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NAME

       mkvmerge - Merge multimedia streams into a Matroska(TM) file

SYNOPSIS

       mkvmerge [global options] {-o out} [options1] {file1}
                [[options2] {file2}] [@optionsfile]

DESCRIPTION

       This program takes the input from several media files and joins their
       streams (all of them or just a selection) into a Matroska(TM) file; see
       the Matroska(TM) website[1].

       Global options:

       -v, --verbose
           Increase verbosity.

       -q, --quiet
           Suppress status output.

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

       -w, --webm
           Create a WebM compliant file. This is also turned on if the output
           file name's extension is "webm". This mode enforces several
           restrictions. The only allowed codecs are VP8 video and Vorbis
           audio tracks. Neither chapters nor tags are allowed. The DocType
           header item is changed to "webm".

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

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

       --default-language language-code
           Sets the default language code that will be used for all tracks
           unless overwritten with the --language option. The default language
           code is 'und' for 'undefined'.

       Segment info handling: (global options)

       --segmentinfo filename.xml
           Read segment information from a XML file. This file can contain the
           segment family UID, segment UID, previous and next segment UID
           elements. An example file and a DTD are included in the MKVToolNix
           distribution.

       --segment-uid SID1,SID2,...
           Sets the segment UIDs to use. This is a comma-separated list of
           128bit segment UIDs in the usual UID form: hex numbers with or
           without the "0x" prefix, with or without spaces, exactly 32 digits.

           Each file created contains one segment, and each segment has one
           segment UID. If more segment UIDs are specified than segments are
           created then the surplus UIDs are ignored. If fewer UIDs are
           specified than segments are created then random UIDs will be
           created for them.

       Chapter and tag handling: (global options)

       --chapter-language language-code
           Sets the ISO639-2 language code that is written for each chapter
           entry. Defaults to 'eng'. See the section about chapters below for
           details.

           This option can be used both for simple chapter files and for
           source files that contain chapters but no information about the
           chapters' language, e.g. MP4 and OGM files.

       --chapter-charset character-set
           Sets the character set that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for
           simple chapter files. See the section about text files and
           character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts between
           character sets.

           This switch does also apply to chapters that are copied from
           certain container types, e.g. Ogg/OGM and MP4 files. See the
           section about chapters below for details.

       --cue-chapter-name-format format

           mkvmerge(1) supports reading CUE sheets for audio files as the
           input for chapters.  CUE sheets usually contain the entries
           PERFORMER and TITLE for each index entry.  mkvmerge(1) uses these
           two strings in order to construct the chapter name. With this
           option the format used for this name can be set.

           If this option is not given then mkvmerge(1) defaults to the format
           '%p - %t' (the performer, followed by a space, a dash, another
           space and the title).

           If the format is given then everything except the following meta
           characters is copied as-is, and the meta characters are replaced
           like this:

           ·   %p is replaced by the current entry's PERFORMER string,

           ·   %t is replaced by the current entry's TITLE string,

           ·   %n is replaced by the current track number and

           ·   %N is replaced by the current track number padded with a
               leading zero if it is < 10.

       --chapters file-name
           Read chapter information from the file file-name. See the section
           about chapters below for details.

       --global-tags file-name
           Read global tags from the file file-name. See the section about
           tags below for details.

       General output control (advanced global options):

       --track-order FID1:TID1,FID2:TID2,...
           This option changes the order in which the tracks for an input file
           are created. The argument is a comma separated list of pairs IDs.
           Each pair contains first the file ID (FID1) which is simply the
           number of the file on the command line starting at 0. The second is
           a track ID (TID1) from that file. If some track IDs are omitted
           then those tracks are created after the ones given with this option
           have been created.

       --cluster-length spec
           Limit the number of data blocks or the duration of data in each
           cluster. The spec parameter can either be a number n without a unit
           or a number d postfixed with 'ms'.

           If no unit is used then mkvmerge(1) will put at most n data blocks
           into each cluster. The maximum number of blocks is 65535.

           If the number d is postfixed with 'ms' then mkvmerge(1) puts at
           most d milliseconds of data into each cluster. The minimum for d is
           '100ms', and the maximum is '32000ms'.

           mkvmerge(1) defaults to putting at most 65535 data blocks and
           2000ms of data into a cluster.

           Programs trying to find a certain frame can only seek directly to a
           cluster and have to read the whole cluster afterwards. Therefore
           creating larger clusters may lead to imprecise or slow seeking.

       --no-cues
           Tells mkvmerge(1) not to create and write the cue data which can be
           compared to an index in an AVI.  Matroska(TM) files can be played
           back without the cue data, but seeking will probably be imprecise
           and slower. Use this only if you're really desperate for space or
           for testing purposes. See also option --cues which can be specified
           for each input file.

       --clusters-in-meta-seek
           Tells mkvmerge(1) to create a meta seek element at the end of the
           file containing all clusters. See also the section about the
           Matroska(TM) file layout.

       --disable-lacing
           Disables lacing for all tracks. This will increase the file's size,
           especially if there are many audio tracks. This option is not
           intended for everyday use.

       --enable-durations
           Write durations for all blocks. This will increase file size and
           does not offer any additional value for players at the moment.

       --timecode-scale factor
           Forces the timecode scale factor to factor. Valid values are in the
           range 1000..10000000 or the special value -1.

           Normally mkvmerge(1) will use a value of 1000000 which means that
           timecodes and durations will have a precision of 1ms. For files
           that will not contain a video track but at least one audio track
           mkvmerge(1) will automatically chose a timecode scale factor so
           that all timecodes and durations have a precision of one audio
           sample. This causes bigger overhead but allows precise seeking and
           extraction.

           If the special value -1 is used then mkvmerge(1) will use sample
           precision even if a video track is present.

       File splitting, linking and appending (more global options):

       --split specification
           Splits the output file after a given size or a given time. Please
           note that tracks can only be split right before a key frame. Due to
           buffering mkvmerge(1) will split right before the next key frame
           after the split point has been reached. Therefore the split point
           may be a bit off from what the user has specified.

           At the moment mkvmerge(1) supports three different modes.

            1. Splitting by size.

               Syntax: --split [size:]d[k|m|g]

               Examples: --split size:700m or --split 150000000

               The parameter d may end with 'k', 'm' or 'g' to indicate that
               the size is in KB, MB or GB respectively. Otherwise a size in
               Bytes is assumed. After the current output file has reached
               this size limit a new one will be started.

               The 'size:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility reasons.

            2. Splitting after a duration.

               Syntax: --split [duration:]HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn|ds

               Examples: --split duration:00:60:00.000 or --split 3600s

               The parameter must either have the form HH:MM:SS.nnnnnnnnn for
               specifying the duration in up to nano-second precision or be a
               number d followed by the letter 's' for the duration in
               seconds.  HH is the number of hours, MM the number of minutes,
               SS the number of seconds and nnnnnnnnn the number of
               nanoseconds. Both the number of hours and the number of
               nanoseconds can be omitted. There can be up to nine digits
               after the decimal point. After the duration of the contents in
               the current output has reached this limit a new output file
               will be started.

               The 'duration:' prefix may be omitted for compatibility
               reasons.

            3. Splitting after specific timecodes.

               Syntax: --split timecodes:A[,B[,C...]]

               Example: --split timecodes:00:45:00.000,01:20:00.250,6300s

               The parameters A, B, C etc must all have the same format as the
               ones used for the duration (see above). The list of timecodes
               is separated by commas. After the input stream has reached the
               current split point's timecode a new file is created. Then the
               next split point given in this list is used.

               The 'timecodes:' prefix must not be omitted.

           For this splitting mode the output filename is treated differently
           than for the normal operation. It may contain a printf like
           expression '%d' including an optional field width, e.g. '%02d'. If
           it does then the current file number will be formatted
           appropriately and inserted at that point in the filename. If there
           is no such pattern then a pattern of '-%03d' is assumed right
           before the file's extension: '-o output.mkv' would result in
           'output-001.mkv' and so on. If there's no extension then '-%03d'
           will be appended to the name.

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

       --link-to-previous segment-UID
           Links the first output file to the segment with the segment UID
           given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
           below for details.

       --link-to-next segment-UID
           Links the last output file to the segment with the segment UID
           given by the segment-UID parameter. See the section on file linking
           below for details.

       --append-mode mode
           Determines how timecodes are calculated when appending files. The
           parameter mode can have two values: 'file' which is also the
           default and 'track'.

           When mkvmerge appends a track (called 'track2_1' from now on) from
           a second file (called 'file2') to a track (called 'track1_1') from
           the first file (called 'file1') then it has to offset all timecodes
           for 'track2_1' by an amount. For 'file' mode this amount is the
           highest timecode encountered in 'file1' even if that timecode was
           from a different track than 'track1_1'. In track mode the offset is
           the highest timecode of 'track1_1'.

           Unfortunately mkvmerge cannot detect which mode to use reliably.
           Therefore it defaults to 'file' mode. 'file' mode usually works
           better for files that have been created independently of each
           other; e.g. when appending AVI or MP4 files. 'track' mode may work
           better for sources that are essentially just parts of one big file,
           e.g. for VOB and EVO files.

           Subtitle tracks are always treated as if 'file' mode were active
           even if 'track' mode actually is.

       --append-to SFID1:STID1:DFID1:DTID1[,...]
           This option controls to which track another track is appended. Each
           spec contains four IDs: a file ID, a track ID, a second file ID and
           a second track ID. The first pair, "source file ID" and "source
           track ID", identifies the track that is to be appended. The second
           pair, "destination file ID" and "destination track ID", identifies
           the track the first one is appended to.

           If this option has been omitted then a standard mapping is used.
           This standard mapping appends each track from the current file to a
           track from the previous file with the same track ID. This allows
           for easy appending if a movie has been split into two parts and
           both file have the same number of tracks and track IDs with the
           command mkvmerge -o output.mkv part1.mkv +part2.mkv.

       +
           A single '+' causes the next file to be appended instead of added.
           The '+' can also be put in front of the next file name. Therefore
           the following two commands are equivalent:

               $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv + file2.mkv
               $ mkvmerge -o full.mkv file1.mkv +file2.mkv

       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.

       -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.

       -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.

       --chapter-charset character-set
           Sets the charset that is used for the conversion to UTF-8 for
           chapter information contained in the source file. See the section
           about text files and character sets for an explanation how
           mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.

       --chapter-language language-code
           Sets the ISO639-2 language code that is written for each chapter
           entry. This option can be used for source files that contain
           chapters but no information about the chapters' languages, e.g. for
           MP4 and OGM files.

       -y, --sync TID:d[,o[/p]]
           Adjust the timecodes of the track with the id TID by d ms. The
           track IDs are the same as the ones given with --identify (see
           section track IDs).

           o/p: adjust the timestamps by o/p to fix linear drifts.  p defaults
           to 1 if omitted. Both o and p can be floating point numbers.

           Defaults: no manual sync correction (which is the same as d = 0 and
           o/p = 1.0).

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       --cues TID:none|iframes|all
           Controls for which tracks cue (index) entries are created for the
           given track (see section track IDs). 'none' inhibits the creation
           of cue entries. For 'iframes' only blocks with no backward or
           forward references ( = I frames in video tracks) are put into the
           cue sheet. 'all' causes mkvmerge(1) to create cue entries for all
           blocks which will make the file very big.

           The default is 'iframes' for video tracks and 'none' for all
           others. See also option --no-cues which inhibits the creation of
           cue entries regardless of the --cues options used.

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       --default-track TID[:bool]
           Sets the 'default' flag for the given track (see section track IDs)
           if the optional argument bool is not present. If the user does not
           explicitly select a track himself then the player should prefer the
           track that has his 'default' flag set. Only one track of each kind
           (audio, video, subtitles, buttons) can have his 'default' flag set.
           If the user wants no track to have the default track flag set then
           he has to set bool to 0 for all tracks.

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       --forced-track TID[:bool]
           Sets the 'forced' flag for the given track (see section track IDs)
           if the optional argument bool is not present. A player must play
           all tracks for which this flag is set to 1.

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       --blockadd TID:level
           Keep only the BlockAdditions up to the level level for the given
           track. The default is to keep all levels. This option only affects
           certain kinds of codecs like WAVPACK4.

       --track-name TID:name
           Sets the track name for the given track (see section track IDs) to
           name.

       --language TID:language
           Sets the language for the given track (see section track IDs). Both
           ISO639-2 language codes and ISO639-1 country codes are allowed. The
           country codes will be converted to language codes automatically.
           All languages including their ISO639-2 codes can be listed with the
           --list-languages option.

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       -t, --tags TID:file-name
           Read tags for the track with the number TID from the file
           file-name. See the section about tags below for details.

       --aac-is-sbr TID[:0|1]
           Tells mkvmerge(1) that the track with the ID TID is SBR AAC (also
           known as HE-AAC or AAC+). This options is needed if a) the source
           file is an AAC file (not for a Matroska(TM) file) and b) the AAC
           file contains SBR AAC data. The reason for this switch is that it
           is technically impossible to automatically tell normal AAC data
           from SBR AAC data without decoding a complete AAC frame. As there
           are several patent issues with AAC decoders mkvmerge(1) will never
           contain this decoding stage. So for SBR AAC files this switch is
           mandatory. The resulting file might not play back correctly or even
           not at all if the switch was omitted.

           If the source file is a Matroska(TM) file then the CodecID should
           be enough to detect SBR AAC. However, if the CodecID is wrong then
           this switch can be used to correct that.

           If mkvmerge wrongfully detects that an AAC file is SBR then you can
           add ':0' to the track ID.

       --timecodes TID:file-name
           Read the timecodes to be used for the specific track ID from
           file-name. These timecodes forcefully override the timecodes that
           mkvmerge(1) normally calculates. Read the section about external
           timecode files.

       --default-duration TID:x
           Forces the default duration of a given track to the specified
           value. Also modifies the track's timecodes to match the default
           duration. The argument x must be postfixed with 's', 'ms', 'us',
           'ns' 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.

           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. One 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(1) will assume a default
           duration of '25fps' unless overridden.

           This option can also be used to change the FPS of video tracks
           without having to use an external timecode file.

       --nalu-size-length TID:n
           Forces the NALU size length to n bytes. This parameter is only used
           if the AVC/h.264 elementary stream packetizer is used. If left out
           it defaults to 4 bytes, but there are files that contain frames or
           slices that are all smaller than 65536 bytes. For such files you
           can use this parameter and decrease the size to 2.

       Options that only apply to video tracks:

       -f, --fourcc TID:FourCC
           Forces the FourCC to the specified value. Works only for video
           tracks in the 'MS compatibility mode'.

       --display-dimensions TID:widthxheight

           Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
           properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
           display width and display height. These values can be set with this
           option, e.g. '1:640x480'.

           Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
           the --aspect-ratio-factor option (see below). These options are
           mutually exclusive.

       --aspect-ratio TID:ratio|width/height

           Matroska(TM) files contain two values that set the display
           properties that a player should scale the image on playback to:
           display width and display height. With this option mkvmerge(1) will
           automatically calculate the display width and display height based
           on the image's original width and height and the aspect ratio given
           with this option. The ratio can be given either as a floating point
           number ratio or as a fraction 'width/height', e.g. '16/9'.

           Another way to specify the values is to use the
           --aspect-ratio-factor or --display-dimensions options (see above
           and below). These options are mutually exclusive.

       --aspect-ratio-factor TID:factor|n/d
           Another way to set the aspect ratio is to specify a factor. The
           original aspect ratio is first multiplied with this factor and used
           as the target aspect ratio afterwards.

           Another way to specify the values is to use the --aspect-ratio or
           --display-dimensions options (see above). These options are
           mutually exclusive.

       --cropping TID:left,top,right,bottom
           Sets the pixel cropping parameters of a video track to the given
           values.

       --stereo-mode TID:n|keyword
           Sets the stereo mode for the video track with the track ID TID. The
           mode can either be a number n between 0 and 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).

       --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', 'zlib', 'lzo'/'lxo1x', 'bz2'/'bzlib' and
           'mpeg4_p2'/'mpeg4p2'. The values 'lzo'/'lxo1x' and 'bz2'/'bzlib'
           are only available if mkvmerge(1) has been compiled with support
           for the liblzo(TM) respectively bzlib(TM) compression libraries.

           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 other methods are general
           compression methods that can be used with any type of track.

           The default 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 text subtitle tracks:

       --sub-charset TID:character-set
           Sets the character set for the conversion to UTF-8 for UTF-8
           subtitles for the given track ID. If not specified the charset will
           be derived from the current locale settings. Note that a charset is
           not needed for subtitles read from Matroska(TM) files or from Kate
           streams, as these are always stored in UTF-8. See the section about
           text files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1)
           converts between character sets.

           This option can be used multiple times for an input file applying
           to several tracks by selecting different track IDs each time.

       Other options:

       -i, --identify file-name
           Will let mkvmerge(1) probe the single file and report its type, the
           tracks contained in the file and their track IDs. If this option is
           used then the only other option allowed is the filename.

       -l, --list-types
           Lists supported input file types.

       --list-languages
           Lists all languages and their ISO639-2 code which can be used with
           the --language option.

       --priority priority
           Sets the process priority that mkvmerge(1) runs with. Valid values
           are 'lowest', 'lower', 'normal', 'higher' and 'highest'. If nothing
           is given then 'normal' is used. On Unix like systems mkvmerge(1)
           will use the nice(2) function. Therefore only the super user can
           use 'higher' and 'highest'. On Windows all values are useable for
           every user.

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

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

       -r, --redirect-output file-name
           Writes all messages to the file file-name instead of to the
           console. While this can be done easily with output redirection
           there are cases in which this option is needed: when the terminal
           reinterprets the output before writing it to a file. The character
           set set with --output-charset is honored.

       --ui-language code
           Forces the translations for the language code to be used (e.g.
           'de_DE' for the German translations). It is preferable to use the
           environment variables LANG, LC_MESSAGES and LC_ALL though. Entering
           'list' as the code will cause mkvmerge(1) to output a list of
           available translations.

       @options-file
           Reads additional command line arguments from the file options-file.
           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

       --capabilities
           Lists information about optional features that have been compiled
           in and exit. The first line output will be the version information.
           All following lines contain exactly one word whose presence
           indicates that the feature has been compiled in. These features
           are:

           ·   'BZ2' -- the bzlib(TM) compression library. Affects the
               available compression methods for the --compression option.

           ·   'LZO' -- the lzo(TM) compression library. Affects the available
               compression methods for the --compression option.

           ·   'FLAC' -- reading raw FLAC files and handling FLAC tracks in
               other containers, e.g.  Ogg(TM) or Matroska(TM).

       -h, --help
           Show usage information and exit.

       -V, --version
           Show version information and exit.

USAGE

       For each file the user can select which tracks mkvmerge(1) should take.
       They are all put into the file specified with -o. A list of known (and
       supported) source formats can be obtained with the -l option.

EXAMPLES

       Let's assume you have a file called MyMovie.avi and the audio track in
       a separate file, e.g. 'MyMovie.wav'. First you want to encode the audio
       to OggVorbis(TM):

           $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie.ogg MyMovie.wav

       After a couple of minutes you can join video and audio:

           $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg

       If your AVI already contains an audio track then it will be copied as
       well (if mkvmerge(1) supports the audio format). To avoid that simply
       do

           $ mkvmerge -o MyMovie-with-sound.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg

       After some minutes of consideration you rip another audio track, e.g.
       the director's comments or another language to 'MyMovie-add-audio.wav'.
       Encode it again and join it up with the other file:

           $ oggenc -q4 -oMyMovie-add-audio.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.wav
           $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv MyMovie-with-sound.mkv MyMovie-add-audio.ogg

       The same result can be achieved with

           $ mkvmerge -o MM-complete.mkv -A MyMovie.avi MyMovie.ogg MyMovie-add-audio.ogg

       Now fire up mplayer(TM) and enjoy. If you have multiple audio tracks
       (or even video tracks) then you can tell mplayer(TM) which track to
       play with the '-vid' and '-aid' options. These are 0-based and do not
       distinguish between video and audio.

       If you need an audio track synchronized you can do that easily. First
       find out which track ID the Vorbis track has with

           $ mkvmerge --identify outofsync.ogg

       Now you can use that ID in the following command line:

           $ mkvmerge -o goodsync.mkv -A source.avi -y 12345:200 outofsync.ogg

       This would add 200ms of silence at the beginning of the audio track
       with the ID 12345 taken from 'outofsync.ogg'.

       Some movies start synced correctly but slowly drift out of sync. For
       these kind of movies you can specify a delay factor that is applied to
       all timestamps -- no data is added or removed. So if you make that
       factor too big or too small you'll get bad results. An example is that
       an episode I transcoded was 0.2 seconds out of sync at the end of the
       movie which was 77340 frames long. At 29.97fps 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 ISO639-2 code for your language.
       mkvmerge(1) can list all of those codes for you:

           $ mkvmerge --list-languages

       Search the list for the languages you need. Let's assume you have put
       two audio tracks into a Matroska(TM) file and want to set their
       language codes and that their track IDs are 2 and 3. This can be done
       with

           $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut without-lang-codes.mkv

       As you can see you can use the --language switch multiple times.

       Maybe you'd also like to have the player use the Dutch language as the
       default language. You also have extra subtitles, e.g. in English and
       French, and want to have the player display the French ones by default.
       This can be done with

           $ mkvmerge -o with-lang-codes.mkv --language 2:ger --language 3:dut --default-track 3 without-lang-codes.mkv --language 0:eng english.srt --default-track 0 --language 0:fre french.srt

       If you do not see the language or default track flags that you've
       specified in mkvinfo(1)'s output then please read the section about
       default values.

TRACK IDS

       Some of the options for mkvmerge(1) need a track ID to specify which
       track they should be applied to. Those track IDs are printed by the
       readers when demuxing the current input file, or if mkvmerge(1) is
       called with the --identify option. An example for such output:

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

       Track IDs are assigned like this:

       ·    AVI files: The video track has the ID 0. The audio tracks get IDs
           in ascending order starting at 1.

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

       ·   Ogg/OGM files: The track IDs are assigned in order the tracks are
           found in the file starting at 0.

       ·    Matroska(TM) files: The track's ID is the track number as reported
           by mkvinfo(1). 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.

       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.

TEXT FILES AND CHARACTER SET CONVERSIONS

           Note
           This section applies to all programs in MKVToolNix even if it only
           mentions mkvmerge(1).

       All text in a Matroska(TM) file is encoded in UTF-8. This means that
       mkvmerge(1) has to convert every text file it reads as well as every
       text given on the command line from one character set into UTF-8. In
       return this also means that mkvmerge(1)'s output has to be converted
       back to that character set from UTF-8, e.g. if a non-English
       translation is used with --ui-language or for text originating from a
       Matroska(TM) file.

       mkvmerge(1) does this conversion automatically based on the presence of
       a byte order marker (short: BOM) or the system's current locale. How
       the character set is inferred from the locale depends on the operating
       system that mkvmerge(1) is run on.

       Text files that start with a BOM are already encoded in one
       representation of UTF.  mkvmerge(1) supports the following five modes:
       UTF-8, UTF-16 Little and Big Endian, UTF-32 Little and Big Endian. Text
       files with a BOM are automatically converted to UTF-8. Any of the
       parameters that would otherwise set the character set for such a file
       (e.g.  --sub-charset) is silently ignored.

       On Unix-like systems mkvmerge(1) uses the setlocale(3) system call
       which in turn uses the environment variables LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CYPE.
       The resulting character set is often one of UTF-8 or the ISO-8859-*
       family and is used for all text file operations and for encoding
       strings on the command line and for output to the console.

       On Windows there are actually two different character sets that
       mkvmerge(1) uses due to the way the Windows shell program cmd.exe is
       implemented. The first character set is determined by a call to the
       GetCP() system call. This character set is used as the default for text
       file conversions and for all elements displayed by the GUI programs in
       the MKVToolNix package.  cmd.exe uses another character set which is
       determined by a call to the GetACP() system call. This is the default
       character set for all strings read from the command line and for all
       strings output to the console.

       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.

SUBTITLES

       There are several text subtitle formats that can be embedded into
       Matroska(TM). At the moment mkvmerge(1) supports only text, VobSub and
       Kate subtitle formats. Text subtitles must be recoded to UTF-8 so that
       they can be displayed correctly by a player (see the section about text
       files and character sets for an explanation how mkvmerge(1) converts
       between character sets). Kate subtitles are already encoded in UTF-8
       and do not have to be re-encoded.

       The following subtitle formats are supported at the moment:

       ·   Subtitle Ripper (SRT) files

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

       ·   OggKate streams

       ·   VobSub bitmap subtitle files

FILE LINKING

       Matroska(TM) supports file linking which simply says that a specific
       file is the predecessor or successor of the current file. To be
       precise, it's not really the files that are linked but the Matroska(TM)
       segments. As most files will probably only contain one Matroska(TM)
       segment the following explanations use the term 'file linking' although
       'segment linking' would be more appropriate.

       Each segment is identified by a unique 128 bit wide segment UID. This
       UID is automatically generated by mkvmerge(1). The linking is done
       primarily via putting the segment UIDs (short: SID) of the
       previous/next file into the segment header information.  mkvinfo(1)
       prints these SIDs if it finds them.

       If a file is split into several smaller ones and linking is used then
       the timecodes will not start at 0 again but will continue where the
       last file has left off. This way the absolute time is kept even if the
       previous files are not available (e.g. when streaming). If no linking
       is used then the timecodes should start at 0 for each file. By default
       mkvmerge(1) does not use file linking. If you want that you can turn it
       on with the --link option. This option is only useful if splitting is
       activated as well.

       Regardless of whether splitting is active or not the user can tell
       mkvmerge(1) to link the produced files to specific SIDs. This is
       achieved with the options --link-to-previous and --link-to-next. These
       options accept a segment SID in the format that mkvinfo(1) outputs: 16
       hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff prefixed with '0x' each, e.g.
       '0x41 0xda 0x73 0x66 0xd9 0xcf 0xb2 0x1e 0xae 0x78 0xeb 0xb4 0x5e 0xca
       0xb3 0x93'. Alternatively a shorter form can be used: 16 hexadecimal
       numbers between 0x00 and 0xff without the '0x' prefixes and without the
       spaces, e.g. '41da7366d9cfb21eae78ebb45ecab393'.

       If splitting is used then the first file is linked to the SID given
       with --link-to-previous and the last file is linked to the SID given
       with --link-to-next. If splitting is not used then the one output file
       will be linked to both of the two SIDs.

DEFAULT VALUES

       The Matroska(TM) specification states that some elements have a default
       value. Usually an element is not written to the file if its value is
       equal to its default value in order to save space. The elements that
       the user might miss in mkvinfo(1)'s output are the language and the
       default track flag elements. The default value for the language is
       English ('eng'), and the default value for the default track flag is
       true. Therefore if you used --language 0:eng for a track then it will
       not show up in mkvinfo(1)'s output.

ATTACHMENTS

       Maybe you also want to keep some photos along with your Matroska(TM)
       file, or you're using SSA subtitles and need a special TrueType(TM)
       font that's really rare. In these cases you can attach those files to
       the Matroska(TM) file. They will not be just appended to the file but
       embedded in it. A player can then show those files (the 'photos' case)
       or use them to render the subtitles (the 'TrueType(TM) fonts' case).

       Here's an example how to attach a photo and a TrueType(TM) font to the
       output file:

           $ mkvmerge -o output.mkv -A video.avi sound.ogg --attachment-description "Me and the band behind the stage in a small get-together" --attachment-mime-type image/jpeg --attach-file me_and_the_band.jpg --attachment-description "The real rare and unbelievably good looking font" --attachment-type application/octet-stream --attach-file really_cool_font.ttf

       If a Matroska(TM) containing attachments file is used as an input file
       then mkvmerge(1) will copy the attachments into the new file. The
       selection which attachments are copied and which are not can be changed
       with the options --attachments and --no-attachments.

CHAPTERS

       The Matroska(TM) chapter system is more powerful than the old known
       system used by OGM files. The full specifications can be found at the
       Matroska(TM) website[1].

       mkvmerge(1) supports two kinds of chapter files as its input. The first
       format, called 'simple chapter format', is the same format that the OGM
       tools expect. The second format is a XML based chapter format which
       supports all of Matroska(TM)'s chapter functionality.

   The simple chapter format
       This formmat consists of pairs of lines that start with 'CHAPTERxx='
       and 'CHAPTERxxNAME=' respectively. The first one contains the start
       timecode while the second one contains the title. Here's an example:

           CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
           CHAPTER01NAME=Intro
           CHAPTER02=00:02:30.000
           CHAPTER02NAME=Baby prepares to rock
           CHAPTER03=00:02:42.300
           CHAPTER03NAME=Baby rocks the house

       mkvmerge(1) will transform every pair or lines into one Matroska(TM)
       ChapterAtom. It does not set any ChapterTrackNumber which means that
       the chapters all apply to all tracks in the file.

       As this is a text file character set conversion may need to be done.
       See the section about text files and character sets for an explanation
       how mkvmerge(1) converts between character sets.

   The XML based chapter format
       The XML based chapter format looks like this example:

           <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
           <!DOCTYPE Chapters SYSTEM "matroskachapters.dtd">
           <Chapters>
             <EditionEntry>
               <ChapterAtom>
                 <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:30.000</ChapterTimeStart>
                 <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:20.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
                 <ChapterDisplay>
                   <ChapterString>A short chapter</ChapterString>
                   <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
                 </ChapterDisplay>
                 <ChapterAtom>
                   <ChapterTimeStart>00:00:46.000</ChapterTimeStart>
                   <ChapterTimeEnd>00:01:10.000</ChapterTimeEnd>
                   <ChapterDisplay>
                     <ChapterString>A part of that short chapter</ChapterString>
                     <ChapterLanguage>eng</ChapterLanguage>
                   </ChapterDisplay>
                 </ChapterAtom>
               </ChapterAtom>
             </EditionEntry>
           </Chapters>

       With this format three things are possible that are not possible with
       the simple chapter format:

        1. The timestamp for the end of the chapter can be set,

        2. chapters can be nested,

        3. the language and country can be set.

       The mkvtoolnix distribution contains some sample files in the doc
       subdirectory which can be used as a basis.

   General notes
       When splitting files mkvmerge(1) will correctly adjust the chapters as
       well. This means that each file only includes the chapter entries that
       apply to it, and that the timecodes will be offset to match the new
       timecodes of each output file.

       mkvmerge(1) is able to copy chapters from Matroska(TM) source files
       unless this is explicitly disabled with the --no-chapters option. The
       chapters from all sources (Matroska(TM) files, Ogg files, MP4 files,
       chapter text files) are usually not merged but end up in separate
       ChapterEditions. Only if chapters are read from several Matroska(TM) or
       XML files that share the same edition UIDs will chapters be merged into
       a single ChapterEdition. If such a merge is desired in other situations
       as well then the user has to extract the chapters from all sources with
       mkvextract(1) first, merge the XML files manually and mux them
       afterwards.

TAGS

   Introduction
       Matroska(TM) supports an extensive set of tags that is deprecated and a
       new, simpler system like it is is used in most other containers:
       KEY=VALUE. However, in Matroska(TM) these tags can also be nested, and
       both the KEY and the VALUE are elements of their own. The example file
       example-tags-2.xml shows how to use this new system.

   Scope of the tags
       Matroska(TM) tags do not automatically apply to the complete file. They
       can, but they also may apply to different parts of the file: to one or
       more tracks, to one or more chapters, or even to a combination of both.
       The the Matroska(TM) specification[3] gives more details about this
       fact.

       One important fact is that tags are linked to tracks or chapters with
       the Targets Matroska(TM) tag element, and that the UIDs used for this
       linking are not the track IDs mkvmerge(1) uses everywhere. Instead the
       numbers used are the UIDs which mkvmerge(1) calculates automatically
       (if the track is taken from a file format other than Matroska(TM)) or
       which are copied from the source file if the track's source file is a
       Matroska(TM) file. Therefore it is difficult to know which UIDs to use
       in the tag file before the file is handed over to mkvmerge(1).

       mkvmerge(1) knows two options with which you can add tags to
       Matroska(TM) files: The --global-tags and the --tags options. The
       difference is that the former option, --global-tags, will make the tags
       apply to the complete file by removing any of those Targets elements
       mentioned above. The latter option, --tags, automatically inserts the
       UID that mkvmerge(1) generates for the tag specified with the TID part
       of the --tags option.

   Example
       Let's say that you want to add tags to a video track read from an AVI.
       mkvmerge --identify file.avi tells you that the video track's ID (do
       not mix this ID with the UID!) is 0. So you create your tag file, leave
       out all Targets elements and call mkvmerge(1):

           $ mkvmerge -o file.mkv --tags 0:tags.xml file.avi

   Tag file format
       mkvmerge(1) supports a XML based tag file format. The format is very
       closely modeled after the Matroska(TM) specification[3]. Both the
       binary and the source distributions of MKVToolNix come with a sample
       file called example-tags-2.xml which simply lists all known tags and
       which can be used as a basis for real life tag files.

       The basics are:

       ·   The outermost element must be <Tags>.

       ·   One logical tag is contained inside one pair of <Tag> XML tags.

       ·   White spaces directly before and after tag contents are ignored.

   Data types
       The new Matroska(TM) tagging system only knows two data types, a UTF-8
       string and a binary type. The first is used for the tag's name and the
       <String> element while the binary type is used for the <Binary>
       element.

       As binary data itself would not fit into a XML file mkvmerge(1)
       supports two other methods of storing binary data. If the contents of a
       XML tag starts with '@' then the following text is treated as a file
       name. The corresponding file's content is copied into the Matroska(TM)
       element.

       Otherwise the data is expected to be Base64 encoded. This is an
       encoding that transforms binary data into a limited set of ASCII
       characters and is used e.g. in email programs.  mkvextract(1) will
       output Base64 encoded data for binary elements.

       The deprecated tagging system knows some more data types which can be
       found in the official Matroska(TM) tag specs. As mkvmerge(1) does not
       support this system anymore these types aren't described here.

MATROSKA(TM) FILE LAYOUT

       The Matroska(TM) file layout is quite flexible.  mkvmerge(1) will
       render a file in a predefined way. The resulting file looks like this:

       [EBML head] [segment {meta seek #1} [segment information] [track
       information] {attachments} {chapters} [cluster 1] {cluster 2} ...
       {cluster n} {cues} {meta seek #2} {tags}]

       The elements in curly braces are optional and depend on the contents
       and options used. A couple of notes:

       ·   meta seek #1 includes only a small number of level 1 elements, and
           only if they actually exist: attachments, chapters, cues, tags,
           meta seek #2. Older versions of mkvmerge(1) used to put the
           clusters into this meta seek element as well. Therefore some
           imprecise guessing was necessary to reserve enough space. It often
           failed. Now only the clusters are stored in meta seek #2, and meta
           seek #1 refers to the meta seek element #2.

       ·   Attachment, chapter and tag elements are only present if they were
           added.

       The shortest possible Matroska file would look like this:

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

       This might be the case for audio-only files.

EXTERNAL TIMECODE FILES

       mkvmerge(1) allows the user to chose the timecodes for a specific track
       himself. This can be used in order to create files with variable frame
       rate video or include gaps in audio. A frame in this case is the unit
       that mkvmerge(1) creates separately per Matroska(TM) block. For video
       this is exactly one frame, for audio this is one packet of the specific
       audio type. E.g. for AC3 this would be a packet containing 1536
       samples.

       Timecode files that are used when tracks are appended to each other
       must only be specified for the first part in a chain of tracks. For
       example if you append two files, v1.avi and v2.avi, and want to use
       timecodes then your command line must look something like this:

           mkvmerge ... --timecodes 0:my_timecodes.txt v1.avi +v2.avi

       There are four formats that are recognized by mkvmerge(1). The first
       line always contains the version number. Empty lines, lines containing
       only whitespace and lines beginning with '#' are ignored.

   Timecode file format v1
       This format starts with the version line. The second line declares the
       default number of frames per second. All following lines contain three
       numbers separated by commas: the start frame (0 is the first frame),
       the end frame and the number of frames in this range. The FPS is a
       floating point number with the dot '.' as the decimal point. The ranges
       can contain gaps for which the default FPS is used. An example:

           # timecode format v1
           assume 27.930
           800,1000,25
           1500,1700,30

   Timecode file format v2
       In this format each line contains a timecode for the corresponding
       frame. This timecode must be given in millisecond precision. It can be
       a floating point number, but it doesn't have to be. You have to give at
       least as many timecode lines as there are frames in the track. The
       timecodes in this file must be sorted. Example for 25fps:

           # timecode format v2
           0
           40
           80

   Timecode file format v3
       In this format each line contains a duration in seconds followed by an
       optional number of frames per second. Both can be floating point
       numbers. If the number of frames per second is not present the default
       one is used. For audio you should let the codec calculate the frame
       timecodes itself. For that you should be using 0.0 as the number of
       frames per second. You can also create gaps in the stream by using the
       'gap' keyword followed by the duration of the gap. Example for an audio
       file:

           # timecode format v3
           assume 0.0
           25.325
           7.530,38.236
           gap, 10.050
           2.000,38.236

   Timecode file format v4
       This format is identical to the v2 format. The only difference is that
       the timecodes do not have to be sorted. This format should almost never
       be used.

EXIT CODES

       mkvmerge(1) exits with one of three exit codes:

       ·    0 -- This exit codes means that muxing has completed successfully.

       ·    1 -- In this case mkvmerge(1) has output at least one warning, but
           muxing did continue. A warning is prefixed with the text
           'Warning:'. Depending on the issues involved the resulting file
           might be ok or not. The user is urged to check both the warning and
           the resulting file.

       ·    2 -- This exit code is used after an error occurred.  mkvmerge(1)
           aborts right after outputting the error message. Error messages
           range from wrong command line arguments over read/write errors to
           broken files.

SEE ALSO

       mkvinfo(1), mkvextract(1), mkvpropedit(1), mmg(1)

WWW

       The latest version can always be found at the MKVToolNix homepage[4].

AUTHOR

       Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
           Developer

NOTES

        1. the Matroska(TM) website
           http://www.matroska.org/

        2. the IANA homepage
           http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/

        3. the Matroska(TM) specification
           http://matroska.org/technical/specs/index.html

        4. the MKVToolNix homepage
           http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/