mkv vs mp4

MKV is actually a container file that has several other files stored inside of it. It generally holds a mid- to high-quality video file along with alternate audio and subtitle options.
MP4 is generally a high quality video file, so if you just want one language and whatever subs are hard-coded into the video, then it should be sufficient.

>>32152
soft versus hard coded

>>32156
Don't talk about what you don't understand.

>>32152
Both mkv and mp4 are containers. mp4 for h264 and aac formats, and mkv for that plus a few others, like ogg/theora. Both support softsubs, but mp4 only supports its own format of subs, whereas mkv supports a range of them, from DVD subs to srts to ssa and, most importantly, ass, which is the standard for anime due to its versatility. Oh, and mkv also supports multiple audio and subtitle tracks. And appending stuff like fonts for the subs.

In other words, more often than not, you can directly extract the video and audio from an mkv into an mp4 (if the mkv is using h264 video and aac audio), but not the subs or multiple tracks. On the other hand though, mp4 is supported by many more devices.

>>32170
>On the other hand though, mp4 is supported by many more devices.

Any device that can support VLC can support mkv. Which is all android, windows, linux, iOS, and OSX based systems.

Of course you shouldn't be using VLC, but when you really want to watch something on your phone...

>>32170
>32156 here
Thanks for clarifying my error; didn't know MP4 were containers, too, as I've never seen softsubs in them. I'll look into it more.

>>32152
MKV and MP4 are containers that permit certain codecs/streams/types inside of them. MKV is capable of everything that MP4 can do and more, whereas MP4 is older and more respected. More enterprise video editing programs can encode natively to MP4 than MKV so you will see it more often. Market momentum is a serious thing.

tl;dr MKV is better than MP4 but not everybody knows that yet so not everybody uses it over MP4.

>>32170
>more often than not, you can directly extract the video and audio from an mkv into an mp4
But then nothing will play it, because conformant mp4 implementations are required to support only a small set of h.264 levels, of which hi10p is not one.

>>32185
On mobile, "supported" generally means "decoded by the OS' media playing framework using the mobile device's hardware decoder, so it doesn't kill the battery and you can embed it in apps and websites"

For mobile, that's just mp4, I'm afraid.

>>32185
>you shouldn't be using VLC
Why?

>>32447
you'll get a shitton more artifacts in the video

>>32453
Makes sense, I've noticed VLC isn't the greatest as far as artifacts are concerned. What are some better choices, aside from MPV?

>>32456
MPC-HC is a really good choice.

Provided your settings don't randomly get changed, and it doesn't start crashing your computer for no readily apparent reason

>>32444
>more often than not

if you're comparing containers: mkv all day, every day. it's free, it's open, it takes whatever you throw at it, it has great tools to work with mkv files (mkvmerge, mkvextract) since i often find myself wanting to fix subtitles or cut streams, 1 file instead of separate softsubs is also very handy. btw, webm is just a stripped down version of mkv.

when you're looking for quality - you'd have to compare the video streams. x264 is currently the most common codec. to compare quality you'd have to look at the relation between frame size ("resolution", eg 480, 720 or 1080) and bitrate (typically comes on the order several thousand kbps). if you have two x264 720p versions and one has 600 kbps and the other has 2,000 kbps, then the latter will have vastly superior quality. a very crude shorthand is comparing file size on files of similar duration (more kbps = more file size per second).

>>32585
>if you have two x264 720p versions and one has 600 kbps and the other has 2,000 kbps, then the latter will have vastly superior quality. a very crude shorthand is comparing file size on files of similar duration (more kbps = more file size per second).
Although you're somewhat right, there's always bloat. A bigger bitrate doesn't always mean better quality - for some, or hell, the majority of sub groups, it just means lots of bloat.