neulab/tldr huggingface dataset:
--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 timestamps 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 timestamps for 'track2_1' by an amount. For 'file' mode this amount is the highest timestamp encountered in 'file1' even if that timestamp was from a different track than 'track1_1'. In track mode the offset is the highest timestamp 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
[ file1 file2 ] If multiple file names are contained in a pair of square brackets then the second and all following files will be appended to the first file named within the brackets.
This is an alternative syntax to using '+' between the file names. Therefore the following two commands are equivalent:
$ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv '[' file1.mkv file2.mkv ']'
= For certain file types (MPEG program streams = VOBs) mkvmerge(1) normally 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.vob $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv =file1.vob
( 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.
Instead of track IDs you can also provide ISO 639-2 language codes. This will only work for source files that provide language tags for their tracks.
Default: copy all tracks of this kind.
If the IDs are prefixed with !  then the meaning is reversed: copy all tracks of this kind but the ones 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.
-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.
-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.
--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.
-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.
-y, --sync TID:d[,o[/p]] Adjust the timestamps 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).
--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 and subtitle tracks and 'none' for audio tracks. See also option --no-cues which inhibits the creation of cue entries regardless of the --cues options used.
--default-track TID[:bool] Sets the "default track" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. The flag will be set if the source container doesn't provide that information and the user doesn't specify it via this option.
If the user does not explicitly select a track during playback, the player should select one of the tracks that has its "default track" flag set, taking user preferences such as their preferred language into account.
--forced-track TID[:bool] Sets the "forced display" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. Use this for tracks containing onscreen text or foreign-language dialogue.
--hearing-impaired-flag TID[:bool] Sets the "hearing impaired" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. This flag can be set if the track is suitable for users with hearing impairments.
--visual-impaired-flag TID[:bool] Sets the "visual impaired" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. This flag can be set if the track is suitable for users with visual impairments.
--text-descriptions-flag TID[:bool] Sets the "text descriptions" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. This flag can be set if the track contains textual descriptions of video content suitable for playback via a text-to-speech system for a visually-impaired user.
--original-flag TID[:bool] Sets the "original language" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. This flag can be set if the track is in the content's original language (not a translation).
--commentary-flag TID[:bool] Sets the "commentary" flag for the given track (see section track IDs) if the optional argument bool is set to 1 or if it isn't present. This flag can be set if the track contains commentary.
--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 ISO 639-2 language codes and ISO 639-1 country codes are allowed. The country codes will be converted to language codes automatically. All languages including their ISO 639-2 codes can be listed with the --list-languages option.
-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.
--reduce-to-core TID Some audio codecs have a lossy core and optional extensions that implement lossless decoding. This option tells mkvmerge(1) to only copy the core but not the extensions. By default mkvmerge(1) copies both the core and the extensions.
Currently only DTS tracks are affected by this option. TrueHD tracks that contain an embedded AC-3 core are instead presented as two separate tracks for which the user can select which track to copy. For DTS such a scheme would not work as the HD extensions cannot be decoded by themselves – unlike the TrueHD data.
--remove-dialog-normalization-gain TID Some audio codecs contain header fields that tell the decoder or player to apply a (usually negative) gain for dialog normalization. This option tells mkvmerge(1) to remove or minimize that gain by modifying the corresponding header fields.
Currently only AC-3, DTS and TrueHD tracks are affected by this option.
--timestamps TID:file-name Read the timestamps to be used for the specific track ID from file-name. These timestamps forcefully override the timestamps that mkvmerge(1) normally calculates. Read the section about external timestamp files.
--default-duration TID:x Forces the default duration of a given track to the specified value. Also modifies the track's timestamps 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 timestamp 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.
--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' and 'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2'.
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 types 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.
--colour-matrix-coefficients TID:n Sets the matrix coefficients of the video used to derive luma and chroma values from red, green and blue color primaries. The parameter n is an integer rangeing from 0 and 10.
Valid values and their meaning are:
0: GBR, 1: BT709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: FCC, 5: BT470BG, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: YCOCG, 9: BT2020 non-constant luminance, 10: BT2020 constant luminance
--colour-bits-per-channel TID:n Sets the number of coded bits for a colour channel. A value of 0 indicates that the number of bits is unspecified.
--chroma-subsample TID:hori,vert The amount of pixels to remove in the Cr and Cb channels for every pixel not removed horizontally/vertically.
Example: For video with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, the parameter should be set to TID:1,1.
--cb-subsample TID:hori,vert The amount of pixels to remove in the Cb channel for every pixel not removed horizontally/vertically. This is additive with --chroma-subsample.
Example: For video with 4:2:1 chroma subsampling, the parameter --chroma-subsample should be set to TID:1,0 and Cb-subsample should be set to TID:1,0.
--chroma-siting TID:hori,vert Sets how chroma is sited horizontally/vertically (0: unspecified, 1: top collocated, 2: half).
--colour-range TID:n Sets the clipping of the color ranges (0: unspecified, 1: broadcast range, 2: full range (no clipping), 3: defined by MatrixCoefficients/TransferCharacteristics).
--colour-transfer-characteristics TID:n The transfer characteristics of the video.
0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: gamma 2.2 curve, 5: gamma 2.8 curve, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: linear, 9: log, 10: log sqrt, 11: IEC 61966-2-4, 12: ITU-R BT.1361 extended colour gamut, 13: IEC 61966-2-1, 14: ITU-R BT.2020 10 bit, 15: ITU-R BT.2020 12 bit, 16: SMPTE ST 2084, 17: SMPTE ST 428-1; 18: ARIB STD-B67 (HLG)
--colour-primaries TID:n Sets the colour primaries of the video.
0: reserved, 1: ITU-R BT.709, 2: unspecified, 3: reserved, 4: ITU-R BT.470M, 5: ITU-R BT.470BG, 6: SMPTE 170M, 7: SMPTE 240M, 8: FILM, 9: ITU-R BT.2020, 10: SMPTE ST 428-1, 22: JEDEC P22 phosphors
--max-content-light TID:n Sets the maximum brightness of a single pixel (Maximum Content Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value of n should be a non-negtive integer.
--max-frame-light TID:n Sets the maximum brightness of a single full frame (Maximum Frame-Average Light Level) in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value of n should be a non-negtive integer.
--chromaticity-coordinates TID:red-x,red-y,green-x,green-y,blue-x,blue-y Sets the red/green/blue chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE 1931.
--white-colour-coordinates TID:x,y Sets the white colour chromaticity coordinates as defined by CIE 1931.
--max-luminance TID:float Sets the maximum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value should be less than 9999.99.
--min-luminance TID:float Sets the minimum luminance in candelas per square meter (cd/m²). The value should be less than 999.9999.
--projection-type TID:method Sets the video projection method used. Valid values are 0 (rectangular projection), 1 (equirectangular projection), 2 (cubemap projection) and 3 (mesh projection).
--projection-private TID:data Sets private data that only applies to a specific projection. Data must be given as hex numbers with or without the "0x" prefix, with or without spaces.
--projection-pose-yaw TID:float Specifies a yaw rotation to the projection.
--projection-pose-pitch TID:float Specifies a pitch rotation to the projection.
--projection-pose-roll TID:float Specifies a roll rotation to the projection.
--field-order TID:n Sets the field order for the video track with the track ID TID. The order must be one of the following numbers:
0: progressive; 1: interlaced with top field displayed first and top field stored first; 2: undetermined field order; 6: interlaced with bottom field displayed first and bottom field stored first; 9: interlaced with bottom field displayed first and top field stored first; 14: interlaced with top field displayed first and bottom field stored first
--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.
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.
The output format used for the result can be changed with the option --identification-format.
-J file-name This is a convenient alias for "--identification-format json --identify file-name".
-F, --identification-format format Determines the output format used by the --identify option. The following formats are supported: text (the default if this option isn't used) and json.
1. The text format is short and human-readable. It consists of one line per item found (container, tracks, attachments etc.).
This format is not meant to be parsed. The output will be translated into the language mkvmerge(1) uses (see also --ui-language).
2. The json format outputs a machine-readable JSON representation. This format follows the JSON schema described in the following file:
mkvmerge-identification-output-schema-v14.json[3]
All versions of the JSON schema are available both online and in the released source code archives.
--probe-range-percentage percentage File types such as MPEG program and transport streams (.vob, .m2ts) require parsing a certain amount of data in order to detect all tracks contained in the file. This amount is 0.3% of the source file's size or 10 MB, whichever is higher.
If tracks are known to be present but not found then the percentage to probe can be changed with this option. The minimum of 10 MB is built-in and cannot be changed.
-l, --list-types Lists supported input file types.
--list-languages Lists all languages and their ISO 639-2 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.
--flush-on-close Tells the program to flush all data cached in memory to storage when closing files opened for writing. This can be used to prevent data loss on power outages or to circumvent certain problems in the operating system or drivers. The downside is that multiplexing will take longer as mkvmerge will wait until all data has been written to the storage before exiting. See issues #2469 and #2480 on the MKVToolNix bug tracker for in-depth discussions on the pros and cons.
--ui-language code Forces the translations for the language code to be used (e.g. 'de_DE' for the German translations). Entering 'list' as the code will cause the program to output a list of available translations.
--abort-on-warnings Tells the program to abort after the first warning is emitted. The program's exit code will be 1.
--deterministic seed Enables the creation of byte-identical files if the same version of mkvmerge(1) is used with the same source files, the same set of options and the same seed. Note that the "date" segment information field is not written in this mode.
The seed can be an arbitrary string and does not have to be a number.
The result of byte-identical files is only guaranteed under the following conditions:
1. The same version of mkvmerge(1) built with the same versions of libEBML and libMatroska is used.
2. The source files used are byte-identical.
3. The same command line options are used in the same order (with the notable exception of --output ...).
Using other versions of mkvmerge(1) or other command-line options may result in the same byte-identical file but is not guaranteed to do so.
--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.json 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:
•   '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.
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.
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 occurrence 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
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 29.97fps 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(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 ISO 639-2 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
Regular 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 0: video (V_MS/VFW/FOURCC, DIV3) Track ID 1: 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, AC-3, 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 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.
Special track IDs There are several IDs that have special meaning and do not occur in the identification output.
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 special track ID '-2' refers to the chapters in a source file. Currently only the --sync option uses this special ID. As an alternative to --sync -2:...  the option --chapter-sync ...  can be used.
Note This section applies to all programs in MKVToolNix even if it only mentions mkvmerge(1).
Introduction 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.
Byte order markers (BOM) 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.
Linux and Unix-like systems including macOS 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.
Windows On Windows the default character set used for converting text files is determined by a call to the GetACP() system call.
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 consists of three scenarios:
1. If the output is redirected with the option --redirect-output then the default charset is UTF-8. This can be changed with --output-charset.
2. If the output is redirected with cmd.exe itself, e.g. with mkvinfo file.mkv > info.txt, then the charset is always UTF-8 and cannot be changed.
3. Otherwise (when writing directly to the console) the Windows function WriteConsoleW() is used and the option --output-charset is ignored. The console should be able to output all Unicode characters for which the corresponding language support is installed (e.g. Chinese characters might not be displayed on English Windows versions).
Command line options 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. On non-Windows systems the default for the output charset is the system's current charset. On Windows it defaults to UTF-8 both for redirecting with --redirect-output and with cmd.exe itself, e.g. mkvinfo file.mkv > info.txt.
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.
An option file contains JSON-formatted data. Its content must be a valid JSON array consisting solely of JSON strings. The file's encoding must be UTF-8. The file should not start with a byte order marker (BOM), but if one exists, it will be skipped.
The rules for escaping special characters inside JSON are the ones in the official JSON specification, RFC 7159[4].
The command line 'mkvmerge -o "my file.mkv" -A "a movie.avi" sound.ogg' could be converted into the following JSON option file called e.g. 'options.json':
[ "-o", "c:\\Matroska\\my file.mkv", "--title", "#65", "-A", "a movie.avi", "sound.ogg" ]
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 timestamps 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 timestamps 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.
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.
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-mime-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.
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.
Apart from dedicated chapter files mkvmerge(1) can also read chapters from other file formats (e.g. MP4, Ogg, Blu-rays or DVDs).
The simple chapter format This format consists of pairs of lines that start with 'CHAPTERxx=' and 'CHAPTERxxNAME=' respectively. The first one contains the start timestamp 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)
Reading chapters from Blu-rays mkvmerge(1) can read chapters from unencrypted Blu-rays. For that you can use the path to one of the MPLS play lists with the --chapters parameter.
Example: --chapters /srv/blurays/BigBuckBunny/BDMV/PLAYLIST/00001.mpls
Reading chapters from DVDs When MKVToolNix is compiled with the libdvdread(TM) library, mkvmerge(1) can read chapters from DVDs. For that you can use the path to one of the folders or files on the DVD with the --chapters parameter. As DVDs can contain more than one title and each title has its own set of chapters, you can append a colon and the desired title number to the end of the file name argument. The title number defaults to 1.
Example: --chapters /srv/dvds/BigBuckBunny/VIDEO_TS:2