I’ve been converting MKV’s for years the hard and slow way. Handbrake is my savior for most video files because it is quick and simple. For MKV’s it is now my enemy. Why? Because it transcodes h.264 back to h.264. Which will typically degrade the quality, but not the file size. No point right. I always knew this but didn’t know another way. Today I found that other way. I had to transcode about 15 Bleach episodes in order to stream it to my apple TV (my PS3 requires the transcodes as well). After doing a little bit of digging I found PS3 remuxer, but iTunes wouldn’t take the files. Then I thought about VLC. VLC has an export option. With this option you can tell it not to touch the actual video/audio and just change the container (remux it). Using this option I was able to convert a 1.2 hour long 720P video in 9 minutes (verses well over 3 hours with handbrake). It’s even quicker with those 25 minute 720P animes. Accomplishing that feat in just under 30 seconds. The difference is the 25 minute anime could be done in system ram, while I ran out for the 2.4Gig movie.

On to the Tutorial.

Open up VLC. and goto File --> Streaming/Exporting Wizard

Next click on the Radio button for Transcode/Save

Click Next

Now you can either Open a file or choose one in your current playlist.

Click Next

On the Transcode screen DO NOT Check any of the boxes. Just click Next.

Here you will want to click on MPEG 4 / MP4

Click Next

Now choose a file name. You can also point it to the original file if you want to use the same name.

Now click Next and Finish.

Streaming/Transcoding Wizard will pop up in your playlist and in a short while you’ll have your new MP4 that you can just pop into iTunes. If for whatever reason your Audio doesn’t work, then you’ll need to transcode that, but not the video. Good stuff, right?