Need some help with this mkv file to mp4 or any other file Davinci accepts

[Samael Lynch]

So I feel like a real noob.

The problem in question is that I ripped the blu ray of nightmare on elm street 2010, have the mkv now which is great but my usual program xmedia recode cannot get an mp4 file that is compatible with DaVinci resolve, this has never happened to me before.

I looked around in tools menu here and downloaded Txmuxer but neither Ts or mts worked either.

Does anyone know what to do? All I can import in Davinci is the audio.

 

[unfair]

You're probably trying to transcode it and for whatever reason the video isn't normal AVC (h264), so you need to actually re-encode it to change the video codec, rather than just changing the container from mkv to mp4 as you normally do.

If you use MediaInfo on the mkv to get the actual codecs it contains people might be able to give more specific advice on how to avoid re-encoding. But if you do want to change it to h264 you can use ffmpeg, or if you prefer a gui you can use Shutter encoder, which is basically a gui for ffmpeg.

 

[Samael Lynch]

Thanks Ill check it out tomorrorw after work!

 

[robulon]

Taking a look on dvdcompare.net, Elm Street 2010 uses the VC-1 codec rather than the more common AVC.

VC-1 was popular with Warner and New Line releases in the earlier days of Blu-Ray, so its not surprising to see it here. Unfortunately its not a video codec Resolve can read natively. That’s why the typical rewrap technique has only allowed Resolve to read the audio tracks.

As @unfair has said, you will need to re-encode it to something else to get it to play. For VC-1 discs in the past I've used Shutter Encoder to covert them to ProRes 422. You do end up with a pretty big file but Resolve handles them buttery smooth. If you need a smaller file for space reasons then Shutter can also do H264 encoding as an alternative. Its free for both PC and Mac!

 

[M4_]

You're probably trying to transcode it and for whatever reason the video isn't normal AVC (h264), so you need to actually re-encode it to change the video codec, rather than just changing the container from mkv to mp4 as you normally do.

If you use MediaInfo on the mkv to get the actual codecs it contains people might be able to give more specific advice on how to avoid re-encoding. But if you do want to change it to h264 you can use ffmpeg, or if you prefer a gui you can use Shutter encoder, which is basically a gui for ffmpeg.

What you described as re-encoding is what transcoding is, going from one codec to another. Like you mentioned, remuxing from mkv to mp4 is a common practice, but I agree he should check what codec is inside his mkv to help determine the issue using MediaInfo. Could be mpeg2

Personally, I would not re encode back to h264 for the purposes of editing unless you are limited in storage space. If you’re going to go through the process of re encoding, you might as well commit to something like DNxHR or ProRes, not only will you not lose quality because these are visually lossless, but you also get better performance/less lag while editing - it’s the intended workflow of editors to use these intermediate codecs when editing, h264 is just for delivery. But I get why most editors stick to h264, it can be more convenient.

 

[Samael Lynch]

I used ffmpegGUI to do what I normally do in xmedia encode and that did the trick, feel kinda stupid that it was that easy.. Anyhow thanks to everyone who gave me some help, was gonna try them if this didn't work out but it did.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I think Shutter is just an alternate GUI for ffmpeg, isn't it?