I spent the evening figuring out how to turn a Matroska file into something I could get working in my DVD player without transcoding the damned thing. Matroska (.mkv) is an open-source avi-esque format. Converting it is as easy as:

• mkinfo -i foo.mkv
• isolate the tracks you want and their formats
• mkextract tracks foo.mkv 1:audio.aac 2:video.mpeg (assuming track 1 is MPEG-4 AAC audio and track 2 is Xvid video)
• Use foobar2000 to convert the AAC into WAV
• Open the Xvid with VirtualDubMod
• Streams -> Streams List, Add the WAV file
• File -> Save As…, set Video Mode to ‘Direct stream copy’

This takes < 5 minutes and should work on anything that plays Divx or Xvid… except MY dvd player. Turns out the model I have doesn’t like something called QPEL (google it, wordpess is evil) which is turned on in the Xvid video streams I was working with. Rather than transcode them (1 hour a pop), I just watched it from the Xbox after burning the AVI to DVD.

I didn’t spend all night doing this, of course. Renee and I talked off and on through the afternoon and evening. Having someone that really understands you, without explanation is fantastic. It’s even better when that person can both teach you and learn from you. That feedback loop is instrumental to a relationship.

About the time I was settled in to watch the fruits of my encoding labor, Mike calls and says there is Watermelon Smirnoff, Fruit Punch, and Halo at his house. I, as usual, got my ass handed to me. Even letting he and Luke drink a lot more than me didn’t help. I did win one round. Luke quit out before it was over due to the beating he was receiving. Luke is a bitch.

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Posted at : August 24th, 2005 - 1:33 am
Filed under : General
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