UPDATE 2/17/12: Solveig Multimedia has released version 3.0 of their software. Read the review I did here.
There are a lot of good MVK muxing/demuxing softwares out there. Unfortunately, there isn’t a ton that let you edit/trim MKV’s visually and accurately without rencoding (which creates quality loss) like VideoReDo or VirtualDub do for MPEG’s or AVI’s. This seems due to the way key frames are set in the H.264 format.
Most searches for “trim MKV”, “split MKV”, or “edit MKV” lead to Avidemux or MKVtoolnix. While MKVtoolnix for Windows gets you MKVmerge GUI, it can only split at specified time, size, or time code intervals. I was looking for a visual editor.
AVI Trimmer + MKV 2.0
I finally found one solution that is free. I never tried any of the paid software that claims to edit MKV’s. AVI Trimmer + MKV 2.0 was created by Solveig Multimedia. It allows you to trim MKV’s using a GUI interface where you can drag the sliders and see exactly where in the video clip you are. Did I mention it’s only 9MB small?
My Review
I have tested it with a few formats and it seemed to handle any codecs that were currently installed on my system (using Haali Splitter for video and AC3Filter for audio). The sample video file I tried was encoded at a resolution of 720p and the audio was DTS. I was able to split at any millisecond I wanted and the final file played flawlessly.
There are 2 things I wish AVI Trimmer + MKV 2.0 had:
- Ability to save a project (this can cause issues because it did crash once)
- Step button to advance the video frame-by-frame (you can however type in the timestamp manually by milliseconds for exactness)
There were a couple quirky things about the program:
- If your first clip includes the first frame, you have to push the first frame button, or it won’t add that clip to the timeline (fragments) to save.
- The program started on top the visual editor (top left) so I wasn’t aware of its location. I just had to drag the main program window out of the way to see it.
- There are only 3 almost useless options: Autostart scene detection, Confirm adding overlapped fragments, and Show hint after adding new interval
Overall, I have to give the developer a serious thanks as this does one simple job very well: trim MKV’s without re-encoding. I been looking forever for something similar to VideoReDo for a long time for MKV’s. Let me know in the comments how it worked for you.
How to Use
Make sure you watch Solveig Multimedia’s video on how AVI Trimmer + MKV 2.0 works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukgyx3aXUL8
Download
You can download it directly on their website (9MB):
http://www.solveigmm.com/en/products/avi-trimmer-mkv/
Also available here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?qx64l7ky2qsain7
found your site through the videohelp forum. thanks a lot! it definately worked for me, small & simple 🙂
glad to hear!
prog doesn’t seem to “remember” settings well for already-selected edits. Any tips pls?
i think that’s just the way it is. i have spoken to the author and they are telling me there is a new release slated for 3.0 soon (no dates yet)
Thanks very much for the info. I’m trying it now. A little google search on mkv editing found this page. Cheers!
hi. thanks for this.
i have spent ages looking for precisely this kind of software. except for mac. anyone know about it?
I have both a PC and a mac, and this was all I was able to come up with for either. Because it works so beautifully, I would recommend virtualizing windows on your mac if you really need this functionality.
thank you, spoonjab.
it’s been suggested that i should use parallels if i want to install windows only software on my mac.again, thanks. your advice is very valuable and much appreciated.
I cant believe this is the only program that can edit ripped blueray MKV files ,lossless. I would like to easily edit my blueray movies without loss. I would be willing to pay easily 30 to 50 bucks . This program will do for now although it hangs if you try to do multiple cuts . Thats ok because I can do single cuts and join the pieces when I am finished.
That has been my experience. Only a couple cuts at a time is best.
Hey spoonjab, you don’t happen to know how to fix the error(s): “Unable to render stream. Check necessary codecs are installed. Video (ACV1)/Audio (AAC)”? It’s the same two messages I get every time I try to load an mkv file and Google is failing me.
Wow! It really works, thank you for the tip.
Thank you very much! Great work you’ve done here!
Thanks, this program worked like a champ to trim an MKV I had. Your article came up near the top on Google when I searched how to do this so thank you for providing the answer.
Glad to help!
It is a great piece of software. There are however two huge cons: it cannot handle more than 1 audio track, and it cannot handle subtitles 🙁
Not even their flagship software “Video Splitter” can do these things. 1 Audio track?
I used Mediafire link provided there to DL and install app, but after opening an .mkv it says “The file is damaged or has unsupported type”, the new version (v.5) does not support MKV opening in free mode, only paid :-(((((