How to convert .mkv to .mp4 that Internet Archive will accept & stream?

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Any ideas how to do that, preferably in a GUI program? I’m not good at CLI or scripts.

CONTEXT

I uploaded a video in Matroska mkv format (~1gb) to Internet Archive. IA added its own converted mp4 of much lower video quality (~500mb) & that’s the only video it will stream. The mkv only available by downloading.

As I’d prefer streaming availability, I used Handbrake (on Linux) to convert the mkv to mp4 myself, hoping to make a better quality mp4 that IA would stream.

Seems successful, plays fine locally, much better quality than IA’s mp4, & smaller file size (~800mb) than original mkv.

But I can’t upload it to IA as I get an error

There is a network problem

400 Bad Data

BadContent

Uploaded content is unacceptable.

Resource>video file has improper extension, try one of these: .mpv .mkv

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I usually do everything from CLI.

Are you wanting to re-encode it to a different codec or just change the container from mkv to mp4?

To remux the file (change the container format), you can simply do:

# The -f mp4 is technically optional as it can deduce it from the extension, but I like to be explicit
ffmpeg -i file.mkv -f mp4 file.mp4

That should go very fast as it’s just copying the streams as-is into a new container.

If you want to re-encode it to a different codec, then you’ll need to use a more complex ffmpeg command.

 
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My questionable flair

CLI can be scary, but this is such a simple command to run. It should not be too intimidating.

If someone really needs a GUI, I believe VLC’s file conversion capability is basically just running an FFMPEG command like that in the background.

 
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they/them

mUzJZ5xfnU7iNF1.webp

 
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I am not sure file formats are like religions. I mean, some of them are cross compatible. Totally unlike religion.

 
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edited

Rule 5. Locking.

 
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You can do it with ffmpeg (CLI) and I can give you the incantation for that if you want, but the IA’s transcoding pipeline should really do it automatically and I’m surprised if it doesn’t do it already. I wonder if it’s supposed to and something is going wrong. I assume you used .mkv extension and still got that error. So that sounds like a bug. Otherwise, try renaming the file and re-uploading.

If it’s a bug, you could try contacting the IA and asking what’s up. They do read the emails they get, though obviously a software fix is likely to take a while if they pursue it. https://archive.org/about/contact

 
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According to: https://help.archive.org/help/movies-and-videos-a-basic-guide/

What encoding specifications are best for .mp4 files?

For your original mp4 to work in the online player we currently require the file to have:

audio: aac
video: h.264
moov atom: front
pixel format: yuv420p

FFS, they’re not even on h.265 yet. Ugh.

 
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H.265 requires hardware decoding

 
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edited

Not necessarily, but it does require a lot of computing power to decode in real time.

But good point, h.265 encoded video is not accessible for much of the world.

 
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