Endless Paradigm

Ok so I have my 720p mkv that I want to convert into something like a wmv.
I never converted mkvs before so I just put it into total video converter and placed the settings I want. was taking forever. So I got Xilisoft mkv converter and it is currently converting it. But it is taking forever. It's at 4% and says 12 hours and 30 mins remaining.

Just wondering if mkvs really are harder to convert and if theres a way I can speed this up.

Sorry if this is a dumb question. Just never really converted a mkv.

720p will probably take some time, especially if your CPU isn't that good.
It's usually encoding (WMV output) which takes the most time, not the decoding (the MKV input).  Does the converter offer any WMV speedup settings?
You may also get some speedup if you don't need it to be 720p, through downscaling.

ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:720p will probably take some time, especially if your CPU isn't that good.
It's usually encoding (WMV output) which takes the most time, not the decoding (the MKV input).  Does the converter offer any WMV speedup settings?
You may also get some speedup if you don't need it to be 720p, through downscaling.

Ok. Well I need it to be 720p. You think I should convert it as a mp4 or m4v instead? And I didn't see any WMV speedup setting.

Why do you need to convert it in the first place?

My new Zune HD :)
I'm gonna be using its TV out a lot.

I'm converting to mp4 now instead of wmv and it's converting SO much faster.
thanks!
But I still have to wait 5 hours.

What's your CPU?

Urgh, it's a Zune...  well, I would've suggested remuxing, which is really fast (takes a few minutes at the very most) but I doubt it'll work cause it's a Zune (MS includes a sh!tty H.264 decoder to try to get people to use WMV (even though H.264 baseline > WMV advanced, lol)).
Nevertheless, you could give it a shot if you want.  If you want to try remuxing MKV into MP4, download Yamb (it's a crappy program that crashes a lot, but you should be able to work it), select the make MP4 option, drag your MKV in, untick everything except the video and audio track you want, then click Start.  See if the outputted MP4 works on the Zune - it probably won't, since no-one encodes in baseline profile, unless they're targeting iPods.

Otherwise, I'd suggest an x264 based front-end, something like Xvid4PSP (dunno if there's anything better) and select one of the faster profiles.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.
My CPU isn't very good as I'm on my laptop.

I already removed everything from the mkv except the audio and video track. I removed all the subtitle tracks since they sucked.

When using Yamb I get this error
Gonna try XviD4PSP now

I find that Avidemux converts things very well. I can convert a 720p mkv anime ep in about an hour to an hour and a half. Avidemux isn't the easiest thing to use, though. You got to pick your video codec and audio codec to use, and to resize the vid ya got to add a Filter to the vid that'll resize the vid to a smaller size, but it's very good at converting vids.

Oh, and it'd probably take 2-4 hours to convert The Hurt Locker (based on the speed of my 2.2GHz P4 processor).

Does MP4Box.exe exist in the same location as where Yamb is installed?  Hmm, by the looks of it, it's relying on mkvextract.exe which I don't think it comes with...

If that's the case, you can try MKVExtract GUI, open the MKV in there and pull out the video and audio streams into a .h264 file and a .ac3 file.  AC3 is pretty much definitely not going to work unfortunately though.  Since muxing is fast, I'd just then pull the .h264 file into Yamb, select the added video stream and click Properties.  Enter in the correct framerate, and hit Ok, then start making the MP4.  If that all works fine, see if it works on the Zune.  If it does, then perhaps convert the audio over.  If it doesn't, then don't bother with this method.

What's your CPU exactly anyway?  And also, length of that clip?  I seem to be getting around 100fps on my Core 2 Q6600 @2.4GHz on some random 720p video I have handy (x264 --preset veryfast) so if you're using a weaker dual core Core 2 CPU on your laptop (if it's a Core 2), around 24fps shouldn't be unrealistically achievable, which should take about as long as the video is...