MKVcleaver Editor's Review

If you love movies as much as I do, you've probably heard about MKV (Matroska) containers already. Otherwise, let me tell you a couple of words about them.

First of all, they are generally considered to be superior to any other containers in every aspect. The main reason behind this is that Matroska supports important features compared to any other multimedia container (i.e. variable frame rate and anamorphism which has an important role in video quality).

Another reason is because Matroska can enclose an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks inside a single MKV file. Because of this, you might want to extract those tracks out of the MKV file. A way to do that is by using a GUI (Graphical User Interface) which I recently discovered, called MKVcleaver.

MKVCleaver is a simple GUI which lets you extract all the tracks that you want out of the MKV file (e.g. video, audio, subtitle, etc). In order to work, MKVCleaver needs the platform tools from MKVToolnix, which you'll have to install on your system. Let's see how it works.

First of all, after you install the platform tools (MKVToolnix) you need to specify the MKVtoolnix file path, otherwise, the extraction button will be disabled. After you do that, you can simple drag and drop your MKV files into the program or browse them after you press the "Open MKV files to process" button.

Once done, it will list down the content of the MKV files you've just imported. In the right side of the window, you can see all the tracks that can be extracted. Select whatever tracks you want to extract. You can extract multiple tracks at once thanks to the batch extraction support. Moreover, you can set the program to convert the MKV file into AVI, in case you want to. Next, choose the output directory and then hit the "Extract Tracks" button in order to begin the extraction, that's all.

Note: MKVcleaver requires MKVToolnix, you can get it here.

Pluses: drag and drop support; batch extraction;

Drawbacks / flaws: not a standalone application - needs MKVToolnix;

In conclusion: If you would like to extract anything out of a MKV file, you should use this.

version reviewed: 0.5.0.3