Unfortunately a MKV to AVCHD conversion solution that would be as good as mkv2vob does not currently exist for the Linux operating system. But luckily you can run the very same mkv2vob on your Linux operating system, using the Wine Windows emulator. The installation process however includes one trick, as mkv2vob does not work on Wine straight out of the box. Read on to see how it’s done.

This guide is made with Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (Karmic Koala), but the guide is pretty much universal with perhaps minor adjustments.

1. Install latest Wine. You can find this in Ubuntu Software Center, or the package manager of your Linux distribution. Personally I like Wine Doors, which installs Wine and a software management solution to install a number of popular Windows applications.
2. Fetch winetricks script. Winetricks is needed for installing some additional Windows libraries, in order to make mkv2vob to work. Open console and type: wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
3. Use winetricks to download needed Windows libraries. In console: sh winetricks vb6run wsh56
4. Download the latest mkv2vob and open the installer file using Wine. Click here for the download

And you are done!

Next step is to configure and use mkv2vob for the AVCHD conversion. Check out our mkv2vob related AVCHD guides for guidance. Check out the screenshot of mkv2vob running on Ubuntu Linux – the picture also shows the correct settings for converting MKV files with subtitles to USB AVCHD format to be used in PS3.

Preconditions

• A USB pen drive (or a memory card reader with a card inserted) with sufficient capacity. The size of the files will increase during the AVCHD conversion process,  so make sure your drive is bigger than the intended video file. NOTE: the drive has to be formatted with the FAT32 filesystem. You can format the drive in My Computer – just click right mouse key on the drive letter and choose Format.
• Matroska .MKV video file with AVC (h.264) video and AC3 audio streams.
• A .SRT subtitle file with exactly matching name for the .MKV video.
• mkv2vob software. Download from here and install
• Recommended reading: Read our AVCHD guide for more detailed information.

Configuring mkv2vob for AVCHD – USB output

Couple of options need to be set in the mkv2vob Configuration tab to enable the AVCHD output.

1. Set the Output type as AVCHD – USB. In this mode the mkv2vob creates a folder \AVCHD\ and the AVCHD file structure as sub-folders. The \AVCHD\ folder must be placed to the root of the USB drive in order to PS3 to recognize the video.
2. In order to get the subtitles, tick the Load Subtitles from file. Note that the .SRT subtitle file name must be EXACTLY the same as the name of the .MKV video file. So if you have My_TV_series_episode_1.mkv you must also have My_TV_series_episode_1.srt.
3. There are two additional subtitle options to choose: Overscan Compensation and Large Subtitles. The Overscan compensation feature places the subtitles slightly higher in order to avoid them being cut of on some TV systems. Large Subtitles increases the size of the subtitle font. For my HDReady 32″ Samsung television I prefer to have the Compensation on and Large subtitles disabled. Try it out on your own system to see which is the best setting for you. On 40″ FullHD televisions the Large subtitles may be a better option for good readability.
4. Set your Subtitle Language and Audio Language.
5. Video Transcoding should be left to automatic – mkv2vob will apply the re-encoding of the file if needed. The Transcoding Codec is x264 for AVCHD complicancy and best image quality.
6. In AVCHD – USB mode you can leave the File Splitting to None. In this mode the mkv2vob creates standard compliant output automatically.

Using mkv2vob

Using mkv2vob is very simple as it is only a matter of choosing the input file and defining the destination folder for the output

1. Click on Source file / Browse and point to your .MKV video file. Rememer to have the matching .SRT subtitle file in the same folder as the video.
2. Click on the Destination Folder / Browse and point the desired destination for the AVCHD output
3. Click Add File which adds the file to mkv2vob the queue, immediately processing the 1st file in the queue. As seen on the picture the test file subtitle_test.mkv is AVCHD compliant and only needs to be muxed with the subtitles into the AVCHD format. This process is very fast and takes only couple of minutes. If mkv2vob detects non-compliant characteristics in your file, it will re-encode the content. This will take a lot of time, but quarantees that your video actually works with your console.

Copying the files to the USB drive

Now the final step is to copy the resulting \AVCHD\ with subdirectories to the USB drive, which of course is only a matter of dragging and dropping the folder using Windows Explorer. You can also configure the mkv2vob output folder straight the USB drive, but this feature has one design flaw within mkv2vob – at least with the version 2.4.5, the mkv2vob outputs a folder structure of \video_file_name\AVCHD\ which the PS3 does not recognize as the AVCHD folder must be located at drive root. This is very easy fix though, as you can just browse to the USB drive in Windows and move the AVCHD folder to the root level of the drive.

Now eject the USB drive from Windows, unplug it and stick it to your PS3. The console recognizes the AVCHD content and the video is playable as it would a be a video disc. Very convenient! Enjoy your High Definiton video!

Preconditions

• Matroska .MKV video file with AVC (h.264) video and AC3 audio streams.
• A .SRT subtitle file with exactly matching name for the .MKV video.
• ImgBurn software. Download from here and install.
• mkv2vob software. Download from here and install
• Recommended reading: Read our AVCHD guide for more detailed information.

Configuring mkv2vob for AVCHD output

Couple of options need to be set in the mkv2vob Configuration tab to enable the AVCHD output.

1. Set the Output type as AVCHD – Disc. Note: There is also an option to use AVCHD – USB which is used for saving and watching AVCHD content on a USB disc. We have not tried this yet, but we have received reports that it is working well also. USB -AVCHD playback will covered with another guide on BitBurners.com in the near future.
2. In order to get the subtitles, tick the Load Subtitles from file. Note that the .SRT subtitle file name must be EXACTLY the same as the name of the .MKV video file. So if you have My_TV_series_episode_1.mkv you must also have My_TV_series_episode_1.srt.
3. There are two additional subtitle options to choose: Overscan Compensation and Large Subtitles. The Overscan compensation feature places the subtitles slightly higher in order to avoid them being cut of on some TV systems. Large Subtitles increases the size of the subtitle font. For my HDReady 32″ Samsung television I prefer to have the Compensation on and Large subtitles disabled. Try it out on your own system to see which is the best setting for you.
4. Set you Subtitle Language and Audio Language.
5. Video Transcoding should be left to automatic – mkv2vob will apply the re-encoding of the file if needed. The Transcoding Codec is x264 for AVCHD complicancy and best image quality. When recording the AVCDHD content on disc, there is no need for file splitting. Note: If you use the AVCHD – USB feature, the USB stick has to be formatted in FAT32 format with has a maximum file size limite of 4GB and therefore the splitting feature needs to be enabled.

Using mkv2vob

Using mkv2vob is very simple as it is only a matter of choosing the input file and defining the destination folder for the output

1. Click on Source file / Browse and point to your .MKV video file. Rememer to have the matching .SRT subtitle file in the same folder as the video.
2. Click on the Destination Folder / Browse and point the desired destination for the AVCHD output
3. Click Add File which adds the file to mkv2vob the queue, immediately processing the 1st file in the queue. As seen on the picture the test file subtitle_test.mkv is AVCHD compliant and only needs to be muxed with the subtitles into the AVCHD format. This process is very fast and takes only couple of minutes.

Burning the AVCHD disc with ImgBurn

After the mkv2vob has completed processing your video files, you will have the following directory structure in your destination folder:

D:\video_file_name\BDMV
D:\video_file_name\CERTIFICATE

The recording process for AVCHD or Blu-ray disc is not very different from regular DVD recording. In AVCHD / Blu-ray file structure there are two root level folders to record, and the file system must be set to UDF 2.50.

Perform the following steps:

1. Add folders ..\BDMV\ and ..\CERTIFICATE\ to be recorded
2. Under options choose File System UDF 2.50. Note that this change is persistent, and will be effective next time you start ImgBurn, unless reverted before that. Also be sure to have Recurse Subdirectories checked.
3. Optionally tick the Verify option of you want some security that the disc is readable.
4. Click the button to start recording
5. The ImgBurn may prompt you to auto correct file systems settings – accept the proposed change. It will also prompt you for a Volume Label, where you may enter a title for the disc if you wish.

Watch the recording process go, and after it is done you are ready to watch AVCHD/Blu-ray on your PlayStation 3. Just slip in the disc and the PS3 will recognize it as a video disc, and auto-start playback. Under Options menu (triangle) you can now enable/disable subtitles as desired.

Enjoy your AVCHD high definition video!

Preconditions

• mkv2vob software. Download from here and install to appropriate folder
• .MKV Matroska video file
• Optionally a matching subtitle file (.srt)

Using mkv2vob

While using tsMuxeR for converting .MKV files for PS3 one may have encountered files that have no audio or video playback, even though the file itself is accepted and the PS3 goes into the video playback mode as expected. In such cases the mkv2vob can solve the problem by transcoding the audio and/or video streams to a compabile format. mkv2vob is a front-end application for txMuxeR, Mencoder, BeSweet and a number of other audio/video conversion tools. It analyzes the files and automatically performs the required actions. It can even encode subtitles to the video stream.

Note on transcoding: Converting audio or video content from a lossy compression format to another always produces degrading in the audio or video quality. In some cases the difference is slight and neglectable, but the impact can also be quite severe, depending on how the conversion process is perfomed and the content itself.

Configuring mkv2vob

Before starting the conversion process, it is important to go through a few configuration options of the mkv2vob. Under the configuration tab you will find a few options to adjust.

• Preferred audio language defines the audio track to be used. If the chosen language audio is not found, the first audio track is used
• Set Video Transcoding to Automatic. Using this setting the mkv2vob will transcode if necessary, but only performs remuxing if the content is already in a usable format
• Choose your Preferred Subtitle Language. If the subtitle language differs from the language of the audio track, the subtitles will be encoded to the video. You can override this setting by forcing the mkv2vob to always encode subtitles. Subtitles can be included from a matching .srt subtitle file.
• File Splitting defines the target file size
• Output File Extension defines the extension of the resulting file. We have used the default .m2ts with success, but mkv2vob help suggests that .mpg would offer most playback compatibility. We have not tested the .mpg however. (Give it a try and post your experiences below!)
• The Transcoding Codec is an important setting as it defines the output quality and encoding speed. MPEG-2 is fast, but produces rather rought results at these bitrates for high definition content. x264 is the slowest, but should produce best quality. XviD (MPEG-4) should be somewhere in between these options in terms of quality and speed.

Starting the conversion

With the configuration set, the actual usage of mkv2vob is very easy and straight forward.

• Choose a Source File to be converted
• Choose a destination directory
• Click Add File to send the file into the processing list, and mkv2vob will immediately start the conversion.

Our example file here has a non-compatible video stream for PS3 usage, so the video needs to be transcoded. The transcoding process can be quite lengthy, especially if you have chosen the x264 codec and you have a lengthy video file so be patient. In case no transcoding needed, the mkv2vob remuxes the .MKV file very quickly – typically in just a few minutes.

After the conversion process has completed, you will have file with the chosen extension (see Configuration) that can be played in the PlayStation 3. Burn the file on a DVD or transport to PS3 using other mediums (USB stick or hard drive) and you are good to go!

From version 2.4.3 and up the mkv2vob also support AVCHD output with subtitles.

Author:3r1c
License: Freeware, donations accepted

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