All of my movie files are in MKV format. If I convert these to MP4 do I lose the nuances of the movie, such as 4K or HDR support?

Hi, MKV is just a container, MP4 is an format video file. Converting MKV to MP4 is not useful, because MKV can contain MP4 :wink:

Ok that makes sense. What I am trying to accomplish is the best compatibility with devices, specifically those that do not support MKV for direct playback and need to transcode on the fly. I would prefer not to lose quality or advanced features like HDR and such.

I’m not sure that supporting MKV and need for transcode is link. As I said MKV is just a container. If you device need transcode, that’s because it can’t decode by itself, and most of the time codec or video file format are not the cause.

Mp4 is also just a container; there is also an mpeg4 video codec. It all depends on the codec that the video/audio is encoded in. All of my videos are h264 encoded in the mp4 container. For 4k content I assume it is h264 encoded, which is also supported by mp4 container. Sorry if you know all this a…

So I should just be able convert MKV to MP4, without losing anything? Sorry I think I am getting hung up on container vs format.

I think so. Are you familiar with command line and the ffmpeg command? If so, you can do ffmpeg -i /path/to/file.mkv -codec copy /path/to/file.mp4 That’s should copy everything from the mkv container into the mp4 container.

I used to use handbrakecli. There is a similar command for handbrake, but I can’t remember what the options are.

Consider your usual video file to be like an envelope (=container). There’s different types of envelopes that have different features and can contain different media streams. Common containers are mp4 (incl. m4v, m4a…) or mkv. Inside your container/envelope, there’s different “streams” – usually …

Video File Conversion

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices

SteveFP October 12, 2019, 11:40pm 8

Thank you for that. I have Handbrake also.

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Video File Conversion

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