvmerge(1) will write the new IETF BCP 47 language
303 elements in addition to the legacy language elements in track
304 headers, chapters and tags. If this option is used, only the legacy
305 elements are written.
306 --normalize-language-ietf mode
308 Enables normalizing all IETF BCP 47 language tags to either their
309 canonical form with mode 'canonical', to their extended language
310 subtags form with mode 'extlang' or turns it off with mode 'off'.
311 By default normalization to the canonical form is applied.
312 In the canonical form all subtags for which preferred values exist
314 are replaced by those preferred values. This converts e.g.
315 'zh-yue-jyutping' to 'yue-jyutping' or 'fr-FX' to 'fr-FR'.
316 For the extended language subtags form the canonical form is built
318 first. Afterwards all primary languages for which an extended
319 language subtag exists are replaced by that extended language
320 subtag and its prefix. This converts e.g. 'yue-jyutping' back to
321 'zh-yue-jyutping' but has no effect on 'fr-FR' as 'fr' is not an
322 extended language subtag.
323 --stop-after-video-ends
325 Stops processing after the primary video track ends, discarding any
326 remaining packets of other tracks.
327 File splitting, linking, appending and concatenation (more global options)
329 --split specification
330 Splits the output file after a given size or a given time. Please
331 note that tracks can only be split right before a key frame.
332 Therefore the split point may be a bit off from what the user has
333 specified.
334 At the moment mkvmerge(1) supports the following modes:
336 1. Splitting by size.
338 Syntax: --split [size:]d[k|m|g]
340 Examples: --split size:700m or --split 150000000
342 The parameter d may end with 'k', 'm' or 'g' to indicate that
344 the size is in KB, MB or GB respectively. Otherwise a size in
345 bytes is assumed. After the current output file has reached
346 this size limit a new one will be started.
347 The 'size:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility reasons.
349 2. Splitting after a duration.
351 Syntax: --split [duration:]HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ds
353 Examples: --split duration:00:60:00.000 or --split 3600s
355 The parameter must either have the form HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn for
357 specifying the duration in up to nano-second precision or be a
358 number d followed by the letter 's' for the duration in
359 seconds. HH is the number of hours, MM the number of minutes,
360 SS the number of seconds and nnnnnnnnn the number of
361 nanoseconds. Both the number of hours and the number of
362 nanoseconds can be omitted. There can be up to nine digits
363 after the decimal point. After the duration of the contents in
364 the current output has reached this limit a new output file
365 will be started.
366 The 'duration:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility
368 reasons.
369 3. Splitting after specific timestamps.
371 Syntax: --split timestamps:A[,B[,C...]]
373 Example: --split timestamps:00:45:00.000,01:20:00.250,6300s
375 The parameters A, B, C etc must all have the same format as the
377 ones used for the duration (see above). The list of timestamps
378 is separated by commas. After the input stream has reached the
379 current split point's timestamp a new file is created. Then the
380 next split point given in this list is used.
381 The 'timestamps:' prefix must not be omitted.
383 4. Keeping specific parts by specifying timestamp ranges while
385 discarding others.
386 Syntax: --split
388 parts:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
389 Examples:
391 1. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,00:05:50-00:10:30
393 2. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,+00:05:50-00:10:30
395 3. --split parts:-00:02:45,00:05:50-
397 The parts mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges of
399 timestamps while discarding others. The ranges to keep have to
400 be listed after the parts: keyword and be separated by commas.
401 A range itself consists of a start and an end timestamp in the
402 same format the other variations of --split accept (e.g. both
403 00:01:20 and 80s refer to the same timestamp).
404 If a start timestamp is left out then it defaults to the
406 previous range's end timestamp. If there was no previous range
407 then it defaults to the start of the file (see example 3).
408 If an end timestamp is left out then it defaults to the end of
410 the source files which basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the
411 rest (see example 3).
412 Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be
414 changed so that consecutive ranges are written to the same
415 file. For that the user has to prefix the start timestamp with
416 a +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and
417 instead append the range to the same file the previous range
418 was written to. Timestamps will be adjusted so that there will
419 be no gap in the output file even if there was a gap in the two
420 ranges in the input file.
421 In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
423 contain the content starting from 00:01:20 until 00:02:45. The
424 second file will contain the content starting from 00:05:50
425 until 00:10:30.
426 In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file
428 will contain both the content starting from 00:01:20 until
429 00:02:45 and the content starting from 00:05:50 until 00:10:30.
430 In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
432 contain the content from the start of the source files until
433 00:02:45. The second file will contain the content starting
434 from 00:05:50 until the end of the source files.
435 Note
437 Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting
438 at key frame positions. This applies to both the start and
439 the end of each range. So even if an end timestamp is
440 between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will continue outputting
441 the frames up to but excluding the following key frame.
442 5. Keeping specific parts by specifying frame/field number ranges
444 while discarding others.
445 Syntax: --split
447 parts-frames:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
448 Examples:
450 1. --split parts-frames:137-258,548-1211
452 2. --split parts-frames:733-912,+1592-2730
454 3. --split parts-frames:-430,2512-
456 The parts-frames mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges
458 of frame/field numbers while discarding others. The ranges to
459 keep have to be listed after the parts-frames: keyword and be
460 separated by commas. A range itself consists of a start and an
461 end frame/field number. Numbering starts at 1.
462 If a start number is left out then it defaults to the previous
464 range's end number. If there was no previous range then it
465 defaults to the start of the file (see example 3).
466 If an end number is left out then it defaults to the end of the
468 source files which basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the rest
469 (see example 3).
470 Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be
472 changed so that consecutive ranges are written to the same
473 file. For that the user has to prefix the start number with a
474 +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and instead
475 append the range to the same file the previous range was
476 written to. Timestamps will be adjusted so that there will be
477 no gap in the output file even if there was a gap in the two
478 ranges in the input file.
479 Note
481 Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting
482 at key frame positions. This applies to both the start and
483 the end of each range. So even if an end frame/field number
484 is between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will continue
485 outputting the frames up to but excluding the following key
486 frame.
487 In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
488 contain the content starting from the first key frame at or
489 after 137 up to but excluding the first key frame at or after
490 258. The second file will contain the content starting from 548
491 until 1211.
492 In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file
494 will contain both the content starting from 733 until 912 and
495 the content starting from 1592 until 2730.
496 In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will
498 contain the content from the start of the source files until
499 430. The second file will contain the content starting from
500 2512 until the end of the source files.
501 This mode considers only the first video track that is output.
503 If no video track is output no splitting will occur.
504 Note
506 The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based
507 on the number of Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A
508 single Matroska(TM) block contains either a full frame (for
509 progressive content) or a single field (for interlaced
510 content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two
511 and simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one
512 wanted to split after the 25th full frame with interlaced
513 content one would have to use 50 (two fields per full
514 frame) as the split point.
515 6. Splitting after specific frames/fields.
517 Syntax: --split frames:A[,B[,C...]]
519 Example: --split frames:120,237,891
521 The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers.
523 Numbering starts at 1. The list of frame/field numbers is
524 separated by commas. After the input stream has reached the
525 current split point's frame/field number a new file is created.
526 Then the next split point given in this list is used.
527 The 'frames:' prefix must not be omitted.
529 This mode considers only the first video track that is output.
531 If no video track is output no splitting will occur.
532 Note
534 The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based
535 on the number of Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A
536 single Matroska(TM) block contains either a full frame (for
537 progressive content) or a single field (for interlaced
538 content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two
539 and simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one
540 wanted to split after the 25th full frame with interlaced
541 content one would have to use 50 (two fields per full
542 frame) as the split point.
543 7. Splitting before specific chapters.
545 Syntax: --split chapters:all or --split chapters:A[,B[,C...]]
547 Example: --split chapters:5,8
549 The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers.
551 Numbering starts at 1. The list of chapter numbers is separated
552 by commas. Splitting will occur right before the first key
553 frame whose timestamp is equal to or bigger than the start
554 timestamp for the chapters whose numbers are listed. A chapter
555 starting at 0s is never considered for splitting and discarded
556 silently.
557 The keyword all can be used instead of listing all chapter
559 numbers manually.
560 The 'chapters:' prefix must not be omitted.
562 Note
564 The Matroska(TM) file format supports arbitrary deeply
565 nested chapter structures called 'edition entries' and
566 'chapter atoms'. However, this mode only considers the
567 top-most level of chapters across all edition entries.
568 For this splitting mode the output filename is treated differently
570 than for the normal operation. It may contain a printf like
571 expression '%d' including an optional field width, e.g. '%02d'. If
572 it does then the current file number will be formatted
573 appropriately and inserted at that point in the filename. If there
574 is no such pattern then a pattern of '-%03d' is assumed right
575 before the file's extension: '-o output.mkv' would result in
576 'output-001.mkv' and so on. If there's no extension then '-%03d'
577 will be appended to the name.
578 Another possible pattern is '%c' which will be replaced by the name
580 of the first chapter in the file. Note that when '%c' is present,
581 the pattern '-%03d' will not be added automatically.
582 --link
584 Link files to one another when splitting the output file. See the
585 section on file linking below for details.
586 --link-to-previous segment-UID
588 Links the first output file to the segment with the segment UID
589 given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
590 below for details.
591 If SID starts with = then its rest is interpreted as the name of a
593 Matroska file whose segment UID is read and used.
594 --link-to-next segment-UID
596 Links the last output file to the segment with the segment UID
597 given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
598 below for details.
599 If SID starts with = then its rest is interpreted as the name of a
601 Matroska file whose segment UID is read and used.
602 --append-mode mode
604 Determines how timestamps are calculated when appending files. The
605 parameter mode can have two values: 'file' which is also the
606 default and 'track'.
607 When mkvmerge appends a track (called 'track2_1' from now on) from
609 a second file (called 'file2') to a track (called 'track1_1') from
610 the first file (called 'file1') then it has to offset all
611 timestamps for 'track2_1' by an amount. For 'file' mode this amount
612 is the highest timestamp encountered in 'file1' even if that
613 timestamp was from a different track than 'track1_1'. In track mode
614 the offset is the highest timestamp of 'track1_1'.
615 Unfortunately mkvmerge cannot detect which mode to use reliably.
617 Therefore it defaults to 'file' mode. 'file' mode usually works
618 better for files that have been created independently of each
619 other; e.g. when appending AVI or MP4 files. 'track' mode may work
620 better for sources that are essentially just parts of one big file,
621 e.g. for VOB and EVO files.
622 Subtitle tracks are always treated as if 'file' mode were active
624 even if 'track' mode actually is.
625 --append-to SFID1:STID1:DFID1:DTID1[,...]
627 This option controls to which track another track is appended. Each
628 spec contains four IDs: a file ID, a track ID, a second file ID and
629 a second track ID. The first pair, "source file ID" and "source
630 track ID", identifies the track that is to be appended. The second
631 pair, "destination file ID" and "destination track ID", identifies
632 the track the first one is appended to.
633 If this option has been omitted then a standard mapping is used.
635 This standard mapping appends each track from the current file to a
636 track from the previous file with the same track ID. This allows
637 for easy appending if a movie has been split into two parts and
638 both file have the same number of tracks and track IDs with the
639 command mkvmerge -o output.mkv part1.mkv +part2.mkv.
640 +
642 A single '+' causes the next file to be appended instead of added.
643 The '+' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore
644 the following two commands are equivalent:
645 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
647 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv +file2.mkv
648 [ file1 file2 ]
650 If multiple file names are contained in a pair of square brackets
651 then the second and all following files will be appended to the
652 first file named within the brackets.
653 This is an alternative syntax to using '+' between the file names.
655 Therefore the following two commands are equivalent:
656 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
658 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv '[' file1.mkv file2.mkv ']'
659 =
661 For certain file types (MPEG program streams = VOBs) mkvmerge(1)
662 normally looks for files in the same directory as an input file
663 that have the same base name and only differ in their running
664 number (e.g. 'VTS_01_1.VOB', 'VTS_01_2.VOB', 'VTS_01_3.VOB' etc)
665 and treats all of those files as if they were concatenated into a
666 single big file. This option, a single '=', causes mkvmerge not to
667 look for those additional files.
668 The '=' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore
670 the following two commands are equivalent:
671 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv = file1.vob
673 $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv =file1.vob
674 ( file1 file2 )
676 If multiple file names are contained in a pair of parenthesis then
677 those files will be treated as if they were concatenated into a
678 single big file consisting of the content of each of the files one
679 after the other.
680 This can be used for e.g. VOB files coming from a DVD or MPEG
682 transport streams. It cannot be used if each file contains its own
683 set of headers which is usually the case with stand-alone files
684 like AVI or MP4.
685 Putting a file name into parenthesis also prevents mkvmerge(1) from
687 looking for additional files with the same base name as described
688 in option =. Therefore these two command lines are equivalent:
689 $ mkvmerge -o out.mkv = file.mkv
691 $ mkvmerge -o out.mkv '(' file.mkv ')'
692 Several things should be noted:
694 1. There must be spaces both after the opening and before the
696 closing parenthesis.
697 2. Every parameter between parenthesis is interpreted as a file
699 name. Therefore all options applying to this logical file must
700 be listed before the opening parenthesis.
701 3. Some shells treat parenthesis as special characters. Hence you
703 must escape or quote them as shown in the example above.
704 Attachment support (more global options)
706 --attachment-description description
707 Plain text description of the following attachment. Applies to the
708 next --attach-file or --attach-file-once option.
709 --attachment-mime-type MIME type
711 MIME type of the following attachment. Applies to the next
712 --attach-file or --attach-file-once option. A list of officially
713 recognized MIME types can be found e.g. at the IANA homepage[2].
714 The MIME type is mandatory for an attachment.
715 If no MIME type is given a for an attachment, its type will be
717 detected automatically.
718 --attachment-name name
720 Sets the name that will be stored in the output file for this
721 attachment. If this option is not given then the name will be
722 derived from the file name of the attachment as given with the
723 --attach-file or the --attach-file-once option.
724 --attach-file file-name, --attach-file-once file-name
726 Creates a file attachment inside the Matroska(TM) file. The MIME
727 type must have been set before this option can used. The difference
728 between the two forms is that during splitting the files attached
729 with --attach-file are attached to all output files while the ones
730 attached with --attach-file-once are only attached to the first
731 file created. If splitting is not used then both do the same.
732 mkvextract(1) can be used to extract attached files from a
734 Matroska(TM) file.
735 --enable-legacy-font-mime-types
737 Enables the use of legacy MIME types for certain types of font
738 attachments. For example, 'application/x-truetype-font' will be
739 used for TrueType fonts instead of 'fonts/ttf'.
740 This affects both new attachments if its MIME type is detected
742 automatically and existing attachments whose stored MIME types will
743 be remapped to the legacy ones.
744 The affected MIME types are 'font/sfnt', 'font/ttf' and
746 'font/collection' which are all mapped to
747 'application/x-truetype-fonts' and 'font/otf' which is mapped to
748 'application/vnd.ms-opentype'.
749 Options that can be used for each input file
751 -a, --audio-tracks [!]n,m,...
752 Copy the audio tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can
753 be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
754 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all audio
755 tracks.
756 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
758 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
759 their tracks.
760 Default: copy all tracks of this kind.
762 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
764 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
765 -d, --video-tracks [!]n,m,...
767 Copy the video tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can
768 be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
769 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all video
770 tracks.
771 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
773 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
774 their tracks.
775 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
777 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
778 -s, --subtitle-tracks [!]n,m,...
780 Copy the subtitle tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
781 can be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
782 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all subtitle
783 tracks.
784 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
786 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
787 their tracks.
788 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
790 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
791 -b, --button-tracks [!]n,m,...
793 Copy the button tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
794 can be obtained with the --identify switch. They're not simply the
795 track numbers (see section track IDs). Default: copy all button
796 tracks.
797 Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes.
799 This will only work for source files that provide language tags for
800 their tracks.
801 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
803 all tracks of this kind but the ones listed after the !.
804 --track-tags [!]n,m,...
806 Copy the tags for tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which
807 can be obtained with the --identify switch (see section track IDs).
808 They're not simply the track numbers. Default: copy tags for all
809 tracks.
810 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
812 everything but the IDs listed after the !.
813 -m, --attachments [!]n[:all|first],m[:all|first],...
815 Copy the attachments with the IDs n, m etc to all or only the first
816 output file. Each ID can be followed by either ':all' (which is the
817 default if neither is entered) or ':first'. If splitting is active
818 then those attachments whose IDs are specified with ':all' are
819 copied to all of the resulting output files while the others are
820 only copied into the first output file. If splitting is not active
821 then both variants have the same effect.
822 The default is to copy all attachments to all output files.
824 If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy
826 everything but the IDs listed after the !.
827 -A, --no-audio
829 Don't copy any audio track from this file.
830 -D, --no-video
832 Don't copy any video track from this file.
833 -S, --no-subtitles
835 Don't copy any subtitle track from this file.
836 -B, --no-buttons
838 Don't copy any button track from this file.
839 -T, --no-track-tags
841 Don't copy any track specific tags from this file.
842 --no-chapters
844 Don't copy chapters from this file.
845 -M, --no-attachments
847 Don't copy attachments from this file.
848 --no-global-tags
850 Don't copy global tags from this file.
851 -y, --sync TID:d[,o[/p]]
853 Adjust the timestamps of the track with the id TID by d ms. The
854 track IDs are the same as the ones given with --identify (see
855 section track IDs).
856 o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts. p defaults
858 to 1 if omitted. Both o and p can be floating point numbers.
859 Defaults: no manual sync correction (which is the same as d = 0 and
861 o/p = 1.0).
862 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
864 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
865 --cues TID:none|iframes|all
867 Controls for which tracks cue (index) entries are created for the
868 given track (see section track IDs). 'none' inhibits the creation
869 of cue entries. For 'iframes' only blocks with no backward or
870 forward references ( = I frames in video tracks) are put into the
871 cue sheet. 'all' causes mkvmerge(1) to create cue entries for all
872 blocks which will make the file very big.
873 The default is 'iframes' for video and subtitle tracks and 'none'
875 for audio tracks. See also option --no-cues which inhibits the
876 creation of cue entries regardless of the --cues options used.
877 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
879 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
880 --default-track-flag TID[:bool]
882 Sets the "default track" flag for the given track (see section
883 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
884 present. The flag will be set if the source container doesn't
885 provide that information and the user doesn't specify it via this
886 option.
887 If the user does not explicitly select a track during playback, the
889 player should select one of the tracks that has its "default track"
890 flag set, taking user preferences such as their preferred language
891 into account.
892 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
894 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
895 --track-enabled-flag TID[:bool]
897 Sets the "track enabled" flag for the given track (see section
898 track IDs) to the given value bool (0 or 1; defaults to 1 if not
899 specified). Tracks are enabled by default if no option is specified
900 for them and the source container doesn't provide this information
901 either.
902 Only tracks whose "track enabled" flag is set should be considered
904 for playback.
905 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
907 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
908 --forced-display-flag TID[:bool]
910 Sets the "forced display" flag for the given track (see section
911 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
912 present. Use this for tracks containing onscreen text or
913 foreign-language dialogue.
914 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
916 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
917 --hearing-impaired-flag TID[:bool]
919 Sets the "hearing impaired" flag for the given track (see section
920 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
921 present. This flag can be set if the track is suitable for users
922 with hearing impairments.
923 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
925 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
926 --visual-impaired-flag TID[:bool]
928 Sets the "visual impaired" flag for the given track (see section
929 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
930 present. This flag can be set if the track is suitable for users
931 with visual impairments.
932 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
934 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
935 --text-descriptions-flag TID[:bool]
937 Sets the "text descriptions" flag for the given track (see section
938 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
939 present. This flag can be set if the track contains textual
940 descriptions of video content suitable for playback via a
941 text-to-speech system for a visually-impaired user.
942 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
944 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
945 --original-flag TID[:bool]
947 Sets the "original language" flag for the given track (see section
948 track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
949 present. This flag can be set if the track is in the content's
950 original language (not a translation).
951 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
953 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
954 --commentary-flag TID[:bool]
956 Sets the "commentary" flag for the given track (see section track
957 IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't
958 present. This flag can be set if the track contains commentary.
959 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
961 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
962 --track-name TID:name
964 Sets the track name for the given track (see section track IDs) to
965 name.
966 --language TID:language
968 Sets the language for the given track (see section track IDs). Both
969 ISO 639-2 language codes and ISO 639-1 country codes are allowed.
970 The country codes will be converted to language codes
971 automatically. All languages including their ISO 639-2 codes can be
972 listed with the --list-languages option.
973 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
975 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
976 -t, --tags TID:file-name
978 Read tags for the track with the number TID from the file
979 file-name. See the section about tags below for details.
980 --aac-is-sbr TID[:0|1]
982 Tells mkvmerge(1) that the track with the ID TID is SBR AAC (also
983 known as HE-AAC or AAC+). This options is needed if a) the source
984 file is an AAC file (not for a Matroska(TM) file) and b) the AAC
985 file contains SBR AAC data. The reason for this switch is that it
986 is technically impossible to automatically tell normal AAC data
987 from SBR AAC data without decoding a complete AAC frame. As there
988 are several patent issues with AAC decoders mkvmerge(1) will never
989 contain this decoding stage. So for SBR AAC files this switch is
990 mandatory. The resulting file might not play back correctly or even
991 not at all if the switch was omitted.
992 If the source file is a Matroska(TM) file then the CodecID should
994 be enough to detect SBR AAC. However, if the CodecID is wrong then
995 this switch can be used to correct that.
996 If mkvmerge wrongfully detects that an AAC file is SBR then you can
998 add ':0' to the track ID.
999 --audio-emphasis TID:n|symbolic-name
1001 Sets the emphasis for the audio track with the track ID TID. The
1002 mode can either be a number n (certain values between 0 and 16) or
1003 a symbolic name. All valid numbers & symbolic names can be listed
1004 with the --list-audio-emphasis option.
1005 --reduce-to-core TID
1007 Some audio codecs have a lossy core and optional extensions that
1008 implement lossless decoding. This option tells mkvmerge(1) to only
1009 copy the core but not the extensions. By default mkvmerge(1) copies
1010 both the core and the extensions.
1011 Currently only DTS tracks are affected by this option. TrueHD
1013 tracks that contain an embedded AC-3 core are instead presented as
1014 two separate tracks for which the user can select which track to
1015 copy. For DTS such a scheme would not work as the HD extensions
1016 cannot be decoded by themselves – unlike the TrueHD data.
1017 --remove-dialog-normalization-gain TID
1019 Some audio codecs contain header fields that tell the decoder or
1020 player to apply a (usually negative) gain for dialog normalization.
1021 This option tells mkvmerge(1) to remove or minimize that gain by
1022 modifying the corresponding header fields.
1023 Currently only AC-3, DTS and TrueHD tracks are affected by this
1025 option.
1026 --timestamps TID:file-name
1028 Read the timestamps to be used for the specific track ID from
1029 file-name. These timestamps forcefully override the timestamps that
1030 mkvmerge(1) normally calculates. Read the section about external
1031 timestamp files.
1032 --default-duration TID:x
1034 Forces the default duration of a given track to the specified
1035 value. Also modifies the track's timestamps to match the default
1036 duration. The argument x must be postfixed with 's', 'ms', 'us',
1037 'ns', 'fps', 'p' or 'i' to specify the default duration in seconds,
1038 milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, 'frames per second',
1039 'progressive frames per second' or 'interlaced frames per second'
1040 respectively. The number x itself can be a floating point number or
1041 a fraction.
1042 If the default duration is not forced then mkvmerge will try to
1044 derive the track's default duration from the container and/or the
1045 encoded bitstream for certain track types, e.g. AVC/H.264 or
1046 MPEG-2.
1047 This option can also be used to change the FPS of video tracks
1049 without having to use an external timestamp file.
1050 --fix-bitstream-timing-information TID[:0|1]
1052 Normally mkvmerge(1) does not change the timing information
1053 (frame/field rate) stored in the video bitstream. With this option
1054 that information is adjusted to match the container timing
1055 information. The container timing information can come from various
1056 sources: from the command line (see option --default-duration), the
1057 source container or derived from the bitstream.
1058 Note
1060 This has only been implemented for AVC/H.264 video tracks so
1061 far.
1062 --compression TID:n
1064 Selects the compression method to be used for the track. Note that
1065 the player also has to support this method. Valid values are
1066 'none', 'zlib' and 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2'.
1067 The compression method 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2' is a special
1069 compression method called 'header removal' that is only available
1070 for MPEG4 part 2 video tracks.
1071 The default for some subtitle types is 'zlib' compression. This
1073 compression method is also the one that most if not all playback
1074 applications support. Support for other compression methods other
1075 than 'none' is not assured.
1076 Options that only apply to video tracks
1078 -f, --fourcc TID:FourCC
1079 Forces the FourCC to the specified value. Works only for video
1080 tracks in the 'MS compatibility mode'.
1081 --display-dimensions TID:widthxheight
1083 Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
1084 properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
1085 display width and display height. These values can be set with this
1086 option, e.g. '1:640x480'.
1087 Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
1089 the --aspect-ratio-factor option (see below). These options are
1090 mutually exclusive.
1091 --aspect-ratio TID:ratio|width/height
1093 Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
1094 properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
1095 display width and display height. With this option mkvmerge(1) will
1096 automatically calculate the display width and display height based
1097 on the image's original width and height and the aspect ratio given
1098 with this option. The ratio can be given either as a floating point
1099 number ratio or as a fraction 'width/height', e.g. '16/9'.
1100 Another way to specify the values is to use the
1102 --aspect-ratio-factor or --display-dimensions options (see above
1103 and below). These options are mutually exclusive.
1104 --aspect-ratio-factor TID:factor|n/d
1106 Another way to set the aspect ratio is to specify a factor. The
1107 original aspect ratio is first multiplied with this factor and used
1108 as the target aspect ratio afterwards.
1109 Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
1111 --display-dimensions options (see above). These options are
1112 mutually exclusive.
1113 --cropping TID:left,top,right,bottom
1115 Sets the pixel cropping parameters of a video track to the given
1116 values.
1117 --color-matrix-coefficients TID:n
1119 Sets the matrix coefficients of the video used to derive luma and
1120 chroma values from red, green and blue color primaries. The
1121 parameter n is an integer rangeing from 0 and 10.
1122 Valid values and their meaning are:
1124 0: GBR, 1: BT709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: FCC, 5: BT470BG,
1126 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: YCOCG, 9: BT2020 non-constant
1127 luminance, 10: BT2020 constant luminance
1128 --color-bits-per-channel TID:n
1130 Sets the number of coded bits for a color channel. A value of 0
1131 indicates that the number of bits is unspecified.
1132 --chroma-subsample TID:hori,vert
1134 The amount of pixels to remove in the Cr and Cb channels for every
1135 pixel not removed horizontally/vertically.
1136 Example: For video with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, the parameter
1138 should be set to TID:1,1.
1139 --cb-subsample TID:hori,vert
1141 The amount of pixels to remove in the Cb channel for every pixel
1142 not removed horizontally/vertically. This is additive with
1143 --chroma-subsample.
1144 Example: For video with 4:2:1 chroma subsampling, the parameter
1146 --chroma-subsample should be set to TID:1,0 and Cb-subsample should
1147 be set to TID:1,0.
1148 --chroma-siting TID:hori,vert
1150 Sets how chroma is sited horizontally/vertically (0: unspecified,
1151 1: top collocated, 2: half).
1152 --color-range TID:n
1154 Sets the clipping of the color ranges (0: unspecified, 1: broadcast
1155 range, 2: full range (no clipping), 3: defined by
1156 MatrixCoefficients/TransferCharacteristics).
1157 --color-transfer-characteristics TID:n
1159 The transfer characteristics of the video.
1160 Valid values and their meaning are:
1162 0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: gamma
1164 2.2 curve, 5: gamma 2.8 curve, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8:
1165 linear, 9: log, 10: log sqrt, 11: IEC 61966-2-4, 12: ITU-R BT.1361
1166 extended color gamut, 13: IEC 61966-2-1, 14: ITU-R BT.2020 10 bit,
1167 15: ITU-R BT.2020 12 bit, 16: SMPTE ST 2084, 17: SMPTE ST 428-1;
1168 18: ARIB STD-B67 (HLG)
1169 --color-primaries TID:n
1171 Sets the color primaries of the video.
1172 Valid values and their meaning are:
1174 0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: ITU-R
1176 BT.470M, 5: ITU-R BT.470BG, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: FILM,
1177 9: ITU-R BT.2020, 10: SMPTE ST 428-1, 22: JEDEC P22 phosphors
1178 --max-content-light TID:n
1180 Sets the maximum brightness of a single pixel (Maximum Content
1181 Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value of n
1182 should be a non-negtive integer.
1183 --max-frame-light TID:n
1185 Sets the maximum brightness of a single full frame (Maximum
1186 Frame-Average Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1187 The value of n should be a non-negtive integer.
1188 --chromaticity-coordinates
1190 TID:red-x,red-y,green-x,green-y,blue-x,blue-y
1191 Sets the red/green/blue chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE
1192 1931.
1193 --white-color-coordinates TID:x,y
1195 Sets the white color chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE
1196 1931.
1197 --max-luminance TID:float
1199 Sets the maximum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1200 The value should be less than 9999.99.
1201 --min-luminance TID:float
1203 Sets the minimum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²).
1204 The value should be less than 999.9999.
1205 --projection-type TID:method
1207 Sets the video projection method used. Valid values are 0
1208 (rectangular projection), 1 (equirectangular projection), 2
1209 (cubemap projection) and 3 (mesh projection).
1210 --projection-private TID:data
1212 Sets private data that only applies to a specific projection. Data
1213 must be given as hex numbers with or without the "0x" prefix, with
1214 or without spaces.
1215 --projection-pose-yaw TID:float
1217 Specifies a yaw rotation to the projection.
1218 --projection-pose-pitch TID:float
1220 Specifies a pitch rotation to the projection.
1221 --projection-pose-roll TID:float
1223 Specifies a roll rotation to the projection.
1224 --field-order TID:n
1226 Sets the field order for the video track with the track ID TID. The
1227 order must be one of the following numbers:
1228 0: progressive; 1: interlaced with top field displayed first and
1230 top field stored first; 2: undetermined field order; 6: interlaced
1231 with bottom field displayed first and bottom field stored first; 9:
1232 interlaced with bottom field displayed first and top field stored
1233 first; 14: interlaced with top field displayed first and bottom
1234 field stored first
1235 --stereo-mode TID:n|symbolic-name
1237 Sets the stereo mode for the video track with the track ID TID. The
1238 mode can either be a number n between 0 and 14 or a symbolic name.
1239 All valid numbers & names can be listed with the
1240 --list-stereo-modes option.
1241 Options that only apply to text subtitle tracks
1243 --sub-charset TID:character-set
1244 Sets the character set for the conversion to UTF-8 for UTF-8
1245 subtitles for the given track ID. If not specified the charset will
1246 be derived from the current locale settings. Note that a charset is
1247 not needed for subtitles read from Matroska(TM) files or from Kate
1248 streams, as these are always stored in UTF-8. See the section about
1249 text files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1)
1250 converts between character sets.
1251 This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
1253 to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.
1254 Other options
1256 -i, --identify file-name
1257 Will let mkvmerge(1) probe the single file and report its type, the
1258 tracks contained in the file and their track IDs. If this option is
1259 used then the only other option allowed is the filename.
1260 The output format used for the result can be changed with the
1262 option --identification-format.
1263 -J file-name
1265 This is a convenient alias for "--identification-format json
1266 --identify file-name".
1267 -F, --identification-format format
1269 Determines the output format used by the --identify option. The
1270 following formats are supported: text (the default if this option
1271 isn't used) and json.
1272 1. The text format is short and human-readable. It consists of one
1274 line per item found (container, tracks, attachments etc.).
1275 This format is not meant to be parsed. The output will be
1277 translated into the language mkvmerge(1) uses (see also
1278 --ui-language).
1279 2. The json format outputs a machine-readable JSON representation.
1281 This format follows the JSON schema described in the following
1282 file:
1283 mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v18.json[3]
1285 All versions of the JSON schema are available both online and
1287 in the released source code archives.
1288 --probe-range-percentage percentage
1290 File types such as MPEG program and transport streams (.vob, .m2ts)
1291 require parsing a certain amount of data in order to detect all
1292 tracks contained in the file. This amount is 0.3% of the source
1293 file's size or 10 MB, whichever is higher.
1294 If tracks are known to be present but not found then the percentage
1296 to probe can be changed with this option. The minimum of 10 MB is
1297 built-in and cannot be changed.
1298 --list-audio-emphasis
1300 Lists all valid numbers & their corresponding symbolic names for
1301 the --audio-emphasis option.
1302 --list-languages
1304 Lists all languages and their ISO 639-2 code which can be used with
1305 the --language option.
1306 --list-stereo-modes
1308 Lists all valid numbers & their corresponding symbolic names for
1309 the --stereo-mode option.
1310 -l, --list-types
1312 Lists supported input file types.
1313 --priority priority
1315 Sets the process priority that mkvmerge(1) runs with. Valid values
1316 are 'lowest', 'lower', 'normal', 'higher' and 'highest'. If nothing
1317 is given then 'normal' is used. On Unix like systems mkvmerge(1)
1318 will use the nice(2) function. Therefore only the super user can
1319 use 'higher' and 'highest'. On Windows all values are useable for
1320 every user.
1321 Selecting 'lowest' also causes mkvmerge(1) to select idle I/O
1323 priority in addition to the lowest possible process priority.
1324 --command-line-charset character-set
1326 Sets the character set to convert strings given on the command line
1327 from. It defaults to the character set given by system's current
1328 locale. This settings applies to arguments of the following
1329 options: --title, --track-name and --attachment-description.
1330 --output-charset character-set
1332 Sets the character set to which strings are converted that are to
1333 be output. It defaults to the character set given by system's
1334 current locale.
1335 -r, --redirect-output file-name
1337 Writes all messages to the file file-name instead of to the
1338 console. While this can be done easily with output redirection
1339 there are cases in which this option is needed: when the terminal
1340 reinterprets the output before writing it to a file. The character
1341 set set with --output-charset is honored.
1342 --flush-on-close
1344 Tells the program to flush all data cached in memory to storage
1345 when closing files opened for writing. This can be used to prevent
1346 data loss on power outages or to circumvent certain problems in the
1347 operating system or drivers. The downside is that multiplexing will
1348 take longer as mkvmerge will wait until all data has been written
1349 to the storage before exiting. See issues #2469 and #2480 on the
1350 MKVToolNix bug tracker for in-depth discussions on the pros and
1351 cons.
1352 --ui-language code
1354 Forces the translations for the language code to be used (e.g.
1355 'de_DE' for the German translations). Entering 'list' as the code
1356 will cause the program to output a list of available translations.
1357 --abort-on-warnings
1359 Tells the program to abort after the first warning is emitted. The
1360 program's exit code will be 1.
1361 --deterministic seed
1363 Enables the creation of byte-identical files if the same version of
1364 mkvmerge(1) is used with the same source files, the same set of
1365 options and the same seed. Note that the "date" segment information
1366 field is not written in this mode.
1367 The seed can be an arbitrary string and does not have to be a
1369 number.
1370 The result of byte-identical files is only guaranteed under the
1372 following conditions:
1373 1. The same version of mkvmerge(1) built with the same versions of
1375 libEBML and libMatroska is used.
1376 2. The source files used are byte-identical.
1378 3. The same command line options are used in the same order (with
1380 the notable exception of --output ...).
1381 Using other versions of mkvmerge(1) or other command-line options
1383 may result in the same byte-identical file but is not guaranteed to
1384 do so.
1385 --debug topic
1387 Turn on debugging for a specific feature. This option is only
1388 useful for developers.
1389 --engage feature
1391 Turn on experimental features. A list of available features can be
1392 requested with mkvmerge --engage list. These features are not meant
1393 to be used in normal situations.
1394 --gui-mode
1396 Turns on GUI mode. In this mode specially-formatted lines may be
1397 output that can tell a controlling GUI what's happening. These
1398 messages follow the format '#GUI#message'. The message may be
1399 followed by key/value pairs as in
1400 '#GUI#message#key1=value1#key2=value2...'. Neither the messages nor
1401 the keys are ever translated and always output in English.
1402 @options-file.json
1404 Reads additional command line arguments from the file options-file.
1405 See the section about option files for further information.
1406 --capabilities
1408 Lists information about optional features that have been compiled
1409 in and exit. The first line output will be the version information.
1410 All following lines contain exactly one word whose presence
1411 indicates that the feature has been compiled in. These features
1412 are:
1413 • 'FLAC' -- reading raw FLAC files and handling FLAC tracks in
1415 other containers, e.g. Ogg(TM) or Matroska(TM).
1416 -h, --help
1418 Show usage information and exit.
1419 -V, --version
1421 Show version information and exit.
1422
1424 For each file the user can select which tracks mkvmerge(1) should take.
1425 They are all put into the file specified with -o. A list of known (and
1426 supported) source formats can be obtained with the -l option.
1427 Important
1429 The order of command line options is important. Please read the
1430 section "Option order" if you're new to the program.
1431
1433 The order in which options are entered is important for some options.
1434 Options fall into two categories:
1435 1. Options that affect the whole program and are not tied to any input
1437 file. These include but are not limited to --command-line-charset,
1438 --output or --title. These can appear anywhere on the command line.
1439 2. Options that affect a single input file or a single track in an
1441 input file. These options all apply to the following input file on
1442 the command line. All options applying to the same input (or to
1443 tracks from the same input file) file can be written in any order
1444 as long as they all appear before that input file's name. Examples
1445 for options applying to an input file are --no-chapters or
1446 --chapter-charset. Examples for options applying to a single track
1447 are --default-duration or --language.
1448 The options are processed from left to right. If an option appears
1450 multiple times within the same scope then the last occurrence will be
1451 used. Therefore the title will be set to "Something else" in the
1452 following example:
1453 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --title 'This and that' input.avi --title 'Something else'
1455 The following example shows that using the --language option twice is
1457 OK because they're used in different scopes. Even though they apply to
1458 the same track ID they apply to different input files and therefore
1459 have different scopes:
1460 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --language 0:fre français.ogg --language 0:deu deutsch.ogg
1462
1464 Let's assume you have a file called MyMovie.avi and the audio track in
1465 a separate file, e.g. 'MyMovie.wav'. First you want to encode the audio
1466 to OggVorbis(TM):
1467 $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie.ogg MyMovie.wav
1469 After a couple of minutes you can join video and audio:
1471 $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
1473 If your AVI already contains an audio track then it will be copied as
1475 well (if mkvmerge(1) supports the audio format). To avoid that simply
1476 do
1477 $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
1479 After some minutes of consideration you rip another audio track, e.g.
1481 the director's comments or another language to 'MyMovie-add-audio.wav'.
1482 Encode it again and join it up with the other file:
1483 $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie-add-audio.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.wav
1485 $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
1486 The same result can be achieved with
1488 $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
1490 Now fire up mplayer(TM) and enjoy. If you have multiple audio tracks
1492 (or even video tracks) then you can tell mplayer(TM) which track to
1493 play with the '-vid' and '-aid' options. These are 0-based and do not
1494 distinguish between video and audio.
1495 If you need an audio track synchronized you can do that easily. First
1497 find out which track ID the Vorbis track has with
1498 $ mkvmerge --identify outofsync.ogg
1500 Now you can use that ID in the following command line:
1502 $ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -A source.avi -y 12345:200 outofsync.ogg
1504 This would add 200ms of silence at the beginning of the audio track
1506 with the ID 12345 taken from 'outofsync.ogg'.
1507 Some movies start synced correctly but slowly drift out of sync. For
1509 these kind of movies you can specify a delay factor that is applied to
1510 all timestamps -- no data is added or removed. So if you make that
1511 factor too big or too small you'll get bad results. An example is that
1512 an episode I transcoded was 0.2 seconds out of sync at the end of the
1513 movie which was 77340 frames long. At 29.97fps 0.2 seconds correspond
1514 to approx. 6 frames. So I did
1515 $ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -y 23456:0,77346/77340 outofsync.mkv
1517 The result was fine.
1519 The sync options can also be used for subtitles in the same manner.
1521 For text subtitles you can either use some Windows software (like
1523 SubRipper(TM)) or the subrip(TM) package found in transcode(1)'s
1524 sources in the 'contrib/subrip' directory. The general process is:
1525 1. extract a raw subtitle stream from the source:
1527 $ tccat -i /path/to/copied/dvd/ -T 1 -L | tcextract -x ps1 -t vob -a 0x20 | subtitle2pgm -o mymovie
1529 2. convert the resulting PGM images to text with gocr:
1531 $ pgm2txt mymovie
1533 3. spell-check the resulting text files:
1535 $ ispell -d american *txt
1537 4. convert the text files to a SRT file:
1539 $ srttool -s -w -i mymovie.srtx -o mymovie.srt
1541 The resulting file can be used as another input file for mkvmerge(1):
1543 $ mkvmerge -o mymovie.mkv mymovie.avi mymovie.srt
1545 If you want to specify the language for a given track then this is
1547 easily done. First find out the ISO 639-2 code for your language.
1548 mkvmerge(1) can list all of those codes for you:
1549 $ mkvmerge --list-languages
1551 Search the list for the languages you need. Let's assume you have put
1553 two audio tracks into a Matroska(TM) file and want to set their
1554 language codes and that their track IDs are 2 and 3. This can be done
1555 with
1556 $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut without-lang-codes.mkv
1558 As you can see you can use the --language switch multiple times.
1560 Maybe you'd also like to have the player use the Dutch language as the
1562 default language. You also have extra subtitles, e.g. in English and
1563 French, and want to have the player display the French ones by default.
1564 This can be done with
1565 $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut --default-track-flag 3 without-lang-codes.mkv --language 0:eng english.srt --default-track-flag 0 --language 0:fre french.srt
1567 If you do not see the language or default track flags that you've
1569 specified in mkvinfo(1)'s output then please read the section about
1570 default values.
1571 Turn off the compression for an input file.
1573 $ mkvmerge -o no-compression.mkv --compression -1:none MyMovie.avi --compression -1:none mymovie.srt
1575
1577 Regular track IDs
1578 Some of the options for mkvmerge(1) need a track ID to specify which
1579 track they should be applied to. Those track IDs are printed by the
1580 readers when demuxing the current input file, or if mkvmerge(1) is
1581 called with the --identify option. An example for such output:
1582 $ mkvmerge -i v.mkv
1584 File 'v.mkv': container: Matroska(TM)
1585 Track ID 0: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC, DIV3)
1586 Track ID 1: audio (A_MPEG/L3)
1587 Do not confuse the track IDs that are assigned to the tracks that are
1589 placed in the output MKV file with the track IDs of the input files.
1590 Only the input file track IDs are used for options needing these
1591 values.
1592 Also note that each input file has its own set of track IDs. Therefore
1594 the track IDs for file 'file1.ext' as reported by 'mkvmerge --identify'
1595 do not change no matter how many other input files are there or in
1596 which position 'file1.ext' is used.
1597 Track IDs are assigned like this:
1599 • AVI files: The video track has the ID 0. The audio tracks get IDs
1601 in ascending order starting at 1.
1602 • AAC, AC-3, MP3, SRT and WAV files: The one 'track' in that file
1604 gets the ID 0.
1605 • Most other files: The track IDs are assigned in order the tracks
1607 are found in the file starting at 0.
1608 The options that use the track IDs are the ones whose description
1610 contains 'TID'. The following options use track IDs as well:
1611 --audio-tracks, --video-tracks, --subtitle-tracks, --button-tracks and
1612 --track-tags.
1613 Special track IDs
1615 There are several IDs that have special meaning and do not occur in the
1616 identification output.
1617 The special track ID '-1' is a wild card and applies the given switch
1619 to all tracks that are read from an input file.
1620 The special track ID '-2' refers to the chapters in a source file.
1622 Currently only the --sync option uses this special ID. As an
1623 alternative to --sync -2:... the option --chapter-sync ... can be
1624 used.
1625
1627 Matroska(TM) has support for two different types of language elements:
1628 the old, deprecated "Language" element containing ISO 639-2 alpha 3
1629 codes and the new "LanguageIETF" tags containing IETF BCP 47 language
1630 tags. All of mkvmerge(1)'s options that accept a language accept a BCP
1631 47 language tag. mkvmerge(1) will derive the value for the deprecated
1632 "Language" element from the BCP 47 language tags wherever possible.
1633 When identifying a file in JSON mode, existing "LanguageIETF" track
1635 header elements will be output as the language_ietf track property.
1636 When writing a file mkvmerge(1) will always write the "LanguageIETF",
1638 "ChapLanguageIETF" and "TagLanguageIETF" elements (the latter two only
1639 if chapters or tags are written respectively). In addition to those
1640 elements the corresponding old elements will be written; they'll be set
1641 to the ISO 639-2 code portion of the BCP 47 language tag. For example,
1642 when the track language is set to sr-Cyrl-RS "LanguageIETF" will be set
1643 to sr-Cyrl-RS and the old "Language" element will be set to srp.
1644 When reading existing files (Matroska files, XML chapter or tag files
1646 etc.) that already contain "...LanguageIETF" elements the existing
1647 elements will be kept. Otherwise "...LanguageIETF" elements will be
1648 added based on command-line options and other existing deprecated
1649 "...Language" elements.
1650 The creation of the new elements can be disabled completely with the
1652 command-line option --disable-language-ietf which operates on all three
1653 new elements.
1654 You can chose the normalization method applied to extended language
1656 sub-tags with the parameter --normalize-language-ietf.
1657
1659 Note
1660 This section applies to all programs in MKVToolNix even if it only
1661 mentions mkvmerge(1).
1662 Introduction
1664 All text in a Matroska(TM) file is encoded in UTF-8. This means that
1665 mkvmerge(1) has to convert every text file it reads as well as every
1666 text given on the command line from one character set into UTF-8. In
1667 return this also means that mkvmerge(1)'s output has to be converted
1668 back to that character set from UTF-8, e.g. if a non-English
1669 translation is used with --ui-language or for text originating from a
1670 Matroska(TM) file.
1671 mkvmerge(1) does this conversion automatically based on the presence of
1673 a byte order marker (short: BOM) or the system's current locale. How
1674 the character set is inferred from the locale depends on the operating
1675 system that mkvmerge(1) is run on.
1676 Byte order markers (BOM)
1678 Text files that start with a BOM are already encoded in one
1679 representation of UTF. mkvmerge(1) supports the following five modes:
1680 UTF-8, UTF-16 Little and Big Endian, UTF-32 Little and Big Endian. Text
1681 files with a BOM are automatically converted to UTF-8. Any of the
1682 parameters that would otherwise set the character set for such a file
1683 (e.g. --sub-charset) is silently ignored.
1684 Linux and Unix-like systems including macOS
1686 On Unix-like systems mkvmerge(1) uses the setlocale(3) system call
1687 which in turn uses the environment variables LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CYPE.
1688 The resulting character set is often one of UTF-8 or the ISO-8859-*
1689 family and is used for all text file operations and for encoding
1690 strings on the command line and for output to the console.
1691 Windows
1693 On Windows the default character set used for converting text files is
1694 determined by a call to the GetACP() system call.
1695 Reading the command line is done with the GetCommandLineW() function
1697 which already returns a Unicode string. Therefore the option
1698 --command-line-charset is ignored on Windows.
1699 Output to the console consists of three scenarios:
1701 1. If the output is redirected with the option --redirect-output then
1703 the default charset is UTF-8. This can be changed with
1704 --output-charset.
1705 2. If the output is redirected with cmd.exe itself, e.g. with mkvinfo
1707 file.mkv > info.txt, then the charset is always UTF-8 and cannot be
1708 changed.
1709 3. Otherwise (when writing directly to the console) the Windows
1711 function WriteConsoleW() is used and the option --output-charset is
1712 ignored. The console should be able to output all Unicode
1713 characters for which the corresponding language support is
1714 installed (e.g. Chinese characters might not be displayed on
1715 English Windows versions).
1716 Command line options
1718 The following options exist that allow specifying the character sets:
1719 • --sub-charset for text subtitle files and for text subtitle tracks
1721 stored in container formats for which the character set cannot be
1722 determined unambiguously (e.g. Ogg files),
1723 • --chapter-charset for chapter text files and for chapters and file
1725 titles stored in container formats for which the character set
1726 cannot be determined unambiguously (e.g. Ogg files for chapter
1727 information, track and file titles etc; MP4 files for chapter
1728 information),
1729 • --command-line-charset for all strings on the command line,
1731 • --output-charset for all strings written to the console or to a
1733 file if the output has been redirected with the --redirect-output
1734 option. On non-Windows systems the default for the output charset
1735 is the system's current charset. On Windows it defaults to UTF-8
1736 both for redirecting with --redirect-output and with cmd.exe
1737 itself, e.g. mkvinfo file.mkv > info.txt.
1738
1740 An option file is a file mkvmerge(1) can read additional command line
1741 arguments from. This can be used in order to circumvent certain
1742 limitations of the shell or the operating system when executing
1743 external programs like a limited command line length.
1744 An option file contains JSON-formatted data. Its content must be a
1746 valid JSON array consisting solely of JSON strings. The file's encoding
1747 must be UTF-8. The file should not start with a byte order marker
1748 (BOM), but if one exists, it will be skipped.
1749 The rules for escaping special characters inside JSON are the ones in
1751 the official JSON specification, RFC 7159[4].
1752 The option file's name itself must be specified as a command line
1754 argument prefixed with a '@' character.
1755 The command line 'mkvmerge -o "my file.mkv" -A "a movie.avi" sound.ogg'
1757 could be converted into the following JSON option file called e.g.
1758 'options.json':
1759 [
1761 "-o",
1762 "c:\\Matroska\\my file.mkv",
1763 "--title",
1764 "#65",
1765 "-A",
1766 "a movie.avi",
1767 "sound.ogg"
1768 ]
1769 The corresponding command would then be 'mkvmerge @options.json'.
1771
1773 Matroska(TM) supports file linking which simply says that a specific
1774 file is the predecessor or successor of the current file. To be
1775 precise, it's not really the files that are linked but the Matroska(TM)
1776 segments. As most files will probably only contain one Matroska(TM)
1777 segment the following explanations use the term 'file linking' although
1778 'segment linking' would be more appropriate.
1779 Each segment is identified by a unique 128 bit wide segment UID. This
1781 UID is automatically generated by mkvmerge(1). The linking is done
1782 primarily via putting the segment UIDs (short: SID) of the
1783 previous/next file into the segment header information. mkvinfo(1)
1784 prints these SIDs if it finds them.
1785 If a file is split into several smaller ones and linking is used then
1787 the timestamps will not start at 0 again but will continue where the
1788 last file has left off. This way the absolute time is kept even if the
1789 previous files are not available (e.g. when streaming). If no linking
1790 is used then the timestamps should start at 0 for each file. By default
1791 mkvmerge(1) does not use file linking. If you want that you can turn it
1792 on with the --link option. This option is only useful if splitting is
1793 activated as well.
1794 Regardless of whether splitting is active or not the user can tell
1796 mkvmerge(1) to link the produced files to specific SIDs. This is
1797 achieved with the options --link-to-previous and --link-to-next. These
1798 options accept a segment SID in the format that mkvinfo(1) outputs: 16
1799 hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff prefixed with '0x' each, e.g.
1800 '0x41 0xda 0x73 0x66 0xd9 0xcf 0xb2 0x1e 0xae 0x78 0xeb 0xb4 0x5e 0xca
1801 0xb3 0x93'. Alternatively a shorter form can be used: 16 hexadecimal
1802 numbers between 0x00 and 0xff without the '0x' prefixes and without the
1803 spaces, e.g. '41da7366d9cfb21eae78ebb45ecab393'.
1804 If splitting is used then the first file is linked to the SID given
1806 with --link-to-previous and the last file is linked to the SID given
1807 with --link-to-next. If splitting is not used then the one output file
1808 will be linked to both of the two SIDs.
1809
1811 The Matroska(TM) specification states that some elements have a default
1812 value. Usually an element is not written to the file if its value is
1813 equal to its default value in order to save space. The elements that
1814 the user might miss in mkvinfo(1)'s output are the language and the
1815 default track flag elements. The default value for the language is
1816 English ('eng'), and the default value for the default track flag is
1817 true. Therefore if you used --language 0:eng for a track then it will
1818 not show up in mkvinfo(1)'s output.
1819
1821 Maybe you also want to keep some photos along with your Matroska(TM)
1822 file, or you're using SSA subtitles and need a special TrueType(TM)
1823 font that's really rare. In these cases you can attach those files to
1824 the Matroska(TM) file. They will not be just appended to the file but
1825 embedded in it. A player can then show those files (the 'photos' case)
1826 or use them to render the subtitles (the 'TrueType(TM) fonts' case).
1827 Here's an example how to attach a photo and a TrueType(TM) font to the
1829 output file:
1830 $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv -A video.avi sound.ogg \
1832 --attachment-description "Me and the band behind the stage in a small get-together" \
1833 --attachment-mime-type image/jpeg \
1834 --attach-file me_and_the_band.jpg \
1835 --attachment-description "The real rare and unbelievably good looking font" \
1836 --attachment-mime-type application/octet-stream \
1837 --attach-file really_cool_font.ttf
1838 If a Matroska(TM) containing attachments file is used as an input file
1840 then mkvmerge(1) will copy the attachments into the new file. The
1841 selection which attachments are copied and which are not can be changed
1842 with the options --attachments and --no-attachments.
1843
1845 The Matroska(TM) chapter system is more powerful than the old known
1846 system used by OGM files. The full specifications can be found at the
1847 Matroska(TM) website[1].
1848 mkvmerge(1) supports two kinds of chapter files as its input. The first
1850 format, called 'simple chapter format', is the same format that the OGM
1851 tools expect. The second format is a XML based chapter format which
1852 supports all of Matroska(TM)'s chapter functionality.
1853 Apart from dedicated chapter files mkvmerge(1) can also read chapters
1855 from other file formats (e.g. MP4, Ogg, Blu-rays or DVDs).
1856 The simple chapter format
1858 This format consists of pairs of lines that start with 'CHAPTERxx=' and
1859 'CHAPTERxxNAME=' respectively. The first one contains the start
1860 timestamp while the second one contains the title. Here's an example:
1861 CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
1863 CHAPTER01NAME=Intro
1864 CHAPTER02=00:02:30.000
1865 CHAPTER02NAME=Baby prepares to rock
1866 CHAPTER03=00:02:42.300
1867 CHAPTER03NAME=Baby rocks the house
1868 mkvmerge(1) will transform every pair or lines into one Matroska(TM)
1870 ChapterAtom. It does not set any ChapterTrackNumber which means that
1871 all chapters apply to all tracks in the file.
1872 As this is a text file character set conversion may need to be done.
1874 See the section about text files and character sets for an explanation
1875 how mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.
1876 The XML based chapter format
1878 The XML based chapter format looks like this example:
1879 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
1881 <!DOCTYPE Chapters SYSTEM "matroskachapters.dtd">
1882 <Chapters>
1883 <EditionEntry>
1884 <ChapterAtom>
1885 <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:30.000</ChapterTimeStart>
1886 <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:20.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
1887 <ChapterDisplay>
1888 <ChapterString>A short chapter</ChapterString>
1889 <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
1890 </ChapterDisplay>
1891 <ChapterAtom>
1892 <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:46.000</ChapterTimeStart>
1893 <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:10.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
1894 <ChapterDisplay>
1895 <ChapterString>A part of that short chapter</ChapterString>
1896 <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
1897 </ChapterDisplay>
1898 </ChapterAtom>
1899 </ChapterAtom>
1900 </EditionEntry>
1901 </Chapters>
1902 With this format three things are possible that are not possible with
1904 the simple chapter format:
1905 1. The timestamp for the end of the chapter can be set,
1907 2. chapters can be nested,
1909 3. the language and country can be set.
1911 The mkvtoolnix distribution contains some sample files in the doc
1913 subdirectory which can be used as a basis.
1914 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
1916 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
1917 Chapters (master)
1919 EditionEntry (master)
1920 EditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1921 EditionFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1922 EditionFlagDefault (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1923 EditionFlagOrdered (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1924 ChapterAtom (master)
1925 ChapterAtom (master)
1926 ChapterUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1927 ChapterTimeStart (unsigned integer)
1928 ChapterTimeEnd (unsigned integer)
1929 ChapterFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1930 ChapterFlagEnabled (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
1931 ChapterSegmentUID (binary, valid range: 1 <= length in bytes)
1932 ChapterSegmentEditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1933 ChapterPhysicalEquiv (unsigned integer)
1934 ChapterTrack (master)
1935 ChapterTrackNumber (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
1936 ChapterDisplay (master)
1937 ChapterString (UTF-8 string)
1938 ChapterLanguage (UTF-8 string)
1939 ChapterCountry (UTF-8 string)
1940 ChapterProcess (master)
1941 ChapterProcessCodecID (unsigned integer)
1942 ChapterProcessPrivate (binary)
1943 ChapterProcessCommand (master)
1944 ChapterProcessTime (unsigned integer)
1945 ChapterProcessData (binary)
1946 Reading chapters from Blu-rays
1948 mkvmerge(1) can read chapters from unencrypted Blu-rays. For that you
1949 can use the path to one of the MPLS play lists with the --chapters
1950 parameter.
1951 Example: --chapters /srv/blurays/BigBuckBunny/BDMV/PLAYLIST/00001.mpls
1953 Reading chapters from DVDs
1955 When MKVToolNix is compiled with the libdvdread(TM) library,
1956 mkvmerge(1) can read chapters from DVDs. For that you can use the path
1957 to one of the folders or files on the DVD with the --chapters
1958 parameter. As DVDs can contain more than one title and each title has
1959 its own set of chapters, you can append a colon and the desired title
1960 number to the end of the file name argument. The title number defaults
1961 to 1.
1962 Example: --chapters /srv/dvds/BigBuckBunny/VIDEO_TS:2
1964 General notes
1966 When splitting files mkvmerge(1) will correctly adjust the chapters as
1967 well. This means that each file only includes the chapter entries that
1968 apply to it, and that the timestamps will be offset to match the new
1969 timestamps of each output file.
1970 mkvmerge(1) is able to copy chapters from Matroska(TM) source files
1972 unless this is explicitly disabled with the --no-chapters option. The
1973 chapters from all sources (Matroska(TM) files, Ogg files, MP4 files,
1974 chapter text files) are usually not merged but end up in separate
1975 ChapterEditions. Only if chapters are read from several Matroska(TM) or
1976 XML files that share the same edition UIDs will chapters be merged into
1977 a single ChapterEdition. If such a merge is desired in other situations
1978 as well then the user has to extract the chapters from all sources with
1979 mkvextract(1) first, merge the XML files manually and mux them
1980 afterwards.
1981
1983 Introduction
1984 Matroska(TM)'s tag system is similar to that of other containers: a set
1985 of KEY=VALUE pairs. However, in Matroska(TM) these tags can also be
1986 nested, and both the KEY and the VALUE are elements of their own. The
1987 example file example-tags-2.xml shows how to use this system.
1988 Scope of the tags
1990 Matroska(TM) tags do not automatically apply to the complete file. They
1991 can, but they also may apply to different parts of the file: to one or
1992 more tracks, to one or more chapters, or even to a combination of both.
1993 The Matroska(TM) specification[5] gives more details about this fact.
1994 One important fact is that tags are linked to tracks or chapters with
1996 the Targets Matroska(TM) tag element, and that the UIDs used for this
1997 linking are not the track IDs mkvmerge(1) uses everywhere. Instead the
1998 numbers used are the UIDs which mkvmerge(1) calculates automatically
1999 (if the track is taken from a file format other than Matroska(TM)) or
2000 which are copied from the source file if the track's source file is a
2001 Matroska(TM) file. Therefore it is difficult to know which UIDs to use
2002 in the tag file before the file is handed over to mkvmerge(1).
2003 mkvmerge(1) knows two options with which you can add tags to
2005 Matroska(TM) files: The --global-tags and the --tags options. The
2006 difference is that the former option, --global-tags, will make the tags
2007 apply to the complete file by removing any of those Targets elements
2008 mentioned above. The latter option, --tags, automatically inserts the
2009 UID that mkvmerge(1) generates for the tag specified with the TID part
2010 of the --tags option.
2011 Example
2013 Let's say that you want to add tags to a video track read from an AVI.
2014 mkvmerge --identify file.avi tells you that the video track's ID (do
2015 not mix this ID with the UID!) is 0. So you create your tag file, leave
2016 out all Targets elements and call mkvmerge(1):
2017 $ mkvmerge -o file.mkv --tags 0:tags.xml file.avi
2019 Tag file format
2021 mkvmerge(1) supports a XML based tag file format. The format is very
2022 closely modeled after the Matroska(TM) specification[5]. Both the
2023 binary and the source distributions of MKVToolNix come with a sample
2024 file called example-tags-2.xml which simply lists all known tags and
2025 which can be used as a basis for real life tag files.
2026 The basics are:
2028 • The outermost element must be <Tags>.
2030 • One logical tag is contained inside one pair of <Tag> XML tags.
2032 • White spaces directly before and after tag contents are ignored.
2034 Data types
2036 The new Matroska(TM) tagging system only knows two data types, a UTF-8
2037 string and a binary type. The first is used for the tag's name and the
2038 <String> element while the binary type is used for the <Binary>
2039 element.
2040 As binary data itself would not fit into a XML file mkvmerge(1)
2042 supports two other methods of storing binary data. If the contents of a
2043 XML tag starts with '@' then the following text is treated as a file
2044 name. The corresponding file's content is copied into the Matroska(TM)
2045 element.
2046 Otherwise the data is expected to be Base64 encoded. This is an
2048 encoding that transforms binary data into a limited set of ASCII
2049 characters and is used e.g. in email programs. mkvextract(1) will
2050 output Base64 encoded data for binary elements.
2051 The deprecated tagging system knows some more data types which can be
2053 found in the official Matroska(TM) tag specs. As mkvmerge(1) does not
2054 support this system anymore these types aren't described here.
2055 Known tags for the XML file format
2057 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
2058 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
2059 Tags (master)
2061 Tag (master)
2062 Targets (master)
2063 TargetTypeValue (unsigned integer)
2064 TargetType (UTF-8 string)
2065 TrackUID (unsigned integer)
2066 EditionUID (unsigned integer)
2067 ChapterUID (unsigned integer)
2068 AttachmentUID (unsigned integer)
2069 Simple (master)
2070 Simple (master)
2071 Name (UTF-8 string)
2072 TagLanguage (UTF-8 string)
2073 DefaultLanguage (unsigned integer)
2074 String (UTF-8 string)
2075 Binary (binary)
2076
2078 With a segment info XML file it is possible to set certain values in
2079 the "segment information" header field of a Matroska(TM) file. All of
2080 these values cannot be set via other command line options.
2081 Other "segment information" header fields can be set via command line
2083 options but not via the XML file. This includes e.g. the --title and
2084 the --timestamp-scale options.
2085 There are other elements that can be set neither via command line
2087 options nor via the XML files. These include the following elements:
2088 DateUTC (also known as the "muxing date"), MuxingApp, WritingApp and
2089 Duration. They're always set by mkvmerge(1) itself.
2090 The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where
2092 appropriate, the valid range for their values:
2093 Info (master)
2095 SegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
2096 SegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
2097 PreviousSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
2098 PreviousSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
2099 NextSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
2100 NextSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
2101 SegmentFamily (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
2102 ChapterTranslate (master)
2103 ChapterTranslateEditionUID (unsigned integer)
2104 ChapterTranslateCodec (unsigned integer)
2105 ChapterTranslateID (binary)
2106
2108 The Matroska(TM) file layout is quite flexible. mkvmerge(1) will
2109 render a file in a predefined way. The resulting file looks like this:
2110 [EBML head] [segment {meta seek #1} [segment information] [track
2112 information] {attachments} {chapters} [cluster 1] {cluster 2} ...
2113 {cluster n} {cues} {meta seek #2} {tags}]
2114 The elements in curly braces are optional and depend on the contents
2116 and options used. A couple of notes:
2117 • meta seek #1 includes only a small number of level 1 elements, and
2119 only if they actually exist: attachments, chapters, cues, tags,
2120 meta seek #2. Older versions of mkvmerge(1) used to put the
2121 clusters into this meta seek element as well. Therefore some
2122 imprecise guessing was necessary to reserve enough space. It often
2123 failed. Now only the clusters are stored in meta seek #2, and meta
2124 seek #1 refers to the meta seek element #2.
2125 • Attachment, chapter and tag elements are only present if they were
2127 added.
2128 The shortest possible Matroska(TM) file would look like this:
2130 [EBML head] [segment [segment information] [track information] [cluster
2132 1]]
2133 This might be the case for audio-only files.
2135
2137 mkvmerge(1) allows the user to chose the timestamps for a specific
2138 track himself. This can be used in order to create files with variable
2139 frame rate video or include gaps in audio. A frame in this case is the
2140 unit that mkvmerge(1) creates separately per Matroska(TM) block. For
2141 video this is exactly one frame, for audio this is one packet of the
2142 specific audio type. E.g. for AC-3 this would be a packet containing
2143 1536 samples.
2144 Timestamp files that are used when tracks are appended to each other
2146 must only be specified for the first part in a chain of tracks. For
2147 example if you append two files, v1.avi and v2.avi, and want to use
2148 timestamps then your command line must look something like this:
2149 $ mkvmerge ... --timestamps 0:my_timestamps.txt v1.avi +v2.avi
2151 There are four formats that are recognized by mkvmerge(1). The first
2153 line always contains the version number. Empty lines, lines containing
2154 only whitespace and lines beginning with '#' are ignored.
2155 Timestamp file format v1
2157 This format starts with the version line. The second line declares the
2158 default number of frames per second. All following lines contain three
2159 numbers separated by commas: the start frame (0 is the first frame),
2160 the end frame and the number of frames in this range. The FPS is a
2161 floating point number with the dot '.' as the decimal point. The ranges
2162 can contain gaps for which the default FPS is used. An example:
2163 # timestamp format v1
2165 assume 27.930
2166 800,1000,25
2167 1500,1700,30
2168 Timestamp file format v2
2170 In this format each line contains a timestamp for the corresponding
2171 frame. This timestamp must be given in millisecond precision. It can be
2172 a floating point number, but it doesn't have to be. You have to give at
2173 least as many timestamp lines as there are frames in the track. The
2174 timestamps in this file must be sorted. Example for 25fps:
2175 # timestamp format v2
2177 0
2178 40
2179 80
2180 Timestamp file format v3
2182 In this format each line contains a duration in seconds followed by an
2183 optional number of frames per second. Both can be floating point
2184 numbers. If the number of frames per second is not present the default
2185 one is used. For audio you should let the codec calculate the frame
2186 timestamps itself. For that you should be using 0.0 as the number of
2187 frames per second. You can also create gaps in the stream by using the
2188 'gap' keyword followed by the duration of the gap. Example for an audio
2189 file:
2190 # timestamp format v3
2192 assume 0.0
2193 25.325
2194 7.530,38.236
2195 gap, 10.050
2196 2.000,38.236
2197 Timestamp file format v4
2199 This format is identical to the v2 format. The only difference is that
2200 the timestamps do not have to be sorted. This format should almost
2201 never be used.
2202
2204 mkvmerge(1) exits with one of three exit codes:
2205 • 0 -- This exit code means that muxing has completed successfully.
2207 • 1 -- In this case mkvmerge(1) has output at least one warning, but
2209 muxing did continue. A warning is prefixed with the text
2210 'Warning:'. Depending on the issues involved the resulting file
2211 might be ok or not. The user is urged to check both the warning and
2212 the resulting file.
2213 • 2 -- This exit code is used after an error occurred. mkvmerge(1)
2215 aborts right after outputting the error message. Error messages
2216 range from wrong command line arguments over read/write errors to
2217 broken files.
2218
2220 mkvmerge(1) uses the default variables that determine the system's
2221 locale (e.g. LANG and the LC_* family). Additional variables:
2222 MKVMERGE_DEBUG, MKVTOOLNIX_DEBUG and its short form MTX_DEBUG
2224 The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --debug
2225 option.
2226 MKVMERGE_ENGAGE, MKVTOOLNIX_ENGAGE and its short form MTX_ENGAGE
2228 The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --engage
2229 option.
2230
2232 mkvinfo(1), mkvextract(1), mkvpropedit(1), mkvtoolnix-gui(1)
2233
2235 The latest version can always be found at the MKVToolNix homepage[6].
2236
2238 Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
2239 Developer
2240
2242 1. the Matroska(TM) website
2243 https://www.matroska.org/
2244 2. the IANA homepage
2246 https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
2247 3. mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v18.json
2249 https://mkvtoolnix.download/doc/mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v18.json
2250 4. RFC 7159
2252 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159
2253 5. Matroska(TM) specification
2255 https://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html
2256 6. the MKVToolNix homepage
2258 https://mkvtoolnix.download/
2259MKVToolNix 80.0 2023-10-29 MKVMERGE(1)