Shows mkv format. How can I open an MKV file on Windows? Comparison with analogues
If your computer has antivirus program can scan all files on the computer, as well as each file individually. You can scan any file by right-clicking on the file and selecting the appropriate option to scan the file for viruses.
For example, in this figure, file my-file.mkv, then you need to right-click on this file, and in the file menu select the option "scan with AVG". Selecting this option will open AVG Antivirus which will check given file for the presence of viruses.
Sometimes an error can result from incorrect installation software , which may be due to a problem that occurred during the installation process. It may interfere with your operating system link your MKV file to the correct application software tool , influencing the so-called "file extension associations".
Sometimes simple reinstalling CyberLink PowerDVD can solve your problem by properly linking MKV with CyberLink PowerDVD. In other cases, problems with file associations may result from bad software programming developer, and you may need to contact the developer for further assistance.
Advice: Try updating CyberLink PowerDVD to latest version to make sure the latest patches and updates are installed.
This may seem too obvious, but often the MKV file itself may be causing the problem. If you received a file via an attachment Email or downloaded it from a website and the download process was interrupted (such as a power outage or other reason), the file may be corrupted. If possible, try to get a new copy MKV file and try to open it again.
Carefully: A corrupted file can cause collateral damage to previous or pre-existing malware on your PC, so it's important to keep your computer up to date with an up-to-date antivirus.
If your MKV file associated with the hardware on your computer to open the file you may need update device drivers associated with this equipment.
This problem usually associated with media file types, which depend on the successful opening of the hardware inside the computer, for example, sound card or video cards. For example, if you are trying to open an audio file but cannot open it, you may need to update sound card drivers.
Advice: If when you try to open an MKV file you get .SYS file related error message, the problem could probably be associated with corrupted or outdated device drivers that need to be updated. This process can be facilitated by using driver update software such as DriverDoc.
If the steps didn't solve the problem and you are still having problems opening MKV files, this may be due to lack of available system resources. Some versions of MKV files may require a significant amount of resources (e.g. memory/RAM, computing power) to open properly on your computer. This problem occurs quite often if you are using a fairly old computer. Hardware and at the same time a much newer operating system.
This problem can occur when the computer is having a hard time completing a task because the operating system (and other services running in the background) can consume too many resources to open MKV file. Try closing all applications on your PC before opening Matroska Video File. By freeing up all available resources on your computer, you will provide the best conditions for trying to open the MKV file.
If you completed all the above steps and your MKV file still won't open, you may need to run hardware upgrade. In most cases, even with older hardware versions, the processing power can still be more than enough for most user applications (unless you're doing a lot of CPU-intensive work like 3D rendering, financial/science modeling, or intense media work) . In this way, it is likely that your computer does not have enough memory(more commonly referred to as "RAM", or RAM) to perform the file open task.
The mkv or Matroska format is a container format for multimedia data. A container in mkv format can contain video and audio encoded with various codecs, as well as subtitles.
On the this moment The mkv format has gained immense popularity. Most of the video materials that are now published on the net are enclosed in mkv files. Therefore, users are often interested in how to open mkv. In this article we will try to figure out the easiest way to open mkv by looking at the most popular players for operating system Windows.
VLC media player
VLC media player is one of the most famous media players that continues to rapidly gain popularity. The main advantages of VLC media player over competitors are a simple interface, a large number of functions and frequent updates. By setting this program you will no longer have questions about how to open mkv or other multimedia file. Everything will open in one program, quickly and conveniently.
Consider other features of the VLC media player program:
- Support for almost all modern operating systems. There are versions of VLC media player for Windows, Linux, Android, Mac OS X, Apple iOS, BSD, Solaris and other Unix-like systems.
- Support for a wide variety of media formats. There is simply no point in listing formats, VLC media player can play almost everything.
- Built-in set of codecs. the user does not need to install additional codecs to view the video.
- VLC media player is equipped with a wide range of features for working with streaming video. With it, you can view and create your own online broadcasts.
- The program allows you to capture and encode streaming video.
- Russian-language interface;
GOM Player
GOM Player is a free player for working with popular media formats, developed by Gretech Corporation. GOM Player has a Russian-language interface and allows you to easily open mkv files. GOM Player allows you to play videos without having to install third-party codecs.
Consider other features of the GOM Player program:
- Play all popular video formats. Built-in set of codecs.
- Ability to play damaged or incompletely downloaded video files.
- Subtitle management. The user has the ability to change the size, position, font and color of the titles.
- High-quality video playback on weak computers.
- Full-fledged work with DVD discs.
- Separate operating modes for various types screens: monitor, projector, TV.
- Bookmarks, favorites, playlists.
- Normalize the volume level and apply special audio effects.
- Support for DSP modules from Winamp.
The KMPlayer
The KMPlayer is an omnivorous multimedia player from Kang. By appearance and feature set this player similar to GOM Player. Like previous players, The KMPlayer is equipped with built-in codecs and can open mkv files without any problems.
Consider other features of The KMPlayer program:
- Support for all popular media formats. Built-in codecs
- Play streaming video and audio.
- Ability to play damaged video files.
- The program can work in portable mode.
- Subtitle support. The program has a built-in subtitle editor.
- Ability to play video with an external audio track.
- Video capture.
- Volume normalization.
- Image settings. The user can specify the level of sharpening or blurring.
- Fast playback capability.
BS Player
BS.Player is a media player developed by the Slovenian company Webteh. Highly old program, which has now lost most of its users. However, the program is being updated. With BS.Player, you can easily open any mkv, as well as a number of other popular media formats. The program is distributed in Free and Pro versions.
Choose and install one of these media players and you will no longer wonder how to watch mkv or another popular format.
Features of the MKV format
So we have considered a series popular programs to view mkv files. In conclusion, a brief reference to the MKV format itself. As we have already said, the full name of the format is Matroska. This format is an open source project based on the MCF project.
When developing this format, the task was to create a universal, most flexible and cross-platform media container format. As conceived by the developers, files in this format should be played without problems on any device.
This format was built using the EBML binary file format. The EBML format is a binary analogue of the XML markup language. Currently, the EBML format is used in MKV and WebM. Using EBML in the MKV format allows you to make changes to the format without losing compatibility with already created programs.
The Matroska format includes three file extensions: mkv for video, mka for audio, and mks for subtitles. At the same time, video, audio and subtitles can be stored in the mkv file at the same time.
I wrote you a letter in which I briefly outlined my problem, namely how to open mkv file or it would be more correct to say which codec needs to be installed so that the movie in mkv format plays the player built into Windows 7 Windows Media? You explained to me that I need to download and install the free K-Lite Codec Pack and it will solve all my problems. On the official site you specified www.codecguide.com, the K-Lite Codec Pack program exists in four or, if I'm not mistaken, five versions. Which one I need, I don’t want to install what I don’t need in advance. Please answer one more question. Why does an image in mkv movies look much better than an AVI image, because they are the same size. Anatoly.
And the second letter that came to our friends mail, with a different problem, but it also concerns files with the mkv extension.
Tell me, what program to open the mkv file to edit it? My TV turns out to be able to show movies in this format from a flash drive and the quality is just Ah. They say that despite the small size of this file (on average 2 GB), it can be further reduced, without loss of quality, by removing audio tracks with a foreign language and subtitles that I do not need from there. And one more question. Is it possible to add an audio track taken from a DVD I bought to an mkv movie? In many video editors, this can be done only with a complete re-encoding of the movie and, accordingly, its quality deterioration.
How to open mkv file
The content of our article: First, I will answer the second question. How to open and edit mkv file, free program MKVToolnix, it is very simple and no doubt it will come in handy more than once if several films in mkv format do not fit on your flash drive when you go to friends on your day off to watch movies in this format on their new and large TV. By the way, now more and more digital TVs support given format, and their owners do not even know about it. Then we will download and install the K-Lite Codec Pack together and ensure that our windows player Media will show movies with mkv extension.
By the way, the K-Lite Codec Pack has its own Media Player Classic - a pretty good multimedia player that can play anything.
A file in the mkv format is a kind of container, it is also called "Matryoshka", which contains various video and audio data processed by various high-end codecs (for example, newest video H.264 codec and AAC audio), as well as audio tracks, subtitles, video chapters, menus, and so on. Reminds me of a DVD, doesn't it? Common now AVI format, cannot contain this in itself, that is, mkv is the same container for video and audio files as AVI, but much more modern and better. Most importantly, the mkv file is very easy to edit without full processing, for example, we can easily remove and remove unnecessary audio track and subtitles from it, thereby significantly reducing its size.
Initially in the installed operating room Windows system 7 and Windows XP, there is no codec that supports the mkv format, so many novice users are faced with the problem of playing movies on their computer in this format.
Editing the mkv file with MKVToolnix
Open any movie in mkv format in it. File->Open or directly drag the file with the movie into the main window of the program. As we can see in our film, there is one video track, as well as three audio tracks and one with subtitles. We leave one video track and one audio track, uncheck the rest of the tracks, press the Browse button and specify the name and where exactly to save our future movie with one audio track and without subtitles. Click the button Start processing. In a few minutes, where we indicated, a file with the mkv extension will appear. This will be our film. In my case, it became instead of 2.3 GB -> 1.7 GB.
You can add an audio track in the same way, for example, you can extract it from a DVD DVD program Audio Extractor, and embed using the aforementioned MKVToolnix. You can experiment. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss all the subtleties of this and interesting issue in this article, since we will deviate greatly from the topic.
Well, here we come to our main question. how to open mkv file. We go to the official website of the K-Lite Codec Pack program. The K-Lite Codec Pack consists of ffdshow decoder libraries that can play almost any audio and video files.
Well, here we are on the site - www.codecguide.com
Click download.
As we can see, we are waiting for 5 options.
Basic - the package contains everything you need to play the most common formats - AVI, MKV, FLV, MPEG, MOV, HDMOV, MP4 and so on.
Standart - I personally chose it, not only can it play almost all media files, it also has a very good Media Player Classic, you will thank me more than once for it.
Full - for especially picky users and professionals.
Mega - additional filters, codecs and so on, those who choose this package know why they need it.
K-Lite Codec Pack 64-bit - for 64-bit players.
So we are advanced and experienced users, select -Standart and click Download Standard.
Mirror 1. Choose mirror #1
Click Download Now (11,880 kb)
I have free installed Download Master and he intercepted the download.
Downloaded? Now we install.
The first option - Simple installation. We will choose the second option - Advanced mode or Advanced installation.
Installation folder C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack suits us just fine.
Profile 1: Default-the most optimal, select it.
Check the box and no changes will be made to the Start menu
Before we talk about MKV files, let's look at a little history. MKV files, also known as Matroska videos, appeared in Russia in 2002. It got its name - as you might guess - from the matryoshka doll.
The Matroska project was developed as an open standards project, which means that it is open source and completely free for anyone who wants to use it. The developer has many resources on their website, including a list of play options. Over time, the format has been improved, and in 2010 it became the basis for the WebM multimedia format.
What are MKV files
Contrary to popular belief, MKV files are not an audio or video compression format. MKV files are, in fact, multimedia container formats. An MKV container can include audio, video, and subtitles in the same file, even if those elements use different encoding types. For example, you might have an MKV file that contains H.264 video and something like MP3 or AAC for audio.
MKV container files were with a reserve for the future, which means that the files will not become outdated. The Matroska developers have included several key functions to make it happen:
- Quick search
- Support for chapters, menus and metadata
- Various selectable audio and video streams
- Streaming Compatibility
- Subtitle support (hard and soft coded)
- Error recovery, allowing you to reproduce corrupted files
The MKV container itself also supports almost any audio and video format, making the format highly adaptive and easy to use.
How to play MKV files
Since MKV is not an industry standard, not all media players support it, although support is growing rapidly. You have two main options for playing MKV files: using the MKV media player, or downloading the appropriate codecs for the media player you prefer.
Best Option: Use VLC Media Player
Our favorite choice to play MKV files is a VLC media player, mainly because it has built-in support and doesn't require anything else to be installed. Download and install this program following the instructions. Start by going to the official download page at videolan.org.
Beware of downloading from other places, as attackers can embed their code in the download file.
Just run the downloaded file to install VLC. The entire installation process takes no more than two or three minutes.
Once the installation is complete, you will be able to watch any of your MKV files. Note that although VLC is associated with all supported video and audio formats during installation, including MKV, it is not registered as the default application for these file types.
To watch an MKV file with VLC, right-click on the MKV file, select "Open With" and then select "VLC Media Player".
To make VLC the default player for MKV files, right-click on any MKV file, select "Open with" and click "Choose another application".
In the application selection window, select "VLC Media Player", check the "Always use this application to open .mkv files" option, and then click "OK".
After that, you can simply double-click on the MKV file to have it open in VLC.
Of course, not everyone likes the VLC player. If that doesn't suit you, the Matroska website offers several media players for Windows with built-in support.
Alternative: Download Codecs
If you prefer to use Windows Media Player or another Windows player that does not yet support MKV files, you can add this support. To do this, you need to install some files known as codecs(the name comes from compression/decompression). These codecs help your video player figure out how to decompress files it doesn't support.
Sounds great, but there's a reason we offer codec downloads as an alternative to using a video player with built-in support. Codec suites are notorious for often containing vulnerabilities, or worse, malware. The good news is that if you are careful about where to download codecs (and updates), they are a viable option.
On the home page Ninite select the CCCP option and any other applications you are interested in, then click Get Your Ninite . Once the file has downloaded, run it to install all the programs you have chosen.
After you have installed the codecs, you may have to restart your computer, but you can usually start playing MKV files right after installation.
One of the common formats for recording videos with subtitles is the mkv format. The format is intended to be stored different type multimedia content on your PC. Mainly used for video in high quality. However, many users have problems running MKV on a computer, let's take a closer look at how to open it.
What is MKV format?
The name of the format MKV (MKV) stands for matroska video. It (the mkv container) appeared relatively recently during the heyday of Blu-ray technology and was intended to replace the archaic avi and mp4, which do not support such high quality and video resolution. The mkv format file, as a rule, differs from the files of popular formats by its large weight, but it is considered optimal for viewing on widescreen monitors and TVs.
Matryoshka supports normal embedding of subtitles, switching audio tracks, has more fine tuning viewing video files. But in order to open a file with the MKV extension, we need to download and install a set of codecs, for example, k-lite codec pack. After installing the codecs, you can try to open the file using most modern player programs. Let's take a look at a few of them as an example (they all work under Windows 7, 8, 10):
How to open MKV file on Windows?
Almost any popular universal media player from a well-known developer today has support for the MKV, but the format is still not opened by the built-in tools of the operating system. Although the standard has been used for a long time, and source mkv video container format is open.
Here is a short list of applications that can play mkv on a Windows computer:
- VLC Media Player
- Media Player Classic Home Cinema
- Light Alloy
- KMPlayer
- Daum Potplayer
- Gom Player
- Kantaris Media Player
- AllPlayer
- Kodi xbmc
- SMPlayer
- bs.Player
- MKV Player
The list could be continued, but we will focus on the first three programs. You can read more about the rest in our selection of Video Players.
1. VLC player- cross-platform (Windows, MacOs, Linux) program for playing video audio streams. The utility works with both online multimedia and regular files on your PC's hard drive.
- This player can play undownloaded files, images and audio files. It also has built-in Internet radio and a chic equalizer.
- The disadvantages of the player is that there is a problem with playing the TS format (format for HDTV broadcasting) and DVD can sometimes slow down.
2. Media classic palyer - one of the oldest and most popular players among people who prefer the classics. The player looks archaic, but perfectly copes with the tasks.
- The advantage of the player is that you can control it from command line and arbitrarily format the video playback screen. Plays damaged avi files.
- The disadvantage is that it is impossible to change the meta-data and computers with old hardware can slow down when it works.
3. Light Alloy - in my opinion the most omnivorous player. The program is very functional and has a Russian interface language. However, this application lacks many features of newer developments: Potplayer, KMPlayer, etc. Its support has practically ceased.
- Very convenient to use.
- It can automatically download from the Internet codecs which are not enough to watch the video. The program has the ability to view streaming video - Youtube and IPTV.
- The software is more focused on older computers, newer PCs cannot fully work with it, because. more advanced alternatives can be installed on them. It resembles Winamp in modern world video players.
We dare to note that the choice of the considered programs for Windows is solely the opinion of the author of the review. If you like other players from our MKV format compatible list, use them, but check the MKV compatibility in the app description before settling down with popcorn and watching a movie.
How to open mkv format on Mac OS?
Unfortunately, Apple has not been able to add the ability to play the MKV to the built-in Quick Time, but there are more functional alternatives, for example:
- VLC Media Player
- MPlayer
- mkplayer
VLC will be handy for users who have migrated from Windows and can't get used to the Mac. MPlayer and MKPlayer have roughly equal capabilities. They are free, but MKPlayer - MKV & Media Player is available right on Mac App Store, respectively, it is easy to install without special instructions and settings. In general, the player's interface resembles QuickTime, but it supports many more formats.
How to open MKV on Android, Smart TV?
For the Android OS, there are many programs that support MKV. For example, MX Player, the ubiquitous VLC, FX Player. These players carry an MKV codec on board, so they don't require anything extra to be installed. The same MX Player will offer to download the desired codec if it is not available.
For TVs and other devices with a large screen, the set of applications running on Android is similar. If your Smart TV does not allow them to be installed, does not read MKV out of the box or does not want to play sound on it, then the only option left is to convert the file to the older MPEG 4 format (mov, mpg, wmv, avi, mp4). You can do this with the help of programs:
You can also use any of the analogues of these applications. In order for the resulting file to be read by almost any household video player, a relatively old Smart TV or a set-top box for a flash drive on Android, we recommend setting the divx compression container for video and the mp3 format for the audio track during encoding. Compared to MKV, you will lose quality, but get the ability to play on almost any stationary and mobile devices.
