Provided by: mkvtoolnix_6.7.0-1_amd64 
NAME
mkvmerge - Merge multimedia streams into a Matroska(TM) file
SYNOPSIS
mkvmerge [global options] {-o out} [options1] {file1} [[options2] {file2}] [@optionsfile]
DESCRIPTION
This program takes the input from several media files and joins their streams (all of them
or just a selection) into a Matroska(TM) file; see the Matroska(TM) website[1].
Important
The order of command line options is important. Please read the section "Option order"
if you're new to the program.
Global options
-v, --verbose
Increase verbosity.
-q, --quiet
Suppress status output.
-o, --output file-name
Write to the file file-name. If splitting is used then this parameter is treated a bit
differently. See the explanation for the --split option for details.
-w, --webm
Create a WebM compliant file. This is also turned on if the output file name's
extension is "webm". This mode enforces several restrictions. The only allowed codecs
are VP8 video and Vorbis audio tracks. Neither chapters nor tags are allowed. The
DocType header item is changed to "webm".
--title title
Sets the general title for the output file, e.g. the movie name.
--default-language language-code
Sets the default language code that will be used for all tracks unless overwritten
with the --language option. The default language code is 'und' for 'undefined'.
Segment info handling (global options)
--segmentinfo filename.xml
Read segment information from a XML file. This file can contain the segment family
UID, segment UID, previous and next segment UID elements. An example file and a DTD
are included in the MKVToolNix distribution.
See the section about segment info XML files below for details.
--segment-uid SID1,SID2,...
Sets the segment UIDs to use. This is a comma-separated list of 128bit segment UIDs in
the usual UID form: hex numbers with or without the "0x" prefix, with or without
spaces, exactly 32 digits.
Each file created contains one segment, and each segment has one segment UID. If more
segment UIDs are specified than segments are created then the surplus UIDs are
ignored. If fewer UIDs are specified than segments are created then random UIDs will
be created for them.
Chapter and tag handling (global options)
--chapter-language language-code
Sets the ISO639-2 language code that is written for each chapter entry. Defaults to
'eng'. See the section about chapters below for details.
This option can be used both for simple chapter files and for source files that
contain chapters but no information about the chapters' language, e.g. MP4 and OGM
files.
--chapter-charset character-set
Sets the character set that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for simple chapter
files. See the section about text files and character sets for an explanation how
mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.
This switch does also apply to chapters that are copied from certain container types,
e.g. Ogg/OGM and MP4 files. See the section about chapters below for details.
--cue-chapter-name-format format
mkvmerge(1) supports reading CUE sheets for audio files as the input for chapters.
CUE sheets usually contain the entries PERFORMER and TITLE for each index entry.
mkvmerge(1) uses these two strings in order to construct the chapter name. With this
option the format used for this name can be set.
If this option is not given then mkvmerge(1) defaults to the format '%p - %t' (the
performer, followed by a space, a dash, another space and the title).
If the format is given then everything except the following meta characters is copied
as-is, and the meta characters are replaced like this:
• %p is replaced by the current entry's PERFORMER string,
• %t is replaced by the current entry's TITLE string,
• %n is replaced by the current track number and
• %N is replaced by the current track number padded with a leading zero if it is <
10.
--chapters file-name
Read chapter information from the file file-name. See the section about chapters below
for details.
--global-tags file-name
Read global tags from the file file-name. See the section about tags below for
details.
General output control (advanced global options)
--track-order FID1:TID1,FID2:TID2,...
This option changes the order in which the tracks for an input file are created. The
argument is a comma separated list of pairs IDs. Each pair contains first the file ID
(FID1) which is simply the number of the file on the command line starting at 0. The
second is a track ID (TID1) from that file. If some track IDs are omitted then those
tracks are created after the ones given with this option have been created.
--cluster-length spec
Limit the number of data blocks or the duration of data in each cluster. The spec
parameter can either be a number n without a unit or a number d postfixed with 'ms'.
If no unit is used then mkvmerge(1) will put at most n data blocks into each cluster.
The maximum number of blocks is 65535.
If the number d is postfixed with 'ms' then mkvmerge(1) puts at most d milliseconds of
data into each cluster. The minimum for d is '100ms', and the maximum is '32000ms'.
mkvmerge(1) defaults to putting at most 65535 data blocks and 5000ms of data into a
cluster.
Programs trying to find a certain frame can only seek directly to a cluster and have
to read the whole cluster afterwards. Therefore creating larger clusters may lead to
imprecise or slow seeking.
--no-cues
Tells mkvmerge(1) not to create and write the cue data which can be compared to an
index in an AVI. Matroska(TM) files can be played back without the cue data, but
seeking will probably be imprecise and slower. Use this only if you're really
desperate for space or for testing purposes. See also option --cues which can be
specified for each input file.
--clusters-in-meta-seek
Tells mkvmerge(1) to create a meta seek element at the end of the file containing all
clusters. See also the section about the Matroska(TM) file layout.
--disable-lacing
Disables lacing for all tracks. This will increase the file's size, especially if
there are many audio tracks. This option is not intended for everyday use.
--enable-durations
Write durations for all blocks. This will increase file size and does not offer any
additional value for players at the moment.
--timecode-scale factor
Forces the timecode scale factor to factor. Valid values are in the range
1000..10000000 or the special value -1.
Normally mkvmerge(1) will use a value of 1000000 which means that timecodes and
durations will have a precision of 1ms. For files that will not contain a video track
but at least one audio track mkvmerge(1) will automatically chose a timecode scale
factor so that all timecodes and durations have a precision of one audio sample. This
causes bigger overhead but allows precise seeking and extraction.
If the special value -1 is used then mkvmerge(1) will use sample precision even if a
video track is present.
File splitting, linking, appending and concatenation (more global options)
--split specification
Splits the output file after a given size or a given time. Please note that tracks can
only be split right before a key frame. Due to buffering mkvmerge(1) will split right
before the next key frame after the split point has been reached. Therefore the split
point may be a bit off from what the user has specified.
At the moment mkvmerge(1) supports four different modes.
1. Splitting by size.
Syntax: --split[size:]d[k|m|g]
Examples: --split size:700m or --split 150000000
The parameter d may end with 'k', 'm' or 'g' to indicate that the size is in KB,
MB or GB respectively. Otherwise a size in bytes is assumed. After the current
output file has reached this size limit a new one will be started.
The 'size:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility reasons.
2. Splitting after a duration.
Syntax: --split[duration:]HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ds
Examples: --split duration:00:60:00.000 or --split 3600s
The parameter must either have the form HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn for specifying the
duration in up to nano-second precision or be a number d followed by the letter
's' for the duration in seconds. HH is the number of hours, MM the number of
minutes, SS the number of seconds and nnnnnnnnn the number of nanoseconds. Both
the number of hours and the number of nanoseconds can be omitted. There can be up
to nine digits after the decimal point. After the duration of the contents in the
current output has reached this limit a new output file will be started.
The 'duration:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility reasons.
3. Splitting after specific timecodes.
Syntax: --splittimecodes:A[,B[,C...]]
Example: --split timecodes:00:45:00.000,01:20:00.250,6300s
The parameters A, B, C etc must all have the same format as the ones used for the
duration (see above). The list of timecodes is separated by commas. After the
input stream has reached the current split point's timecode a new file is created.
Then the next split point given in this list is used.
The 'timecodes:' prefix must not be omitted.
4. Keeping specific parts by specifying timecode ranges while discarding others.
Syntax: --splitparts:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
Examples:
1. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,00:05:50-00:10:30
2. --split parts:00:01:20-00:02:45,+00:05:50-00:10:30
3. --split parts:-00:02:45,00:05:50-
The parts mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges of timecodes while
discarding others. The ranges to keep have to be listed after the parts: keyword
and be separated by commas. A range itself consists of a start and an end timecode
in the same format the other variations of --split accept (e.g. both 00:01:20 and
80s refer to the same timecode).
If a start timecode is left out then it defaults to the previous range's end
timecode. If there was no previous range then it defaults to the start of the file
(see example 3).
If an end timecode is left out then it defaults to the end of the source files
which basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the rest (see example 3).
Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be changed so that
consecutive ranges are written to the same file. For that the user has to prefix
the start timecode with a +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and
instead append the range to the same file the previous range was written to.
Timecodes will be adjusted so that there will be no gap in the output file even if
there was a gap in the two ranges in the input file.
In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will contain the content
starting from 00:01:20 until 00:02:45. The second file will contain the content
starting from 00:05:50 until 00:10:30.
In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file will contain both
the content starting from 00:01:20 until 00:02:45 and the content starting from
00:05:50 until 00:10:30.
In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will contain the content
from the start of the source files until 00:02:45. The second file will contain
the content starting from 00:05:50 until the end of the source files.
Note
Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting at key frame
positions. This applies to both the start and the end of each range. So even
if an end timecode is between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will continue
outputting the frames up to but excluding the following key frame.
5. Keeping specific parts by specifying frame/field number ranges while discarding
others.
Syntax: --splitparts-frames:start1-end1[,[+]start2-end2[,[+]start3-end3...]]
Examples:
1. --split parts-frames:137-258,548-1211
2. --split parts-frames:733-912,+1592-2730
3. --split parts-frames:-430,2512-
The parts-frames mode tells mkvmerge(1) to keep certain ranges of frame/field
numbers while discarding others. The ranges to keep have to be listed after the
parts-frames: keyword and be separated by commas. A range itself consists of a
start and an end frame/field number. Numbering starts at 1.
If a start number is left out then it defaults to the previous range's end number.
If there was no previous range then it defaults to the start of the file (see
example 3).
If an end number is left out then it defaults to the end of the source files which
basically tells mkvmerge(1) to keep the rest (see example 3).
Normally each range will be written to a new file. This can be changed so that
consecutive ranges are written to the same file. For that the user has to prefix
the start number with a +. This tells mkvmerge(1) not to create a new file and
instead append the range to the same file the previous range was written to.
Timecodes will be adjusted so that there will be no gap in the output file even if
there was a gap in the two ranges in the input file.
Note
Note that mkvmerge(1) only makes decisions about splitting at key frame
positions. This applies to both the start and the end of each range. So even
if an end frame/field number is between two key frames mkvmerge(1) will
continue outputting the frames up to but excluding the following key frame.
In example 1 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will contain the content
starting from the first key frame at or after 137 up to but excluding the first
key frame at or after 258. The second file will contain the content starting from
548 until 1211.
In example 2 mkvmerge(1) will create only one file. This file will contain both
the content starting from 733 until 912 and the content starting from 1592 until
2730.
In example 3 mkvmerge(1) will create two files. The first will contain the content
from the start of the source files until 430. The second file will contain the
content starting from 2512 until the end of the source files.
This mode considers only the first video track that is output. If no video track
is output no splitting will occur.
Note
The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based on the number of
Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A single Matroska(TM) block contains
either a full frame (for progressive content) or a single field (for
interlaced content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two and
simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one wanted to split after
the 25th full frame with interlaced content one would have to use 50 (two
fields per full frame) as the split point.
6. Splitting after specific frames/fields.
Syntax: --splitframes:A[,B[,C...]]
Example: --split frames:120,237,891
The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers. Numbering starts at 1.
The list of frame/field numbers is separated by commas. After the input stream has
reached the current split point's frame/field number a new file is created. Then
the next split point given in this list is used.
The 'frames:' prefix must not be omitted.
This mode considers only the first video track that is output. If no video track
is output no splitting will occur.
Note
The numbers given with this argument are interpreted based on the number of
Matroska(TM) blocks that are output. A single Matroska(TM) block contains
either a full frame (for progressive content) or a single field (for
interlaced content). mkvmerge does not distinguish between those two and
simply counts the number of blocks. For example: If one wanted to split after
the 25th full frame with interlaced content one would have to use 50 (two
fields per full frame) as the split point.
7. Splitting before specific chapters.
Syntax: --splitchapters:all or --splitchapters:A[,B[,C...]]
Example: --split chapters:5,8
The parameters A, B, C etc must all be positive integers. Numbering starts at 1.
The list of chapter numbers is separated by commas. Splitting will occur right
before the first key frame whose timecode is equal to or bigger than the start
timecode for the chapters whose numbers are listed. A chapter starting at 0s is
never considered for splitting and discarded silently.
The keyword all can be used instead of listing all chapter numbers manually.
The 'chapters:' prefix must not be omitted.
Note
The Matroska(TM) file format supports arbitrary deeply nested chapter
structures called 'edition entries' and 'chapter atoms'. However, this mode
only considers the top-most level of chapters across all edition entries.
For this splitting mode the output filename is treated differently than for the normal
operation. It may contain a printf like expression '%d' including an optional field
width, e.g. '%02d'. If it does then the current file number will be formatted
appropriately and inserted at that point in the filename. If there is no such pattern
then a pattern of '-%03d' is assumed right before the file's extension: '-o
output.mkv' would result in 'output-001.mkv' and so on. If there's no extension then
'-%03d' will be appended to the name.
--link
Link files to one another when splitting the output file. See the section on file
linking below for details.
--link-to-previous segment-UID
Links the first output file to the segment with the segment UID given by the
segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking below for details.
--link-to-next segment-UID
Links the last output file to the segment with the segment UID given by the
segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking below for details.
--append-mode mode
Determines how timecodes are calculated when appending files. The parameter mode can
have two values: 'file' which is also the default and 'track'.
When mkvmerge appends a track (called 'track2_1' from now on) from a second file
(called 'file2') to a track (called 'track1_1') from the first file (called 'file1')
then it has to offset all timecodes for 'track2_1' by an amount. For 'file' mode this
amount is the highest timecode encountered in 'file1' even if that timecode was from a
different track than 'track1_1'. In track mode the offset is the highest timecode of
'track1_1'.
Unfortunately mkvmerge cannot detect which mode to use reliably. Therefore it defaults
to 'file' mode. 'file' mode usually works better for files that have been created
independently of each other; e.g. when appending AVI or MP4 files. 'track' mode may
work better for sources that are essentially just parts of one big file, e.g. for VOB
and EVO files.
Subtitle tracks are always treated as if 'file' mode were active even if 'track' mode
actually is.
--append-to SFID1:STID1:DFID1:DTID1[,...]
This option controls to which track another track is appended. Each spec contains four
IDs: a file ID, a track ID, a second file ID and a second track ID. The first pair,
"source file ID" and "source track ID", identifies the track that is to be appended.
The second pair, "destination file ID" and "destination track ID", identifies the
track the first one is appended to.
If this option has been omitted then a standard mapping is used. This standard mapping
appends each track from the current file to a track from the previous file with the
same track ID. This allows for easy appending if a movie has been split into two parts
and both file have the same number of tracks and track IDs with the command mkvmerge
-o output.mkv part1.mkv +part2.mkv.
+
A single '+' causes the next file to be appended instead of added. The '+' can also be
put in front of the next file name. Therefore the following two commands are
equivalent:
$ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
$ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv +file2.mkv
=
Normally mkvmerge(1) looks for files in the same directory as an input file that have
the same base name and only differ in their running number (e.g. 'VTS_01_1.VOB',
'VTS_01_2.VOB', 'VTS_01_3.VOB' etc) and treats all of those files as if they were
concatenated into a single big file. This option, a single '=', causes mkvmerge not to
look for those additional files.
The '=' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore the following two
commands are equivalent:
$ mkvmerge -o full.mkv = file1.mkv
$ mkvmerge -o full.mkv =file1.mkv
( file1 file2 )
If multiple file names are contained in a pair of parenthesis then those files will be
treated as if they were concatenated into a single big file consisting of the content
of each of the files one after the other.
This can be used for e.g. VOB files coming from a DVD or MPEG transport streams. It
cannot be used if each file contains its own set of headers which is usually the case
with stand-alone files like AVI or MP4.
Putting a file name into parenthesis also prevents mkvmerge(1) from looking for
additional files with the same base name as described in option =. Therefore these two
command lines are equivalent:
$ mkvmerge -o out.mkv = file.mkv
$ mkvmerge -o out.mkv '(' file.mkv ')'
Several things should be noted:
1. There must be spaces both after the opening and before the closing parenthesis.
2. Every parameter between parenthesis is interpreted as a file name. Therefore all
options applying to this logical file must be listed before the opening
parenthesis.
3. Some shells treat parenthesis as special characters. Hence you must escape or
quote them as shown in the example above.
Attachment support (more global options)
--attachment-description description
Plain text description of the following attachment. Applies to the next --attach-file
or --attach-file-once option.
--attachment-mime-type MIME type
MIME type of the following attachment. Applies to the next --attach-file or
--attach-file-once option. A list of officially recognized MIME types can be found
e.g. at the IANA homepage[2]. The MIME type is mandatory for an attachment.
--attachment-name name
Sets the name that will be stored in the output file for this attachment. If this
option is not given then the name will be derived from the file name of the attachment
as given with the --attach-file or the --attach-file-once option.
--attach-file file-name, --attach-file-once file-name
Creates a file attachment inside the Matroska(TM) file. The MIME type must have been
set before this option can used. The difference between the two forms is that during
splitting the files attached with --attach-file are attached to all output files while
the ones attached with --attach-file-once are only attached to the first file created.
If splitting is not used then both do the same.
mkvextract(1) can be used to extract attached files from a Matroska(TM) file.
Options that can be used for each input file
-a, --audio-tracks [!]n,m,...
Copy the audio tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can be obtained with
the --identify switch. They're not simply the track numbers (see section track IDs).
Default: copy all audio tracks.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
-d, --video-tracks [!]n,m,...
Copy the video tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can be obtained with
the --identify switch. They're not simply the track numbers (see section track IDs).
Default: copy all video tracks.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
-s, --subtitle-tracks [!]n,m,...
Copy the subtitle tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can be obtained
with the --identify switch. They're not simply the track numbers (see section track
IDs). Default: copy all subtitle tracks.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
-b, --button-tracks [!]n,m,...
Copy the button tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can be obtained with
the --identify switch. They're not simply the track numbers (see section track IDs).
Default: copy all button tracks.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
--track-tags [!]n,m,...
Copy the tags for tracks n, m etc. The numbers are track IDs which can be obtained
with the --identify switch (see section track IDs). They're not simply the track
numbers. Default: copy tags for all tracks.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
-m, --attachments [!]n[:all|first],m[:all|first],...
Copy the attachments with the IDs n, m etc to all or only the first output file. Each
ID can be followed by either ':all' (which is the default if neither is entered) or
':first'. If splitting is active then those attachments whose IDs are specified with
':all' are copied to all of the resulting output files while the others are only
copied into the first output file. If splitting is not active then both variants have
the same effect.
The default is to copy all attachments to all output files.
If the IDs are prefixed with ! then the meaning is reversed: copy everything but the
IDs listed after the !.
-A, --no-audio
Don't copy any audio track from this file.
-D, --no-video
Don't copy any video track from this file.
-S, --no-subtitles
Don't copy any subtitle track from this file.
-B, --no-buttons
Don't copy any button track from this file.
-T, --no-track-tags
Don't copy any track specific tags from this file.
--no-chapters
Don't copy chapters from this file.
-M, --no-attachments
Don't copy attachments from this file.
--no-global-tags
Don't copy global tags from this file.
--chapter-charset character-set
Sets the charset that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for chapter information
contained in the source file. See the section about text files and character sets for
an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.
--chapter-language language-code
Sets the ISO639-2 language code that is written for each chapter entry. This option
can be used for source files that contain chapters but no information about the
chapters' languages, e.g. for MP4 and OGM files.
-y, --sync TID:d[,o[/p]]
Adjust the timecodes of the track with the id TID by d ms. The track IDs are the same
as the ones given with --identify (see section track IDs).
o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts. p defaults to 1 if omitted.
Both o and p can be floating point numbers.
Defaults: no manual sync correction (which is the same as d = 0 and o/p = 1.0).
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
--cues TID:none|iframes|all
Controls for which tracks cue (index) entries are created for the given track (see
section track IDs). 'none' inhibits the creation of cue entries. For 'iframes' only
blocks with no backward or forward references ( = I frames in video tracks) are put
into the cue sheet. 'all' causes mkvmerge(1) to create cue entries for all blocks
which will make the file very big.
The default is 'iframes' for video tracks and 'none' for all others. See also option
--no-cues which inhibits the creation of cue entries regardless of the --cues options
used.
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
--default-track TID[:bool]
Sets the 'default' flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional
argument bool is not present. If the user does not explicitly select a track himself
then the player should prefer the track that has his 'default' flag set. Only one
track of each kind (audio, video, subtitles, buttons) can have his 'default' flag set.
If the user wants no track to have the default track flag set then he has to set bool
to 0 for all tracks.
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
--forced-track TID[:bool]
Sets the 'forced' flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional
argument bool is not present. A player must play all tracks for which this flag is set
to 1.
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
--blockadd TID:level
Keep only the BlockAdditions up to the level level for the given track. The default is
to keep all levels. This option only affects certain kinds of codecs like WAVPACK4.
--track-name TID:name
Sets the track name for the given track (see section track IDs) to name.
--language TID:language
Sets the language for the given track (see section track IDs). Both ISO639-2 language
codes and ISO639-1 country codes are allowed. The country codes will be converted to
language codes automatically. All languages including their ISO639-2 codes can be
listed with the --list-languages option.
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
-t, --tags TID:file-name
Read tags for the track with the number TID from the file file-name. See the section
about tags below for details.
--aac-is-sbr TID[:0|1]
Tells mkvmerge(1) that the track with the ID TID is SBR AAC (also known as HE-AAC or
AAC+). This options is needed if a) the source file is an AAC file (not for a
Matroska(TM) file) and b) the AAC file contains SBR AAC data. The reason for this
switch is that it is technically impossible to automatically tell normal AAC data from
SBR AAC data without decoding a complete AAC frame. As there are several patent issues
with AAC decoders mkvmerge(1) will never contain this decoding stage. So for SBR AAC
files this switch is mandatory. The resulting file might not play back correctly or
even not at all if the switch was omitted.
If the source file is a Matroska(TM) file then the CodecID should be enough to detect
SBR AAC. However, if the CodecID is wrong then this switch can be used to correct
that.
If mkvmerge wrongfully detects that an AAC file is SBR then you can add ':0' to the
track ID.
--timecodes TID:file-name
Read the timecodes to be used for the specific track ID from file-name. These
timecodes forcefully override the timecodes that mkvmerge(1) normally calculates. Read
the section about external timecode files.
--default-duration TID:x
Forces the default duration of a given track to the specified value. Also modifies the
track's timecodes to match the default duration. The argument x must be postfixed with
's', 'ms', 'us', 'ns', 'fps', 'p' or 'i' to specify the default duration in seconds,
milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, 'frames per second', 'progressive frames per
second' or 'interlaced frames per second' respectively. The number x itself can be a
floating point number or a fraction.
If the default duration is not forced then mkvmerge will try to derive the track's
default duration from the container and/or the encoded bitstream for certain track
types, e.g. AVC/h.264 or MPEG-2.
This option can also be used to change the FPS of video tracks without having to use
an external timecode file.
--fix-bitstream-timing-information TID[:0|1]
Normally mkvmerge(1) does not change the timing information (frame/field rate) stored
in the video bitstream. With this option that information is adjusted to match the
container timing information. The container timing information can come from various
sources: from the command line (see option --default-duration), the source container
or derived from the bitstream.
Note
This has only been implemented for AVC/h.264 video tracks so far.
--nalu-size-length TID:n
Forces the NALU size length to n bytes. This parameter is only used if the AVC/h.264
elementary stream packetizer is used. If left out it defaults to 4 bytes, but there
are files that contain frames or slices that are all smaller than 65536 bytes. For
such files you can use this parameter and decrease the size to 2.
--compression TID:n
Selects the compression method to be used for the track. Note that the player also has
to support this method. Valid values are 'none', 'zlib', 'lzo'/'lxo1x', 'bz2'/'bzlib'
and 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2'. The values 'lzo'/'lxo1x' and 'bz2'/'bzlib' are only
available if mkvmerge(1) has been compiled with support for the liblzo(TM) and
bzlib(TM) compression libraries, respectively.
The compression method 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2' is a special compression method called
'header removal' that is only available for MPEG4 part 2 video tracks.
The default for some subtitle tracks is 'zlib' compression. This compression method is
also the one that most if not all playback applications support. Support for other
compression methods other than 'none' is not assured.
Options that only apply to video tracks
-f, --fourcc TID:FourCC
Forces the FourCC to the specified value. Works only for video tracks in the 'MS
compatibility mode'.
--display-dimensions TID:widthxheight
Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display properties that a player
should scale the image on playback to: display width and display height. These values
can be set with this option, e.g. '1:640x480'.
Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or the
--aspect-ratio-factor option (see below). These options are mutually exclusive.
--aspect-ratio TID:ratio|width/height
Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display properties that a player
should scale the image on playback to: display width and display height. With this
option mkvmerge(1) will automatically calculate the display width and display height
based on the image's original width and height and the aspect ratio given with this
option. The ratio can be given either as a floating point number ratio or as a
fraction 'width/height', e.g. '16/9'.
Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio-factor or
--display-dimensions options (see above and below). These options are mutually
exclusive.
--aspect-ratio-factor TID:factor|n/d
Another way to set the aspect ratio is to specify a factor. The original aspect ratio
is first multiplied with this factor and used as the target aspect ratio afterwards.
Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or --display-dimensions
options (see above). These options are mutually exclusive.
--cropping TID:left,top,right,bottom
Sets the pixel cropping parameters of a video track to the given values.
--stereo-mode TID:n|keyword
Sets the stereo mode for the video track with the track ID TID. The mode can either be
a number n between 0 and 14 or one of these keywords:
'mono', 'side_by_side_left_first', 'top_bottom_right_first', 'top_bottom_left_first',
'checkerboard_right_first', 'checkerboard_left_first', 'row_interleaved_right_first',
'row_interleaved_left_first', 'column_interleaved_right_first',
'column_interleaved_left_first', 'anaglyph_cyan_red', 'side_by_side_right_first',
'anaglyph_green_magenta', 'both_eyes_laced_left_first', 'both_eyes_laced_right_first'.
Options that only apply to text subtitle tracks
--sub-charset TID:character-set
Sets the character set for the conversion to UTF-8 for UTF-8 subtitles for the given
track ID. If not specified the charset will be derived from the current locale
settings. Note that a charset is not needed for subtitles read from Matroska(TM) files
or from Kate streams, as these are always stored in UTF-8. See the section about text
files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts between character
sets.
This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to several tracks by
selecting different track IDs each time.
Other options
-i, --identify file-name
Will let mkvmerge(1) probe the single file and report its type, the tracks contained
in the file and their track IDs. If this option is used then the only other option
allowed is the filename.
-I, --identify-verbose file-name
Will let mkvmerge(1) probe the single file and report its type, the tracks contained
in the file and their track IDs. If this option is used then the only other option
allowed is the filename.
This option causes mkvmerge(1) to output additional information about the container
and each track within. The extra information is surronded by square brackets. It
consists of space-saparated key/value pairs where keys and values are separated by a
colon.
Each value is escaped according to the rules described in the section about escaping
special characters in text.
-l, --list-types
Lists supported input file types.
--list-languages
Lists all languages and their ISO639-2 code which can be used with the --language
option.
--priority priority
Sets the process priority that mkvmerge(1) runs with. Valid values are 'lowest',
'lower', 'normal', 'higher' and 'highest'. If nothing is given then 'normal' is used.
On Unix like systems mkvmerge(1) will use the nice(2) function. Therefore only the
super user can use 'higher' and 'highest'. On Windows all values are useable for every
user.
Selecting 'lowest' also causes mkvmerge(1) to select idle I/O priority in addition to
the lowest possible process priority.
--command-line-charset character-set
Sets the character set to convert strings given on the command line from. It defaults
to the character set given by system's current locale. This settings applies to
arguments of the following options: --title, --track-name and
--attachment-description.
--output-charset character-set
Sets the character set to which strings are converted that are to be output. It
defaults to the character set given by system's current locale.
-r, --redirect-output file-name
Writes all messages to the file file-name instead of to the console. While this can be
done easily with output redirection there are cases in which this option is needed:
when the terminal reinterprets the output before writing it to a file. The character
set set with --output-charset is honored.
--ui-language code
Forces the translations for the language code to be used (e.g. 'de_DE' for the German
translations). It is preferable to use the environment variables LANG, LC_MESSAGES and
LC_ALL though. Entering 'list' as the code will cause mkvmerge(1) to output a list of
available translations.
--debug topic
Turn on debugging for a specific feature. This option is only useful for developers.
--engage feature
Turn on experimental features. A list of available features can be requested with
mkvmerge --engage list. These features are not meant to be used in normal situations.
--gui-mode
Turns on GUI mode. In this mode specially-formatted lines may be output that can tell
a controlling GUI what's happening. These messages follow the format '#GUI#message'.
The message may be followed by key/value pairs as in
'#GUI#message#key1=value1#key2=value2...'. Neither the messages nor the keys are ever
translated and always output in English.
@options-file
Reads additional command line arguments from the file options-file. See the section
about option files for further information.
--capabilities
Lists information about optional features that have been compiled in and exit. The
first line output will be the version information. All following lines contain exactly
one word whose presence indicates that the feature has been compiled in. These
features are:
• 'BZ2' -- the bzlib(TM) compression library. Affects the available compression
methods for the --compression option.
• 'LZO' -- the lzo(TM) compression library. Affects the available compression
methods for the --compression option.
• 'FLAC' -- reading raw FLAC files and handling FLAC tracks in other containers,
e.g. Ogg(TM) or Matroska(TM).
-h, --help
Show usage information and exit.
-V, --version
Show version information and exit.
--check-for-updates
Checks online for new releases by downloading the URL
http://mkvtoolnix-releases.bunkus.org/latest-release.xml. Four lines will be output in
key=value style: the URL from where the information was retrieved (key
version_check_url), the currently running version (key running_version), the latest
release's version (key available_version) and the download URL (key download_url).
Afterwards the program exists with an exit code of 0 if no newer release is available,
with 1 if a newer release is available and with 2 if an error occured (e.g. if the
update information could not be retrieved).
This option is only available if the program was built with support for libcurl.
USAGE
For each file the user can select which tracks mkvmerge(1) should take. They are all put
into the file specified with -o. A list of known (and supported) source formats can be
obtained with the -l option.
Important
The order of command line options is important. Please read the section "Option order"
if you're new to the program.
OPTION ORDER
The order in which options are entered is important for some options. Options fall into
two categories:
1. Options that affect the whole program and are not tied to any input file. These
include but are not limited to --command-line-charset, --output or --title. These can
appear anywhere on the command line.
2. Options that affect a single input file or a single track in an input file. These
options all apply to the following input file on the command line. All options
applying to the same input (or to tracks from the same input file) file can be written
in any order as long as they all appear before that input file's name. Examples for
options applying to an input file are --no-chapters or --chapter-charset. Examples for
options applying to a single track are --default-duration or --language.
The options are processed from left to right. If an option appears multiple times within
the same scope then the last occurence will be used. Therefore the title will be set to
"Something else" in the following example:
$ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --title 'This and that' input.avi --title 'Something else'
The following example shows that using the --language option twice is OK because they're
used in different scopes. Even though they apply to the same track ID they apply to
different input files and therefore have different scopes:
$ mkvmerge -o output.mkv --language 0:fre français.ogg --language 0:deu deutsch.ogg
EXAMPLES
Let's assume you have a file called MyMovie.avi and the audio track in a separate file,
e.g. 'MyMovie.wav'. First you want to encode the audio to OggVorbis(TM):
$ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie.ogg MyMovie.wav
After a couple of minutes you can join video and audio:
$ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
If your AVI already contains an audio track then it will be copied as well (if mkvmerge(1)
supports the audio format). To avoid that simply do
$ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg
After some minutes of consideration you rip another audio track, e.g. the director's
comments or another language to 'MyMovie-add-audio.wav'. Encode it again and join it up
with the other file:
$ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie-add-audio.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.wav
$ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
The same result can be achieved with
$ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.ogg
Now fire up mplayer(TM) and enjoy. If you have multiple audio tracks (or even video
tracks) then you can tell mplayer(TM) which track to play with the '-vid' and '-aid'
options. These are 0-based and do not distinguish between video and audio.
If you need an audio track synchronized you can do that easily. First find out which track
ID the Vorbis track has with
$ mkvmerge --identify outofsync.ogg
Now you can use that ID in the following command line:
$ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -A source.avi -y 12345:200 outofsync.ogg
This would add 200ms of silence at the beginning of the audio track with the ID 12345
taken from 'outofsync.ogg'.
Some movies start synced correctly but slowly drift out of sync. For these kind of movies
you can specify a delay factor that is applied to all timestamps -- no data is added or
removed. So if you make that factor too big or too small you'll get bad results. An
example is that an episode I transcoded was 0.2 seconds out of sync at the end of the
movie which was 77340 frames long. At 29.97fps0.2 seconds correspond to approx. 6 frames.
So I did
$ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -y 23456:0,77346/77340 outofsync.mkv
The result was fine.
The sync options can also be used for subtitles in the same manner.
For text subtitles you can either use some Windows software (like SubRipper(TM)) or the
subrip(TM) package found in transcode(1)'s sources in the 'contrib/subrip' directory. The
general process is:
1. extract a raw subtitle stream from the source:
$ tccat -i /path/to/copied/dvd/ -T 1 -L | tcextract -x ps1 -t vob -a 0x20 | subtitle2pgm -o mymovie
2. convert the resulting PGM images to text with gocr:
$ pgm2txt mymovie
3. spell-check the resulting text files:
$ ispell -d american *txt
4. convert the text files to a SRT file:
$ srttool -s -w -i mymovie.srtx -o mymovie.srt
The resulting file can be used as another input file for mkvmerge(1):
$ mkvmerge -o mymovie.mkv mymovie.avi mymovie.srt
If you want to specify the language for a given track then this is easily done. First find
out the ISO639-2 code for your language. mkvmerge(1) can list all of those codes for you:
$ mkvmerge --list-languages
Search the list for the languages you need. Let's assume you have put two audio tracks
into a Matroska(TM) file and want to set their language codes and that their track IDs are
2 and 3. This can be done with
$ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut without-lang-codes.mkv
As you can see you can use the --language switch multiple times.
Maybe you'd also like to have the player use the Dutch language as the default language.
You also have extra subtitles, e.g. in English and French, and want to have the player
display the French ones by default. This can be done with
$ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut --default-track 3 without-lang-codes.mkv --language 0:eng english.srt --default-track 0 --language 0:fre french.srt
If you do not see the language or default track flags that you've specified in
mkvinfo(1)'s output then please read the section about default values.
Turn off the compression for an input file.
$ mkvmerge -o no-compression.mkv --compression -1:none MyMovie.avi --compression -1:none mymovie.srt
TRACK IDS
Some of the options for mkvmerge(1) need a track ID to specify which track they should be
applied to. Those track IDs are printed by the readers when demuxing the current input
file, or if mkvmerge(1) is called with the --identify option. An example for such output:
$ mkvmerge -i v.mkv
File 'v.mkv': container: Matroska(TM)
Track ID 1: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC, DIV3)
Track ID 2: audio (A_MPEG/L3)
Do not confuse the track IDs that are assigned to the tracks that are placed in the output
MKV file with the track IDs of the input files. Only the input file track IDs are used for
options needing these values.
Also note that each input file has its own set of track IDs. Therefore the track IDs for
file 'file1.ext' as reported by 'mkvmerge --identify' do not change no matter how many
other input files are there or in which position 'file1.ext' is used.
Track IDs are assigned like this:
• AVI files: The video track has the ID 0. The audio tracks get IDs in ascending order
starting at 1.
• AAC, AC3, MP3, SRT and WAV files: The one 'track' in that file gets the ID 0.
• Most other files: The track IDs are assigned in order the tracks are found in the file
starting at 0.
The special track ID '-1' is a wild card and applies the given switch to all tracks that
are read from an input file.
The options that use the track IDs are the ones whose description contains 'TID'. The
following options use track IDs as well: --audio-tracks, --video-tracks,
--subtitle-tracks, --button-tracks and --track-tags.
TEXT FILES AND CHARACTER SET CONVERSIONS
Note
This section applies to all programs in MKVToolNix even if it only mentions
mkvmerge(1).
All text in a Matroska(TM) file is encoded in UTF-8. This means that mkvmerge(1) has to
convert every text file it reads as well as every text given on the command line from one
character set into UTF-8. In return this also means that mkvmerge(1)'s output has to be
converted back to that character set from UTF-8, e.g. if a non-English translation is used
with --ui-language or for text originating from a Matroska(TM) file.
mkvmerge(1) does this conversion automatically based on the presence of a byte order
marker (short: BOM) or the system's current locale. How the character set is inferred from
the locale depends on the operating system that mkvmerge(1) is run on.
Text files that start with a BOM are already encoded in one representation of UTF.
mkvmerge(1) supports the following five modes: UTF-8, UTF-16 Little and Big Endian, UTF-32
Little and Big Endian. Text files with a BOM are automatically converted to UTF-8. Any of
the parameters that would otherwise set the character set for such a file (e.g.
--sub-charset) is silently ignored.
On Unix-like systems mkvmerge(1) uses the setlocale(3) system call which in turn uses the
environment variables LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CYPE. The resulting character set is often one
of UTF-8 or the ISO-8859-* family and is used for all text file operations and for
encoding strings on the command line and for output to the console.
On Windows there are actually two different character sets that mkvmerge(1) uses due to
the way the Windows shell program cmd.exe is implemented. The first character set is
determined by a call to the GetACP() system call. This character set is used as the
default for text file conversions and for all elements displayed by the GUI programs in
the MKVToolNix package.
Another charset may be used if cmd.exe is used. However, reading the command line is done
with the GetCommandLineW() function which already returns a Unicode string. Therefore the
option --command-line-charset is ignored on Windows. Output to the console is done with
the WriteConsoleW() function. Therefore the option --output-charset is only used on
Windows if the output is redirected with --redirect-output.
The following options exist that allow specifying the character sets:
• --sub-charset for text subtitle files and for text subtitle tracks stored in container
formats for which the character set cannot be determined unambiguously (e.g. Ogg
files),
• --chapter-charset for chapter text files and for chapters and file titles stored in
container formats for which the character set cannot be determined unambiguously (e.g.
Ogg files for chapter information, track and file titles etc; MP4 files for chapter
information),
• --command-line-charset for all strings on the command line,
• --output-charset for all strings written to the console or to a file if the output has
been redirected with the --redirect-output option.
OPTION FILES
An option file is a file mkvmerge(1) can read additional command line arguments from. This
can be used in order to circumvent certain limitations of the shell or the operating
system when executing external programs like a limited command line length.
There are several rules regarding option files. Lines whose first non-whitespace character
is a hash mark ('#') are treated as comments and ignored. White spaces at the start and
end of a line will be stripped. Each line must contain exactly one option.
A line not containing anything is also ignored. An empty argument is represented by the
line '#EMPTY#'.
Several chars can be escaped, e.g. if you need to start a non-comment line with '#'. The
rules are described in the section about escaping text.
Note that backslashes must always be escaped. Hash marks ('#') must be escaped if they
should not start a comment.
The command line 'mkvmerge -o "my file.mkv" -A "a movie.avi" sound.ogg' could be converted
into the following option file:
# Write to the file "c:\Matroska\my file.mkv" on Windows.
-o
c:\\Matroska\\my file.mkv
# Set the title to '#65'.
--title
\h65
# Only take the video from "a movie.avi".
-A
a movie.avi
sound.ogg
ESCAPING SPECIAL CHARS IN TEXT
There are a few places in which special characters in text must or should be escaped. The
rules for escaping are simple: each character that needs escaping is replaced with a
backslash followed by another character.
The rules are: ' ' (a space) becomes '\s', '"' (double quotes) becomes '\2', ':' becomes
'\c', '#' becomes '\h' and '\' (a single backslash) itself becomes '\\'.
SUBTITLES
There are several text and bitmap subtitle formats that can be embedded into Matroska(TM).
Text subtitles must be recoded to UTF-8 so that they can be displayed correctly by a
player (see the section about text files and character sets for an explanation how
mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets). Kate subtitles are already encoded in UTF-8
and do not have to be re-encoded.
The following subtitle formats are supported at the moment:
• Subtitle Ripper (SRT) files
• Substation Alpha (SSA) / Advanced Substation Alpha scripts (ASS)
• Universal Subtitle Format (USF) files
• OggKate streams
• VobSub bitmap subtitle files
• PGS bitmap subtitle files as found on BluRay discs
FILE LINKING
Matroska(TM) supports file linking which simply says that a specific file is the
predecessor or successor of the current file. To be precise, it's not really the files
that are linked but the Matroska(TM) segments. As most files will probably only contain
one Matroska(TM) segment the following explanations use the term 'file linking' although
'segment linking' would be more appropriate.
Each segment is identified by a unique 128 bit wide segment UID. This UID is automatically
generated by mkvmerge(1). The linking is done primarily via putting the segment UIDs
(short: SID) of the previous/next file into the segment header information. mkvinfo(1)
prints these SIDs if it finds them.
If a file is split into several smaller ones and linking is used then the timecodes will
not start at 0 again but will continue where the last file has left off. This way the
absolute time is kept even if the previous files are not available (e.g. when streaming).
If no linking is used then the timecodes should start at 0 for each file. By default
mkvmerge(1) does not use file linking. If you want that you can turn it on with the --link
option. This option is only useful if splitting is activated as well.
Regardless of whether splitting is active or not the user can tell mkvmerge(1) to link the
produced files to specific SIDs. This is achieved with the options --link-to-previous and
--link-to-next. These options accept a segment SID in the format that mkvinfo(1) outputs:
16 hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff prefixed with '0x' each, e.g. '0x41 0xda 0x73
0x66 0xd9 0xcf 0xb2 0x1e 0xae 0x78 0xeb 0xb4 0x5e 0xca 0xb3 0x93'. Alternatively a shorter
form can be used: 16 hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff without the '0x' prefixes
and without the spaces, e.g. '41da7366d9cfb21eae78ebb45ecab393'.
If splitting is used then the first file is linked to the SID given with
--link-to-previous and the last file is linked to the SID given with --link-to-next. If
splitting is not used then the one output file will be linked to both of the two SIDs.
DEFAULT VALUES
The Matroska(TM) specification states that some elements have a default value. Usually an
element is not written to the file if its value is equal to its default value in order to
save space. The elements that the user might miss in mkvinfo(1)'s output are the language
and the default track flag elements. The default value for the language is English
('eng'), and the default value for the default track flag is true. Therefore if you used
--language 0:eng for a track then it will not show up in mkvinfo(1)'s output.
ATTACHMENTS
Maybe you also want to keep some photos along with your Matroska(TM) file, or you're using
SSA subtitles and need a special TrueType(TM) font that's really rare. In these cases you
can attach those files to the Matroska(TM) file. They will not be just appended to the
file but embedded in it. A player can then show those files (the 'photos' case) or use
them to render the subtitles (the 'TrueType(TM) fonts' case).
Here's an example how to attach a photo and a TrueType(TM) font to the output file:
$ mkvmerge -o output.mkv -A video.avi sound.ogg \
--attachment-description "Me and the band behind the stage in a small get-together" \
--attachment-mime-type image/jpeg \
--attach-file me_and_the_band.jpg \
--attachment-description "The real rare and unbelievably good looking font" \
--attachment-type application/octet-stream \
--attach-file really_cool_font.ttf
If a Matroska(TM) containing attachments file is used as an input file then mkvmerge(1)
will copy the attachments into the new file. The selection which attachments are copied
and which are not can be changed with the options --attachments and --no-attachments.
CHAPTERS
The Matroska(TM) chapter system is more powerful than the old known system used by OGM
files. The full specifications can be found at the Matroska(TM) website[1].
mkvmerge(1) supports two kinds of chapter files as its input. The first format, called
'simple chapter format', is the same format that the OGM tools expect. The second format
is a XML based chapter format which supports all of Matroska(TM)'s chapter functionality.
The simple chapter format
This formmat consists of pairs of lines that start with 'CHAPTERxx=' and 'CHAPTERxxNAME='
respectively. The first one contains the start timecode while the second one contains the
title. Here's an example:
CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
CHAPTER01NAME=Intro
CHAPTER02=00:02:30.000
CHAPTER02NAME=Baby prepares to rock
CHAPTER03=00:02:42.300
CHAPTER03NAME=Baby rocks the house
mkvmerge(1) will transform every pair or lines into one Matroska(TM)ChapterAtom. It does
not set any ChapterTrackNumber which means that the chapters all apply to all tracks in
the file.
As this is a text file character set conversion may need to be done. See the section about
text files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts between
character sets.
The XML based chapter format
The XML based chapter format looks like this example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE Chapters SYSTEM "matroskachapters.dtd">
<Chapters>
<EditionEntry>
<ChapterAtom>
<ChapterTimeStart>00:00:30.000</ChapterTimeStart>
<ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:20.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
<ChapterDisplay>
<ChapterString>A short chapter</ChapterString>
<ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
</ChapterDisplay>
<ChapterAtom>
<ChapterTimeStart>00:00:46.000</ChapterTimeStart>
<ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:10.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
<ChapterDisplay>
<ChapterString>A part of that short chapter</ChapterString>
<ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
</ChapterDisplay>
</ChapterAtom>
</ChapterAtom>
</EditionEntry>
</Chapters>
With this format three things are possible that are not possible with the simple chapter
format:
1. The timestamp for the end of the chapter can be set,
2. chapters can be nested,
3. the language and country can be set.
The mkvtoolnix distribution contains some sample files in the doc subdirectory which can
be used as a basis.
The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where appropriate, the
valid range for their values:
Chapters (master)
EditionEntry (master)
EditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
EditionFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
EditionFlagDefault (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
EditionFlagOrdered (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
ChapterAtom (master)
ChapterAtom (master)
ChapterUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
ChapterTimeStart (unsigned integer)
ChapterTimeEnd (unsigned integer)
ChapterFlagHidden (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
ChapterFlagEnabled (unsigned integer, valid range: 0 <= value <= 1)
ChapterSegmentUID (binary, valid range: 1 <= length in bytes)
ChapterSegmentEditionUID (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
ChapterPhysicalEquiv (unsigned integer)
ChapterTrack (master)
ChapterTrackNumber (unsigned integer, valid range: 1 <= value)
ChapterDisplay (master)
ChapterString (UTF-8 string)
ChapterLanguage (UTF-8 string)
ChapterCountry (UTF-8 string)
ChapterProcess (master)
ChapterProcessCodecID (unsigned integer)
ChapterProcessPrivate (binary)
ChapterProcessCommand (master)
ChapterProcessTime (unsigned integer)
ChapterProcessData (binary)
General notes
When splitting files mkvmerge(1) will correctly adjust the chapters as well. This means
that each file only includes the chapter entries that apply to it, and that the timecodes
will be offset to match the new timecodes of each output file.
mkvmerge(1) is able to copy chapters from Matroska(TM) source files unless this is
explicitly disabled with the --no-chapters option. The chapters from all sources
(Matroska(TM) files, Ogg files, MP4 files, chapter text files) are usually not merged but
end up in separate ChapterEditions. Only if chapters are read from several Matroska(TM) or
XML files that share the same edition UIDs will chapters be merged into a single
ChapterEdition. If such a merge is desired in other situations as well then the user has
to extract the chapters from all sources with mkvextract(1) first, merge the XML files
manually and mux them afterwards.
TAGS
Introduction
Matroska(TM) supports an extensive set of tags that is deprecated and a new, simpler
system like it is is used in most other containers: KEY=VALUE. However, in Matroska(TM)
these tags can also be nested, and both the KEY and the VALUE are elements of their own.
The example file example-tags-2.xml shows how to use this new system.
Scope of the tags
Matroska(TM) tags do not automatically apply to the complete file. They can, but they also
may apply to different parts of the file: to one or more tracks, to one or more chapters,
or even to a combination of both. The the Matroska(TM) specification[3] gives more details
about this fact.
One important fact is that tags are linked to tracks or chapters with the
TargetsMatroska(TM) tag element, and that the UIDs used for this linking are not the track
IDs mkvmerge(1) uses everywhere. Instead the numbers used are the UIDs which mkvmerge(1)
calculates automatically (if the track is taken from a file format other than
Matroska(TM)) or which are copied from the source file if the track's source file is a
Matroska(TM) file. Therefore it is difficult to know which UIDs to use in the tag file
before the file is handed over to mkvmerge(1).
mkvmerge(1) knows two options with which you can add tags to Matroska(TM) files: The
--global-tags and the --tags options. The difference is that the former option,
--global-tags, will make the tags apply to the complete file by removing any of those
Targets elements mentioned above. The latter option, --tags, automatically inserts the UID
that mkvmerge(1) generates for the tag specified with the TID part of the --tags option.
Example
Let's say that you want to add tags to a video track read from an AVI. mkvmerge
--identify file.avi tells you that the video track's ID (do not mix this ID with the UID!)
is 0. So you create your tag file, leave out all Targets elements and call mkvmerge(1):
$ mkvmerge -o file.mkv --tags 0:tags.xml file.avi
Tag file format
mkvmerge(1) supports a XML based tag file format. The format is very closely modeled after
the Matroska(TM) specification[3]. Both the binary and the source distributions of
MKVToolNix come with a sample file called example-tags-2.xml which simply lists all known
tags and which can be used as a basis for real life tag files.
The basics are:
• The outermost element must be <Tags>.
• One logical tag is contained inside one pair of <Tag>XML tags.
• White spaces directly before and after tag contents are ignored.
Data types
The new Matroska(TM) tagging system only knows two data types, a UTF-8 string and a binary
type. The first is used for the tag's name and the <String> element while the binary type
is used for the <Binary> element.
As binary data itself would not fit into a XML file mkvmerge(1) supports two other methods
of storing binary data. If the contents of a XML tag starts with '@' then the following
text is treated as a file name. The corresponding file's content is copied into the
Matroska(TM) element.
Otherwise the data is expected to be Base64 encoded. This is an encoding that transforms
binary data into a limited set of ASCII characters and is used e.g. in email programs.
mkvextract(1) will output Base64 encoded data for binary elements.
The deprecated tagging system knows some more data types which can be found in the
official Matroska(TM) tag specs. As mkvmerge(1) does not support this system anymore these
types aren't described here.
Known tags for the XML file format
The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where appropriate, the
valid range for their values:
Tags (master)
Tag (master)
Targets (master)
TargetTypeValue (unsigned integer)
TargetType (UTF-8 string)
TrackUID (unsigned integer)
EditionUID (unsigned integer)
ChapterUID (unsigned integer)
AttachmentUID (unsigned integer)
Simple (master)
Simple (master)
Name (UTF-8 string)
TagLanguage (UTF-8 string)
DefaultLanguage (unsigned integer)
String (UTF-8 string)
Binary (binary)
THE SEGMENT INFO XML FILES
With a segment info XML file it is possible to set certain values in the "segment
information" header field of a Matroska(TM) file. All of these values cannot be set via
other command line options.
Other "segment information" header fields can be set via command line options but not via
the XML file. This includes e.g. the --title and the --timecode-scale options.
There are other elements that can be set neither via command line options nor via the XML
files. These include the following elements: DateUTC (also known as the "muxing date"),
MuxingApp, WritingApp and Duration. They're always set by mkvmerge(1) itself.
The following lists the supported XML tags, their data types and, where appropriate, the
valid range for their values:
Info (master)
SegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
SegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
PreviousSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
PreviousSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
NextSegmentUID (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
NextSegmentFilename (UTF-8 string)
SegmentFamily (binary, valid range: length in bytes == 16)
ChapterTranslate (master)
ChapterTranslateEditionUID (unsigned integer)
ChapterTranslateCodec (unsigned integer)
ChapterTranslateID (binary)
MATROSKA(TM) FILE LAYOUT
The Matroska(TM) file layout is quite flexible. mkvmerge(1) will render a file in a
predefined way. The resulting file looks like this:
[EBML head] [segment {meta seek #1} [segment information] [track information]
{attachments} {chapters} [cluster 1] {cluster 2} ... {cluster n} {cues} {meta seek #2}
{tags}]
The elements in curly braces are optional and depend on the contents and options used. A
couple of notes:
• meta seek #1 includes only a small number of level 1 elements, and only if they
actually exist: attachments, chapters, cues, tags, meta seek #2. Older versions of
mkvmerge(1) used to put the clusters into this meta seek element as well. Therefore
some imprecise guessing was necessary to reserve enough space. It often failed. Now
only the clusters are stored in meta seek #2, and meta seek #1 refers to the meta seek
element #2.
• Attachment, chapter and tag elements are only present if they were added.
The shortest possible Matroska(TM) file would look like this:
[EBML head] [segment [segment information] [track information] [cluster 1]]
This might be the case for audio-only files.
EXTERNAL TIMECODE FILES
mkvmerge(1) allows the user to chose the timecodes for a specific track himself. This can
be used in order to create files with variable frame rate video or include gaps in audio.
A frame in this case is the unit that mkvmerge(1) creates separately per Matroska(TM)
block. For video this is exactly one frame, for audio this is one packet of the specific
audio type. E.g. for AC3 this would be a packet containing 1536 samples.
Timecode files that are used when tracks are appended to each other must only be specified
for the first part in a chain of tracks. For example if you append two files, v1.avi and
v2.avi, and want to use timecodes then your command line must look something like this:
$ mkvmerge ... --timecodes 0:my_timecodes.txt v1.avi +v2.avi
There are four formats that are recognized by mkvmerge(1). The first line always contains
the version number. Empty lines, lines containing only whitespace and lines beginning with
'#' are ignored.
Timecode file format v1
This format starts with the version line. The second line declares the default number of
frames per second. All following lines contain three numbers separated by commas: the
start frame (0 is the first frame), the end frame and the number of frames in this range.
The FPS is a floating point number with the dot '.' as the decimal point. The ranges can
contain gaps for which the default FPS is used. An example:
# timecode format v1
assume 27.930
800,1000,25
1500,1700,30
Timecode file format v2
In this format each line contains a timecode for the corresponding frame. This timecode
must be given in millisecond precision. It can be a floating point number, but it doesn't
have to be. You have to give at least as many timecode lines as there are frames in the
track. The timecodes in this file must be sorted. Example for 25fps:
# timecode format v2
0
40
80
Timecode file format v3
In this format each line contains a duration in seconds followed by an optional number of
frames per second. Both can be floating point numbers. If the number of frames per second
is not present the default one is used. For audio you should let the codec calculate the
frame timecodes itself. For that you should be using 0.0 as the number of frames per
second. You can also create gaps in the stream by using the 'gap' keyword followed by the
duration of the gap. Example for an audio file:
# timecode format v3
assume 0.0
25.325
7.530,38.236
gap, 10.050
2.000,38.236
Timecode file format v4
This format is identical to the v2 format. The only difference is that the timecodes do
not have to be sorted. This format should almost never be used.
EXIT CODES
mkvmerge(1) exits with one of three exit codes:
• 0 -- This exit codes means that muxing has completed successfully.
• 1 -- In this case mkvmerge(1) has output at least one warning, but muxing did
continue. A warning is prefixed with the text 'Warning:'. Depending on the issues
involved the resulting file might be ok or not. The user is urged to check both the
warning and the resulting file.
• 2 -- This exit code is used after an error occurred. mkvmerge(1) aborts right after
outputting the error message. Error messages range from wrong command line arguments
over read/write errors to broken files.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
mkvmerge(1) uses the default variables that determine the system's locale (e.g. LANG and
the LC_* family). Additional variables:
MKVTOOLNIX_DEBUG and its short form MTX_DEBUG
The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --debug option.
MKVTOOLNIX_ENGAGE and its short form MTX_ENGAGE
The content is treated as if it had been passed via the --engage option.
MKVTOOLNIX_OPTIONS and its short form MTX_OPTIONS
The content is split on white space. The resulting partial strings are treated as if
it had been passed as command line options. If you need to pass special characters
(e.g. spaces) then you have to escape them (see the section about escaping special
characters in text).
SEE ALSO
mkvinfo(1), mkvextract(1), mkvpropedit(1), mmg(1)
WWW
The latest version can always be found at the MKVToolNix homepage[4].
AUTHOR
Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
Developer
NOTES
1. the Matroska(TM) website
http://www.matroska.org/
2. the IANA homepage
http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
3. the Matroska(TM) specification
http://matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html
4. the MKVToolNix homepage
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/