How to Play MKV Files

If you encounter an .mkv file format you might find it difficult to play. We are basically talking about a Matroska extension. Matroska is a container format that is open source. It is a good alternative to the very popular MP4 and AVI file formats. To make it even better, there are even some areas that shows why mkv is better. In any case, let us see how you can play mkv files through this simple tutorial

In most cases the individual that downloads an MKV file will use any video player that they have installed to try and play it. It is needless to say that this does not usually work as you would not be here if it did. We have a lot of software that is capable of playing this file format but not all of them have the decoders you will require. We are talking about a container file system. This basically means that there are some streams that are contained in the file. If you do not have the good decoder you will not be able to play them.

All MKV files include an audio stream and a video stream. They are compressed and this is done with the use of an encoder. It you want to play the streams you will have to get a codec. A codec is simply a decoder. We can say that the streams in these MKV files are coded and you have to decode them in order for them to work right. Let us now think about how we can actually play the file format.

VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player is quickly becoming a very popular video player software and it should be. It is really great and capable of a lot of things other players are not. In our case, we are interested in MKV. VLC Media Player also features Matroska support. In most situations users will not need extra codecs to play MKV files with this player. If you use VLC, go to File and then Open File. Browse to the MKV file and click OK.

DirectShow Players

Every single computer user has some sort of DirectShow video player. The most common one is Windows Media Player. Most of these players are more than capable to play MKV files. The problem is that they rarely have any codecs installed. So, you probably understood by now that you need codecs. We recommend that you use this one as a first option:

Combined Community Codec Pack

It has a lot of codecs and most matroska variations will be supported by DirectShow players after you install. In the event that you are faced with RealVideo then you will also need THIS PLAYER. There are many possible players for Real Video but we have seen that this one is highly easy to use and it never posed any problem. You might also have Real Player installed on your computer. In this case you will not need Real Alternative.

Other Codec Packs

If you do not want to use VLC Player or basically a different video player than the one that is installed on your computer, you can try one of the several codec packs that exist. One is already mentioned above and you can also try:

K-Lite Codec Pack

XP Codec Pack

When Nothing Works

In the event that you tried everything but the MKV file simply does not work, then you will need to do something else. If nothing mentioned above worked, you will have to find out what codec was used in compressing the MKV file. We recommend Video Inspector.