MKVtools For Mac

Processing or converting media files using command line tools can prove to be quite challenging if you are not used to work with the Terminal.app.

MKVtools is a Mac app designed to provide a graphical user interface for some powerful UNIX command line utilities: Mencoder, Mplayer, MKVtoolnix, Mp4box and Mediainfo.

MKVtools comes with a fairly organized user interface that should not raise problems. However, the developers also provide and online guide that present the most important areas of the app.

Since MKVtools is able to convert the video files without having to re-encode the data, the processing time is reduce and the video quality is preserved. Moreover, MKVtools is also able to convert the surround sound to 5.1 AAC or 5.1 AC3 .

To get started, simply open the video and audio files you want to process: you will be able to view them in list mode in the MKVtools main window.

The next step is to decide if you want to add a new track or extract the embedded one. To streamline the process, the app allows you to set up your own presets.

On the bottom area of the MKVtools main window you have the opportunity to adjust the video and audio quality and specify the subtitle embedding mode. MKVtools enables you to extract a particular segment from an MKV file but can also be used to merge files together.

Even though the MKVtools user interface is quite simple, getting around some of its tools are not very straightforward. For example, the subtitles options remain disabled until you add a subtitle file to the files list, which is not very intuitive .

On the other hand, you must make sure that you set up the output folder before starting the conversion process, because MKVtools does not help you access the output MKVs via its interface.

MKVtools can be used to convert media content to MKV files, embed subtitles, extract / add audio track or split / merge video files, as long as you are willing to learn how to use the app properly.