Convert .MKV video files to .m2ts for PlayStation 3 using tsMuxeR
Besides gaming, the Sony PlayStation 3 is an excellent device for high definition video playback. Besides Blu-ray disc playback support, the PS3 can also play high definition video files, which can be downloaded from the Internet. The most common HD video file format is currently the Matroska (.MKV) file format, which the PS3 does not currently support. The .MKV files however in many cases contain AVC encoded video with AC3 audio, which are PS3 supported formats. In order to play the files a simple process of converting the .MKV files to .m2ts files must be performed, but with the free tsMuxeR software this is very simple to achieve and takes only a few minutes.
Preconditions
- tsMuxeR software. Download from here and extract to appropriate folder
- Matroska .MKV video files with AVC (h.264) video and AC3 audio streams
Make sure you have some free space on your hard drive as a file with roughly the same size than the original file will be created in this process.
Using tsMuxeR
The conversion process using tsMuxeR is a very simple one. It consists of adjusting a few settings, which you can see highlighted in the screenshot on the right.
The video or audio content is not actually converted at all. All tsMuxeR does is that it extracts (demuxes) the video and audio from the Matroska .MKV file and wraps them (muxes) to a .m2ts transport stream format. The video or audio remain untouched, so the quality is not impacted and the process is very fast.
Perform the following steps:
- Open a .MKV file with AVC/AC3 content using the Add button
- Observe the track info for AVC profile information. If it shows a value higher than 4.1, then use the Change level function to adjust it down to 4.1
- Choose M2TS muxing as Output
- Click browse button and choose the name and location for your file
- Click Start muxing to begin
After a few minutes you should have files named filename.m2ts and filename.meta. Now all you need to do is to burn these on a DVD-R(W), and slip the disc to your PS3. The PlayStation recognizes the file on the disc allowing high definition video playback!
Will this method increase the size of the movie file? For example if my mkv is 4.4gb. Will it still fit on a DVD after using tsMuxeR?
Thats a good question - I actually did not measure that. If there is a change in the file size,it should be very small as the content itself does not change.
I will check this out in a day or two,when I get back home. It is also possible to split large source files to multiple discs.
NO, it does not changes the file size…
and when converting, REMEMBER:
>>To include ONE video and ONE audio, nothing else…(or else, you will be wasting space)
>>The primary audio is the only one that will play in the PS3…(there’s no language selection YET)
>>Files sizes are not over 4GB, the PS3 is a Fat-32 file system..(if necessary, on the “Split&Cut” tab, put the setting to “3.9 GB”)
WRONG ! The PS3 accept all file sizes !
I have a 10GB m2ts inside the HDD and there is no problem.
Only external HDD must be FAT32 to be read by the PS3.
There is a very small increase in file size in the two files I converted.
1,125,962 KB -> 1,202,046 KB
1,126,007 KB -> 1,201,974 KB
Probably nothing more than the differing overhead in the container formats.
[...] article is a sequel to our previous guide, which explained how to convert .MKV files to .m2ts for PlayStation 3 playback. Absolute novices [...]
I followed the steps precisely and everything went fine until I tried to play it on the PS3. All I got was a black screen and no audio… but the file continued to play through as if “something” was there. I split the file into multiple 1.7GB files as I transfered these files to a FAT32 portable HDD. I normally use SimpleCenter to stream all audio/video files to the PS3 from my desktop but in this case, SimpleCenter does not support M2TS files. Any ideas?
Note: The original MKV file was a Bluray rip with h264 video and DTS audio (which I changed in tsMuxeR to 4.1 as directed).
nice guide
fast and easy if you have ac3 audio mkv’s
none of mine are lol
but I assume it will work great if i convert mpeg audio to ac3