

MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


NAME
     mkvmerge - Merge multimedia streams into a Matroska 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 file.
     <http://www.matroska.org/>



     Global options:

     -v, --verbose
          Increase verbosity.

     -q, --quiet
          Suppress status output.

     -o, --output out
          Write to the file 'out'.  If splitting is used then  this  parameter
          is  treated a bit differently.  See the --split parameter discussion
          for details.

     --title <title>
          Sets the general title for the output file, e.g. the movie name.

     --global-tags <file>
          Read global tags from the XML file. See the section about tags below
          for details.

     --default-language <lng>
          Sets  the  default  language  code.  Unless  overridden   with   the
          --language  option  this  language  code  will  be used. The default
          language code is 'und' for 'undefined'.


     Chapter handling: (global options)

     --chapter-language <language>
          Sets the ISO639-2 language code that is  written  for  each  chapter
          entry.  Applies only to simple chapter files. Defaults to "eng". See
          the section about chapters below for details.

     --chapter-charset <charset>
          Sets the charset that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for simple
          chapter  files.  Defaults to the current system locale.  This switch
          does also apply to chapters that are copied from  an  Ogg/OGM  file.


                                February 2007                                1



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


          See the section about chapters below for details.

     --cue-chapter-name-format <format>
          mkvmerge 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 uses these two strings in order
          to  construct the chapter name. With this option the format used for
          this name can be set. The following meta characters are supported:
          %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.
          Everything else is copied as-is.
          If this option is not given then mkvmerge defaults to the format '%p
          - %t' (the performer, followed by a space, a dash, another space and
          the title).

     --chapters <file>
          Read chapter information  from  the  file.  See  the  section  about
          chapters 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 which is simply the  number  of
          the file on the command line starting at 0. The second is a track ID
          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  n[ms]
          Put at most n data blocks  into  each  cluster.  If  the  number  is
          postfixed  with  'ms'  then  put at most n milliseconds of data into
          each cluster. The maximum length for a cluster is 32767ms.  Programs
          will  only  be able to seek to clusters, so creating larger clusters
          may lead to imprecise seeking and/or processing.

     --no-cues
          Tells mkvmerge not to create and write the cue  data  which  can  be
          compared  to  an  index in an AVI. Matroska 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.

     --no-clusters-in-meta-seek
          Tells mkvmerge not to create a meta seek element at the end  of  the
          file  containing  all  clusters. See also the section about MATROSKA
          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


                                February 2007                                2



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


          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 <n>
          Forces the timecode scale factor to n.   Valid  values  are  in  the
          range  1000..10000000 or the value -1.  Normally mkvmerge 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  will  automatically  chose  a
          timecode  scale  factor  so  that all timecodes and durations have a
          precision of one sample.  This causes  bigger  overhead  but  allows
          precise  seeking  and  extraction.   If the magical value -1 is used
          then mkvmerge will use sample precision even if  a  video  track  is
          present.


     File splitting and linking (more global options):

     --split size:<d[k|m|g]> or shorter --split <d[k|m|g]>

     --split    duration:<HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ns>    or     shorter     --split
          <HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ns>

     --split timecodes:A[,B[,C...]]
          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 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 supports three different modes.
          1. Splitting by size.
          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.
          The paramter must have the form  HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn  for  specifying
          the  duration  in up to nano-second precision or a number n 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.
          The parameters A, B 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 current file 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


                                February 2007                                3



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


          omitted.
          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.

     --split-max-files <n>
          Create at most n files, even if the last  file  will  be  longer  or
          larger than indicated by --split.

     --link
          Link files to one another when splitting the output  file.  See  the
          section FILE LINKING below for details.

     --link-to-previous <SID>
          Links the first output file to the segment with the given  SID.  See
          the section FILE LINKING below for details.

     --link-to-next <SID>
          Links the last output file to the segment with the  given  SID.  See
          the section FILE LINKING below for details.


     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 command.

     --attachment-mime-type <MIME type>
          MIME  type  of  the  following  attachment.  Applies  to  the   next
          --attach-file  or  --attach-file-once command.  A list of officially
          recognized MIME types can be found  e.g.  at  <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-
          notes/iana/assignments/media-types/media-types>  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 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.


                                February 2007                                4



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


          mkvextract can be used to extract attached  files  from  a  Matroska
          file.
          Note: If an input file is a Matroska file then  the  attached  files
          will  not  be  copied  to the output file(s). This may change in the
          future.



     Options that can be used for each input file:

     -a, --atracks <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.

     -d, --vtracks <n,m,...>
          Copy the video 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  all  video
          tracks.

     -s, --stracks <n,m,...>
          Copy the subtitle 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  all  subtitle
          tracks.

     -b, --btracks <n,m,...>
          Copy the button 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  all  button
          tracks.

     -A, --noaudio
          Don't copy any audio track from this file.

     -D, --novideo
          Don't copy any video track from this file.

     -S, --nosubs
          Don't copy any subtitle track from this file.

     -B, --nobuttons
          Don't copy any button track from this file.

     --no-chapters
          If the source is a Matroska file then don't copy chapters from it.

     --no-attachments
          If the source is a Matroska file then don't  copy  attachments  from
          it.

     --no-tags
          If the source is a Matroska file then don't copy tags from it.




                                February 2007                                5



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     -y, --sync <TID:d[,o[/p]]>
          Synchronize manually, delay the audio track with the id TID by d ms.
          The  track  IDs  are the same as the ones given with --identify (see
          section TRACK IDS).
          d > 0: Pad with silent samples.
          d < 0: Remove samples from the beginning.
          o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts.  p  defaults
          to 1000 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.

     --delay <TID:x>
          The delay to apply to the packets of the track by  simply  adjusting
          the  timecodes.   The argument x must be postfixed with s, ms, us or
          ns to specify seconds, milliseconds,  microseconds  and  nanoseconds
          respectively.

     --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 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.

     --blockadd <TID:level>
          Keep only the BlockAdditions up to this 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.


                                February 2007                                6



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


          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>
          Read tags for the track with the number TID from the file.  See  the
          section about tags below for details.

     --aac-is-sbr <TID[:0|1]>
          Tells mkvmerge 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 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 I won't implement 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 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:filename>
          Read the timecodes to  be  used  for  the  specific  track  ID  from
          filename.   These  timecodes  forcefully override the timecodes that
          mkvmerge  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.
          The  argument  x  must  be  postfixed  with  s, ms, us, ns or fps to
          specify the default duration in seconds, milliseconds, microseconds,
          nanoseconds  or  "frames  per  second"  respectively.   The number x
          itself can be a floating point number or a fraction.
          This argument is mainly useful for  debugging  purposes  and  should
          normally  not  be  used.  If the default duration is not forced then
          mkvmerge will try to derive the track's default  duration  from  the
          container  and/or codec used.  The only case in which this option is
          of use is when adding AVC/h.264 elementary streams because these  do
          not  contain  information  about their number of frames or a default
          duration for each frame.  For such  files  mkvmerge  will  assume  a
          default duration of 25fps unless overridden.

     --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 2 bytes, but there are files that contain  frames  or
          slices that are bigger than 65535 bytes.  For such files you have to
          use this parameter and increase the size to 3 or mkvmerge will abort
          with an error.




                                February 2007                                7



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     --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, another 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


     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 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:ar|w/h>
          Matroska 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  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 or
          as 'width/height', e.g. 16/9.

     --aspect-ratio-factor <TID:ar|w/h>
          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
          option (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 3 or one of the keywords
          none (same as n=0), right (same as n=1), left (same as n=2) or  both
          (same as n=3).



                                February 2007                                8



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     Options that only apply to text subtitle tracks:

     --sub-charset <TID:charset>
          Sets the charset 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 files as these are always stored in
          UTF-8.
          This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying to
          several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

     Options that only apply to VobSub subtitle tracks:

     --compression <TID:method>
          Selects the compression method to be used for the VobSub track. Note
          that  the  player  also has to support this method! Valid values are
          'none' and 'zlib'.  The default is 'zlib' compression.

     Other options:

     -i, --identify <filename>
          Will let mkvmerge 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.

     -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 runs with. Valid values  are
          "lowest",  "lower",  "normal", "higher" and "highest". If nothing is
          given then "normal" is used. On Unix like systems mkvmerge 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.

     --command-line-charset <charset>
          Sets the charset to convert strings given on the command line  from.
          It  defaults  to  the charset given by system's current locale. This
          settings applies to arguments of  the  following  options:  --title,
          --track-name and --attachment-description.

     --output-charset <charset>
          Sets the charset to which strings  are  converted  that  are  to  be
          output.   It  defaults  to  the  charset  given  by system's current
          locale.

     -r, --redirect-output <filename>
          Writes all messages to the file filename 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 charset set with
          --output-charset is honored.


                                February 2007                                9



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     @optionsfile
          Reads additional command line arguments from the  file  optionsfile.
          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.  There is no meta character escaping.
          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 "my file.mkv".
          -o
          my file.mkv
          # Only take the video from "a movie.avi".
          -A
          a movie.avi
          sound.ogg

     -h, --help
          Show usage information.

     -V, --version
          Show version information.



USAGE

     For each file the user can select  which  tracks  mkvmerge  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.



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
     OGG:

     $ 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 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


                               February 2007                                10



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     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 and enjoy. If you have multiple audio tracks (or even
     video  tracks)  then you can tell mplayer which track to play with the '---
     vid' and '-aid' parameters. 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  29.97fps  0.2 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)  or  the  subrip  package  found in transcode(1)'s sources (in
     contrib/subrip). 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





                               February 2007                                11



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     The resulting file can be used as another input file for mkvmerge:

     $ 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 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 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's output then please read the section about DEFAULT
     VALUES.



TRACK IDS

     Some of the options for mkvmerge 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 is called  with  the
     --identify option.  An example for such output:

     $ mkvmerge -i v.mkv
     File 'v.mkv': container: Matroska
     Track ID 1: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC, DIV3)
     Track ID 2: audio (A_MPEG/L3)

     Track IDs are assigned like this:

     *    AVI files: The video track has the ID 0. All audio tracks get the ID
          1, 2...

     *    AAC, AC3, MP3, SRT and WAV files: The one 'track' in that file  gets
          the ID 0.





                               February 2007                                12



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     *    Ogg/OGM files: The track's ID is its position  in  the  Ogg  stream.
          The  first  stream encountered has the ID 0, the second one the ID 1
          etc.

     *    Matroska files: The track's ID is the track number  as  reported  by
          mkvinfo or mkvmerge --identify. It is not the track UID.

     The special track ID '-1' is a wild card and applies the given switch  to
     all  tracks  that  are  read from an input file. This was the behavior of
     these switches prior to version 0.4.4.

     The options that use  the  track  IDs  are  the  ones  whose  description
     contains  'TID'.  The following options use track IDs as well: --atracks,
     --vtracks, --stracks and --btracks.



SUBTITLES

     There are several  text  subtitle  formats  that  can  be  embedded  into
     Matroska.   At  the  moment mkvmerge supports only text subtitle formats.
     These subtitles must be recoded to UTF-8 so that they  can  be  displayed
     correctly by a player.

     mkvmerge does this conversion automatically based on the system's current
     locale.  If  the subtitle charset is not the same as the system's current
     charset then the user can use --sub-charset switch. If the subtitles  are
     already encoded in UTF-8 then you can use --sub-charset UTF-8.

     The following subtitle formats are supported at the moment:

     *    Subtitle Ripper (SRT) files

     *    Substation Alpha (SSA) / Advanced Substation Alpha scripts (ASS)



FILE LINKING

     Matroska 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 segments. As most files
     will  probably  only  contain  one  Matroska  segment  I simply say '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. 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  does


                               February 2007                                13



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     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  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 specs say 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's  output  are the language and the default track flag.
     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's
     output.



ATTACHMENTS

     Maybe you also want to keep some photos along with your Matroska file, or
     you're using SSA subtitles and need a special TrueType font that's really
     rare. In these cases you can attach those files  to  the  Matroska  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 fonts' case).

     Here's an example how to attach a photo and a TrueType 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







                               February 2007                                14



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


CHAPTERS

     The Matroska chapter system is more powerful than the  old  known  system
     used     by     OGMs.    The    full    specs    can    be    found    at
     <http://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/chapters/index.html>

     mkvmerge 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's chapter functionality.

     The simple chapter format

     It looks basically like this:

     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 will transform every pair or lines (CHAPTERxx and CHAPTERxxNAME)
     into  one  Matroska  ChapterAtom.  It does not set any ChapterTrackNumber
     which means that the chapters all apply to all tracks in the file.

     The charset used in the file is assumed to be the same charset  that  the
     current  system's locale returns. If this is not the case then the switch
     --chapter-charset should be used. If the file contains a valid BOM  (byte
     order  marker)  then all UTF styles are converted automatically.  In this
     case  --chapter-charset  is  simply  ignored.  You  can  use  mkvinfo  or
     mkvextract to verify that the chapter names have been converted properly.

     The XML based chapter format

     The XML based chapter format looks like this:

     <?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>


                               February 2007                                15



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


         </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.

     General notes


     When splitting files mkvmerge 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 is able to copy chapters from Matroska source files unless  this
     is  explicitly  disabled  with  the  --no-chapters  option. At the moment
     mkvmerge is limited to one 'bunch of chapters' globally. This means  that
     only  the first chapter section found in all source files is used. If the
     user specified chapters on the command line then  these  take  precedence
     over  any  chapters  found  in  source  files.  mkvmerge  does  not merge
     chapters. This must be done manually by using mkvextract to  extract  the
     chapter information and editing the resulting files.

     One shortcoming is that mkvmerge cannot parse chapter  information  found
     in OGM files.



TAGS

     Introduction

     Matroska 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 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 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
     aforementioned URL gives more details about this fact.


     One important fact is that tags are linked to tracks or chapters with the
     Targets Matroska tag element, and that the UIDs used for this linking are
     NOT the track IDs mkvmerge uses everywhere. Instead the numbers used  are
     the  UIDs  which mkvmerge calculates automatically (if the track is taken


                               February 2007                                16



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     from a file format other than Matroska) or  which  are  copied  from  the
     source  file  if the track's source file is a Matroska file. Therefore it
     is difficult to know which UIDs to use in the tag file before the file is
     handed over to mkvmerge.


     mkvmerge knows two options with which you can add tags to Matroska 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
     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 -i 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  any
     Targets element and call mkvmerge:
     $ mkvmerge -o file.mkv --tags 0:tags.xml file.avi


     Tag file format

     mkvmerge supports a XML based tag file format. The format  is  very  easy
     and  closely  connected  to  the  Matroska  tag  specs  found  at the URL
     mentioned above. Both the binary and the source mkvtoolnix  distributions
     come  with a sample file called \xample-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 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> type.


     As binary data itself would not fit into a XML file mkvmerge 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 element.






                               February 2007                                17



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     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. mkvtoolnix comes with a utility, base64tool,
     that  can  be  used  to encode to and decode from Base64. mkvextract 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 tag specs. The following two paragraphs
     only apply to the deprecated tags (an example file is still available and
     called example-tags-deprecated.xml):


     The types integer, unsigned integer, float, string and UTF-8 string  look
     just like you expect them to: 4254, -2, 5.0, hello world and hello world.


     The date format used by both mkvmerge when reading XML tag files  and  by
     mkvextract  when  outputting  XML tag data is the ISO-8601 format. It has
     the following structure:  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+TZTZ.   YYYY  is  the  year
     (four  digits  long), MM the month (two digits long starting with 01), DD
     the day of the month (two digits long starting with 01), HH the  hour  of
     the day (two digits long, range 00 - 23), MM the minute (two digits long,
     range 00 - 59), SS the seconds (two digits long, range 00 - 59). +TZTZ is
     the  time  zone,  e.g.  +0100  or  -0200.  An  example  would be 2003-07-
     30T19:10:16+0200.




MATROSKA FILE LAYOUT

     The Matroska file layout is quite flexible. mkvmerge will render  a  file
     in a predefined way. The resulting file looks like this:

     [EBML head] [segment {meta seek  #1}  {attachments}  {chapters}  [segment
     information] [track information] [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. Some 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 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 file would look like this:




                               February 2007                                18



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     [EBML head] [segment [segment information] [track  information]  [cluster
     1]]

     This might be the case for audio-only files.



EXTERNAL TIMECODE FILES

     mkvmerge 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  creates  separately per Matroska 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 three formats that are recognized by mkvmerge. 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 this line:
     # timecode format v1
     The second line gives the default number of frames per second:
     assume 27.930
     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  default  FPS
     is used. Example:
     800,1000,25
     1500,1700,30

     Timecode file format v2

     In this format each line contains a timecode for the  next  frame.   This
     timecode  must  be  given  in  ms  precision.  It can be a floating point
     number, but it doesn't have to be.   You  must  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
     etc.

     Timecode file format v3





                               February 2007                                19



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     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
     etc.

     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 exits with one of three exit codes:

     0    This exit codes means that muxing has completed successfully.

     1    In this case mkvmerge 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  occured.   mkvmerge  aborts
          right after outputting the error message.  Error messages range from
          wrong command line arguments over read/write errors to broken files.



NOTES

     What works (this list is probably outdated):

     *    AVI as the video and audio source (only raw PCM, MP3 and  AC3  audio
          tracks at the moment)

     *    OGG as the source for video, audio (Vorbis, raw  PCM,  MP3  and  AC3
          audio) and text streams (subtitles).

     *    WAV as the audio source





                               February 2007                                20



MKVMERGE(1)                Unix Programmer's Manual                MKVMERGE(1)


     *    AAC audio files (ADTS AAC files and AAC from MP4)

     *    AC3 audio files

     *    DTS audio files

     *    MP3 audio files

     *    RealVideo and RealAudio from RealMedia files

     *    FLAC audio files (both raw FLAC and OggFLAC)

     *    Track selection

     *    Manual audio synchronization by adding silence/removing packets  for
          Vorbis  audio  and  for text streams by adjusting the starting point
          and duration.

     *    Manual audio synchronization for AAC, AC3,  DTS  and  MP3  audio  by
          duplicating or removing packets at the beginning.

     *    Text subtitles can be read from SRT (SubRipper /  subrip)  files  or
          taken from other OGM files.

     *    SSA/ASS subtitles from SSA/ASS files

     *    Simple chapters.

     *    Full tags support.

     What not works:

     *    Manual audio synchronization for PCM sound (who needs it anyway?)



AUTHOR
     mkvmerge was written by Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>.

SEE ALSO
     mkvinfo(1), mkvextract(1), mmg(1)

WWW
     The     newest     version     can      always      be      found      at
     <http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/>













                               February 2007                                21

