AOVsoft's converter has some nice features (cutting without converting is always nice, and cropping is still a missing feature in too many standard programs). But I'm quite happy with the free alternatives (Handbrake, SUPER, Freemake (just as fast as AOV), MakeMKV (lossless) and XMedia Recode). Notably Handbrake which lets you adjust even more than most of the paid/professional tools. It's just a little less user friendly.

Some people have actually been developing these tools and formats for free continuously over the years, and they're not just half-done solutions.

Matroska and FLAC are superiour, better featured, lossy/lossless solutions.

I take it that there isn't an urgent need for MKV support in the United States, because you don't have a broad public demand for subtitles and foreign (original) language support? But anyone working in a multilingual environment would benefit from this. So it's not really an obsession. I am merely stressing the fact that the industry is keeping a whole bunch of inferior, platform dependent (and therefore short lived) file formats alive. They're even still developing new, closed, proprietary formats for mobile devices). This short-term profit speculation is the main reason why there is a "format war" going on. A war that forces content providers to create identical video content in different file containers.

The industry have been trying to agree on a mutual standard (MXF) since 2005, but even after 7 years it is still not really supported by any standalone equipment. Meanwhile Matroska (created in 2002) has basically developed all the features that MXF has, and it is already widely supported by leading hardware and mobile equipment manufacturers such as Asus, Samsung, LG and Western Digital.

The "high end" hardware developers just decided that they won't support MKV. That is of course the main reason why "the market doesn't use it".

While there is an increasing demand for HD video content, the industry has decided only to provide lossy audio content. It is practically impossible to buy online digital audio content in a lossless sound format legally. That is of course another reason why sound connoisseurs are sharing their CD and DVD audio content as FLAC files. When the CD disappears they're stuck with lossy AAC, WMA and MP3 files!

If we acknowledge that the market for systematic and widespread DVD and Blu-ray content is going to be practically non-existent within the next 2-4 years, this leaves us with streaming, broadcast and web sites. MKV is ideal for this purpose, because it already fully supports all the market-oriented requirements such as DRM, subtitling, indexing etc.

Computer playback only? I just gave you a list of some the hardware manufaturers that actually supports MKV playback on their standalone players and platforms. On top of that users are constantly trying to "jailbreak" other standalone players to support MKV playback for one very good reason: The users want it, but the manufacturers don't want them to use it! Sony's Playstation is a well known example.

The main difference from a market perspective between MXF and MKV is actually the lack of broad MXF software support. Only a small percentage of MXF files are are actually being used for video content. MXF is an acknowledged standard like BWF (sound) and AAF, but the format is practically unsupported by any free software product at the moment. Furthermore, it also still seems that there isn't a consistent, standardised support for generating MXF files with video, multiple audio, subtitles and indices... These features have already been supported by the MKV container for years.

I have no strict preference for MKV. I just wish there was a properly supported multimedia container, but the industry is constatnly fighting against it it seems. That is why MKV was invented by the user communities.

Hmmm...

I would have assumed that you might have been a likely one, to field such a request, but apparently no.

I have actually sent two official requests for MKV support during the last 12 months (following your links to the official Adobe PP request form).

I have also sent a request for MKV and WebM support in the Flash Player.

If these requests haven't been recorded anywhere, then I can understand why Adobe say they never get any requests for Matroska container support... I wonder which requests are actually recorded and which that aren't? There have been several other Matroska advocates in here, and I would be very surprised if none of them had sent a request as well. But of course we can't rule out that they simply (and probably correctly) assumed that sending a request would be useless.

I specifically reply to this thread because of some clown that called themself a pro and tell other people to get consumer. If you are a real pro, not a pro wannabe, you won't use Premiere. It just doesn't worth anything in my world. You are only a clown claiming and pretending to be a pro so that you can justify bashing other people asking for mkv importer.

I ALWAYS use MKV. Nothing can contain uncompressed format along with raw subtitles and multiple audio streams ready for production other than matroska. Let's say, 1x main video, 1x side video, 1x 8 channel wav english, 1x 8 channel wav french, 1x 2 channel wav english commentary, with 4 raw unrendered text subtitles. Oh, and I can even put language label on them. I always bundle some video, audios, and subtitle to be transported. MKV is THE best container for this.

I am not a video editor, but I am working in movie industry. And if you can say we are not camera professionals, I don't know who is. In this field, we are working with thousands of stills. High resolution effects, 3D renders, and whatnot. And no.. we don't use Premiere. Premiere can't even handle 960 frames per second 4K camera properly that we are using. Not to mention 3D field editing. We use the other software starting with F and V for this purpose. And don't you dare to tell me to ditch $10K camera for your cheap skate $1K-ish camera. It's just doesn't compare. Unless you can suggest a $1K camera that can shoot 960 frames per second for slow-mo pictures. LOL.

MKV is useful to transport files or to send to our managers if they want to see a footage in a hurry as MKV can pack uncompressed movie with uncompressed audio. We also store some movies in MKV just for convenience sake. It's not easy to copy 6 files into 1 media then sync them all over again on destination. MKV could do the trick. We can continue to manipulate the video without quality loss. And with F and V, I only need to demux them into raw individual files. With Premiere Pro 5, you have to remux again into container that Premiere Pro can understand. Be it ts, mp4, or avi.

We do use Premiere for creation some end user footages. For example as CD burner. Oh yeah, it's convenient enough. But not as professional editor.

So don't claim yourself as pro until you taste my world. A world where your Premiere Pro that you claim so much as pro software has no place in it.

So why comment on an issue about adding MKV editing support to an NLE?

Because I am in charge of IT operation in this company, and someone asked me how to import our demuxed MKV into their premiere. I said I don't know since we use F, and I can drag raw demuxed data into them, but I will take a look. Then I found a bunch of so called themselves as professionals.

That's probably true (for now).  But cinema editors probably make up a pretty small percentage of professional editors, which includes all people getting paid to edit media to a professional standard of quality

LOL.. then I don't know who are the professional editors that's "getting paid to edit media to a professional standard of quality" you mentioned above if you don't consider us. Those who use cheap 1K camera for home use and edit encoded material? Or those who edit movies for tv and cinema by highest 8K resolution uncompressed image sequences and raw multiple sound effects for our living? Hell.. Premiere doesn't even support multiple fps rate in one scene. How can you even make a slow mo there? Bullet effect? mixing 3D generated explosion effect with real life scenes?

Those who edit video for our living doesn't use premiere. But when we send our edited material for DVD printing or Blu Ray printing, we must ensure that premiere can read them. Go figure.

Jim Simon wrote:

 

Because I am in charge of IT operation in this company, and someone asked me how to import our demuxed MKV into their premiere.

 

Good answer.  You got me on that one.

 

But it does beg the question, is it really OK with you for people to be editing your (I assume copyrighted) media?

 

 

I don't know who are the professional editors...if you don't consider us.

 

I didn't say I don't consider you.  Just said that professional editors working at that level are only a small segment of professional editors.  Does that include the home video maker uploading to YouTube and Facebook?  I'd say for the most part, no.  They don't get paid, and their quality standards aren't quite at a professional level.  But when you consider every corporate/event/independent editor out there, it's a much larger market segment than ACE membership.

You don't know and you claim yourself as professional? There are many kinds of company at work here.. but the prime companies are publisher and producer. We are at producer, and we need to work with publishers. They merely combine our "edited" and "finished" movie to production level for publishing. For consumer. I think I've told you numerous times that Premiere can't edit professional video. No matter what they do they won't be able to alter our movie on some level with consumer level software like premiere. No consumer level equipment Blu ray or anything that able to play our "finished" product, save editing them, including Premiere. It is from professional camera, resulting in professional format in a ridiculously high resolution and file. So don't go telling people that Premiere only support Professional cameras because being used by Professional people and tell them to shoo, go get Elements. It's a BS.

Sure.. no facebook or youtube. Mostly we shoot our own scenes, but that doesn't mean that we don't need mkv, especially that mkv able to contain multiple raw uncompressed streams. Raw means that they are still in their original form, untouched, unmodified by encoders like H264, mpeg, or whatever it is. Something that we can just demux and edit. 

And no.. we don't edit MKV. MKV is like a briefcase, and it is convenient if you can open that briefcase and working on every paper inside without having to put them into another "compatible" briefcase. You can't edit briefcase, but you should be able to edit what is inside that briefcase without wrap them in another briefcase. Preferably, store them back in that same briefcase. Think MKV like a playable ZIP file.

I am not criticize premiere here.. I just don't like people claiming themselves something that they don't and brand other people that differ from them as not. Premiere is NOT a professional video editor. It IS a video editor, and for consumer. That's why they have consumer level output, and able to read some professional format. Not adding MKV is only an excuse. There is no correlation between professional or not about that.

EuroSiti wrote:

 

The only file container alternative to MKV is MXF, but since there are still substantial functionality limitations to MXF (i.e. lossless audio and video code support, chapter support, streaming support, attachment support, 3D support not to mention hardware and software support), it is above discussion that Matroska is the logical choice for anyone who wishes to store content in a playable format without having to re-encode the original content.

 

I am not aware of the number of lossless audio and video codecs currently supported by Premiere Pro, but I do know that MKVmerge (the official (free) Matroska editing tool) will allow you to add any (lossless) stream format that I know of and simply merge it into the MKV container. You can add indexes, additional audio, video or 'odd' content, subtitles etc. without reencoding the data. The resulting file might not be playable on average standalone hardware, but the content remains intact.

 

If Adobe has no commercial interest in supporting the best (most versatile) container format, then it would be easier if they just said that instead of making up all sorts of excuses (i.e. "not an ISO standard", "piracy format", "lack of user interest" etc.). But it seems reasonable to assume that a substantial number of Premiere Pro users would actually start using MKV if they were given the option.

 

The fact that MKV has become so popular despite the lack of support by several 'major' hardware manufacturers, indicates that it serves a number of requirements that no other format supports.

LOL yeah.. that's what I like about MKV. It can store anything there. ANYTHING.. It chewed anything I've put no matter what. With the industry goes 3D, Matroska is the only viable container that we can use. With MXF is starting to show its age, the choice is torn between 10 raw files or 1 MKV file. Playable or not is a second concern for us. Our joined materials are not meant to be played anyway. They can audit the content right away and demux them easily if they want to cut some scenes they don't like or remove something that can raise our MR unnecessarily without hampering the quality.

Sorry to Necropost... but does anyone know if that Avisynth plugin works on CS6?