MKV Files

[Porco Rosso]

I've barely used this format before, but now that I need to I'm having a lot of trouble. I've tried viewing the videos in several players (Media Player Classic, BSPlayer, Zoom Player, VLC, etc.), but in every single one the video and audio are out of sync. I deleted all my other codec packs and downloaded CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) like a lot of sites suggested, but it didn't help at all. There are five MKV files in total, and they all do the same thing. I don't think it's a problem with the files themselves either, because a lot of other people have downloaded the same ones and have been able to view them without any problems.

Does anyone know what else could be causing this?

[Soluzar]

I need to give you some background first, before I can really answer your question, and I don't think you're going to like my answer. First of all, you need to know that MKV isn't actually a codec. It's just a container format, which means that the video footage inside an MKV file could be encoded using any of the popular codecs. You may have already known this, of course.

The reason I explained that is because I suspect your problem is that you have downloaded MKV files which contain h.264 video footage. That's a very high-quality codec, and a very processor-intensive codec as well. If your computer isn't particularly fast, or if you're running a lot of other programs at the same time as your video player, you will get exactly the problem you describe.

Bottom line: If neither VLC nor Media Player Classic with CCCP will play the files properly, I doubt anything else will. If your computer should have the horsepower for an h.264 encode, then it must be something else... which might be hard to pin down, precisely.

[HSaabedra]

What are the specs fpr the computer in question? Have you used anything other than VLC?

[Porco Rosso]

I had a feeling it was something like this...drat.

My computer's kinda old. I bought it in 2001 and haven't upgraded it at all since.

I'm not all that computer-savvy so I'm just going to copy what I see in the System thing for the specs:

Pentium 4 1500MHz
1.49 GHz, 256 MB of RAM

If there's anything else you need to know I'll look it up.

[Soluzar]

Those specs would be considered borderline for the h.264 codec. You should be able to decode the video file, but its not guaranteed to be free of problems. Also, depending on how high the resolution is, the problem can become worse.

Short answer: h.264 will always be problematic for that spec. Upgrading your ram a little might help, but there's no guarantee.

[Haro!]

Those specs would be considered borderline for the h.264 codec. You should be able to decode the video file, but its not guaranteed to be free of problems. Also, depending on how high the resolution is, the problem can become worse.

Short answer: h.264 will always be problematic for that spec. Upgrading your ram a little might help, but there's no guarantee.
From experience it works pretty well with just 512 ram, and the processor on my laptop is considerably slower.

Since we're on the subject of .mkv, is there anyway to convert it to .Mp4?

[Porco Rosso]

I just watched through one of the files and it was dreadful. The video would lag every 45 seconds or so and I'd miss a few seconds of what was going on. It is h264, so it looks like you were right about my problem.

This might sound stupid, but is there any way to reduce the video quality?