Matroska (MKV) is designed with the future in mind. It incorporates features you would expect from a modern container format, like:
- Fast seeking in the file
- Chapter entries
- Full metadata (tags) support
- Selectable subtitle/audio/video streams
- Modularly Expendable
- Error resilience (can recover playback even when the stream is damaged)
- Streamable over the internet and local networks (HTTP, CIFS, FTP, etc)
- Menus (like DVDs have)
MKV is an open standards project. This means for personal use it is absolutely free to use and that the technical specifications describing the bitstream are open to everybody, even to companies that would like to support it in their products. The source code of the libraries developed by the Matroska Development Team is licensed under GNU L-GPL. In addition to that, there are also free parsing and playback libraries available under the BSD license, for commercial software and hardware adoption.
MKV - Matroska is an English word derived from the Russian word matryoshka, which means nesting doll (the common Russian cylindrical-shaped doll within a doll, also known as a babushka doll). This is a play on the container (media within a form of media/doll within a doll) aspect of the matryoshka as it is a container for visual and audio data. The loose transliteration may be confusing for Russian speakers, as the Russian word matroskaactually refers to a sailor suit.
The Matroska has the following goals:
- Create and document a modern, flexible and cross-platform Audio/Video container format, in combination with an open codec API to form a free and open media framework
- Establish MKV as the opensource alternative to existing containers, like AVI, ASF, MOV, MP4, MPEG
- Develop a set of tools for the creation, editing and implementation of Matroska files
- Develop libraries and tools for software developers to be able to support Matroska in their applications
- Prepare hardware support of Matroska files in next generations standalone units, in close cooperation with device manufacturers
- Support adoption and implementation of Matroska's in open architectures like FFmpeg, VLC or GStreamer Launch a set of DirectShow filters for playback and creation of MKV files on Windows Operating Systems
Related Software
WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe: easily convert MKV video to general and HD videos or to iPhone, iPad, iPod, PSP, ZUNE, etc, perfectly restoring the MKV video's vivid image and appealing sound. Moreover, it builds 160 video codec and 50 audio codec, a perfect multi-functional combination of HD Video Converter, DVD Burner & Website Video Downloader. Fully support Blu-ray, HD camcorder, HDTV video.
WinX DVD Author: Home DVD creation software which brings you perfect MKV to DVD authoring experience with much easier manipulation. Creating a full 4.3G high video quality DVD from MKV, AVI, MPEG, MP4, RM, MOV, WMV, etc. within one hour, easily edit video by clipping, cropping or trimming.
Related Source
AVI, MPEG, TS, M2TS, HDTV, DVD, MP4, HD Video, AVC, AVCHD
Related External Source
http://www.matroska.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_play_mkv.cfm
http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/mkv
