mkvtoolnix 1.0 is out :)

[Mosu]

Hey,

Finally! Here it is: mkvtoolnix 1.0

I've meant to release this for over a week now, but something always got in the way. But no longer After...

- nearly one year and ten months after joining the Matroska team on 2003-01-14,
- over one year and five months since the first public release on 2003-06-12,
- writing more than 62000 lines of code, documentation and examples,
- a LOT of bugs,
- as many bug fixes,
- way too many hours of coding, idling on IRC, writing mails and posts to various forums

... I've decided to call this release 1.0.

And I'm REALLY happy to have gotten this far. Because to be honest -- I don't do this for myself. If I was I would have stopped a long time ago, because the features that I want and need have been there for quite some time now. No, I work on this project for three reasons:

1. Fame,
2. Money,
3. becoming the Supreme Overlord of the Known Universe.

Less important reasons are:

1. I believe that Matroska is a great project, and that the multimedia scene needed such a container.
2. You ask for it Seriously. Your constant feedback (be it bug reports or feature requests) tells me what I've done wrong and what you need. I really prefer doing things that a lot of people can use over doing things only I might need. So everyone out there contributing to the project, coding for Matroska, sending patches, reporting bugs, nagging me about new features, providing sample files (!), sending a nice postcard or a nice cup from this year's European championship in Portugal (!!) -- a big THANKS from my side to you all. You keep the project going as much as I do.
3. I like coding in general, and I like coding on this container level in particular. It's fun

So what have I accomplished? Well, mkvtoolnix can handle a small number of different containers and flat file formats like

- AAC,
- AC3,
- AVI
- DTS,
- FLAC,
- Matroska
- MP3,
- Ogg/OGM,
- Quicktime/MP4,
- RealMedia,
- SRT,
- SSA/ASS,
- TTA,
- VobSubs and
- WAV.

It can deal with a number of different codecs, meaning it knows exactly how to put them into Matroska:

- AAC,
- AC3,
- DTS,
- FLAC,
- MP3,
- PCM,
- RealAudio,
- RealVideo (pretty much all versions),
- SRT,
- SSA/ASS
- TTA,
- different video formats,
- VobSubs,
- Vorbis

On top of that mkvmerge can handle attachments, chapters, tags, reorder tracks... There is a totally horrible GUI called mmg which is probably the reason for mkvtoolnix' success on Windows (even though I really, really don't like GUI programming). There's a tool that can get most of those tracks out of a Matroska file into other container formats again. And there's a tool for getting information on a per-element level from a Matroska file.

Quite some work, I assure you, but you know why I keep on doing this

Another round of thanks goes out to the "core" of the Matroska team and those who don't consider themselves a member of the team but who've done tremendous work nevertheless (/me waves to alexnoe ).

Where will I go from here? A few months ago I posted a "1.0 release plan", and I haven't changed my expectations since then. I will continue the 1.0 line with bug fixes only. I've started working on another code branch, often called 'trunk', which will result in a releast "1.2" next year. This is where new features will be implemented like support for MPEG1/2 video (already working on that,
good progress), support for native MPEG4, support for appending / concatenating files (already working on that with very good progress), partial redesign of mmg etc. The "1.0" release line will stay stable and (hopefully) mostly bug free.

And now to the usual links to...
... the home page:
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/
... the source code:
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkv...ix-1.0.tar.bz2
... the Windows binaries:
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkv...oolnix-1.0.rar

Binary packages for Debian, FedoraCore and SuSE have already been built and uploaded to the home page.

Here are the final changes between 0.9.7 and 1.0:
---------------------- cut -----------------------------
2004-11-10 Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
* mkvmerge: bug fix: The Matroska reader doesn't insist on having a default duration ( = FPS) for video tracks in the "AVI compatibility mode" ( = with the CodecID "V_MS/VFW/FOURCC"). This enables re-muxing of Matroska files created from MP4 files.

2004-11-05 Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
* mmg: bug fix: File names with non-ASCII characters were not working if mmg was compiled against a Unicode enabled wxWidgets.

2004-11-04 Moritz Bunkus <moritz@bunkus.org>
* mkvmerge: new feature: Added reading DTS from AVIs and from Matroska files.
* mkvmerge: bug fix: A variable initialization was missing which very recent gcc versions (3.4.2) did not like very much. Also fixed a small compilation bug.
---------------------- cut -----------------------------

You see, a couple of small bug fixes and small additions. Nothing major, and nothing to worry about.

That's it for tonight. Have fun

Mosu

[buzzqw]

thanks for your effort and time !!

my worst fear(? my english isn't so good) was Matroska would become a dead project, but i am very happy of Matroska (muxer...) and player (more or less) support.

I will suggest to use over and over.

Thanks again

a very happy muxer

BHH

[thana]

congratulations and a big 'thank you' from me too!

i believe mkvtoolnix is a big part of the reason, why matroska is where it is today. it made all those little (or sometimes big) things, where matroska is superior to other containers, so easy to use, that you are hard pressed NOT to use all of them. and i just like it to use a container that is "hack-free", even if it sometimes only makes a difference in my mind.

also i appreciate the separation in commandline-tools and a gui very much, i use them both on a regular basis. there's nothing more conveniant than setting up a batch file for 100+ files and letting mkvmerge do its job for the next hours. OTOH mmg is really fantastic for your everyday mkv-mux-job. and i don't agree that its bad designed (i've seen much worse ones).

i'm already excited about the features that version 1.2+ will bring us. if you need someone to test them don't hesitate to ask, i bet there are more than enough users here which would be glad to help you. and i will of course continue reporting bugs, but there really wasn't much to report the last months (a good sign for 1.0).

[Tuesday]

Big thanks to Mosu for all his hard work, if it wasn't for MMG i wouldn't be using matroska today - and that would be a shame as it is such a useful tool.

I can't code myself but i'm pretty sure its not easy so cheers for doing all the hard work for us!

[Teegedeck]

Yay! Let me express my heartfelt congratulations and thanks!

People like you breath life into ideas! I've always followed the development of mkvtoolnix with great interest and sympathy. The way you work closely together with the mkvtoolnix users is especially noteworthy. You've delivered working solutions to problems and feature requests on very short notice.

I hope to see you continue your work on mkvtoolnix - and maybe start other stuff - in that same wonderful spirit.

Thanks, Mosu!

[outlyer]

Once again, thank you for the many many hours you've spent in this thing

Let's hope you get fame and money. I'm not that sure about universe domination...

CONGRATULATIONS

[KpeX]

Congrats Mosu, and looking forward to future developments.

Your work should be an inspiration to other open-source / free software developers, especially your attention to user feedback and understanding of the value of the windows user-base.

[filewalker]

1.0 that's really very nice news!

Thanks mosu for your hard work.


Cu filewalker

[ssjkakaroto]

Congratulations Mosu
mkvtoolnix is a essential tool for me thx to all the effort you've put in it, i'm really looking forward to see how far it can go!
thx a lot m8

[JasonFly]

Thank you for all your work Mosu. I have followed the development of mkvtoolnix since approximately one year and it's amazing the things you've manage to create. There was Vobsub handling, aspect ratio, chapters and many many other features that I don't use but that some other people might.

mkvtoolnix has gone far beyond my expectations in terms of features and that deserve a big thank you.

[spolja]

[sterlina]

- nearly one year and ten months after joining the Matroska team on 2003-01-14,
- over one year and five months since the first public release on 2003-06-12,
- writing more than 62000 lines of code, documentation and examples,
- a LOT of bugs,
- as many bug fixes,
- way too many hours of coding, idling on IRC, writing mails and posts to various forums

great coder!! thanks!!

[GrEEk_OuTcAsT]

Thanks for your great program mosu. You did something more than awesome job.

[E-Male]

a well deserved 1.0

thx for all the work you put into this

[darkavatar1470]

I've been trying to get ppl use mkv for a long time,
and a 1.0 "stable" muxer would make it easier...

Big Thanks again for your hard work !

[Hiro2k]

Congratulations Mosu!!!

I've always apreciated all your hard work on these forums and I'm glad to have seen this code mature so quickly. You efforts are most apreciated by the entire comunity and we will always cheer you on.

This has already been said, but it needs to be emphesized!

Your work should be an inspiration to other open-source / free software developers, especially your attention to user feedback and understanding of the value of the windows user-base.

Thanks

[aaar9800]

I love you...

[CruNcher]

Congratulations to Mosu and the whole Matroska Team

[IgorC]

And what about supporting of container for H.264 (AVC1).

[Mosu]

Thanks for your kind words I really appreciate them.

from buzzqw:
my worst fear(? my english isn't so good) was Matroska would become a dead project, but i am very happy of Matroska (muxer...) and player (more or less) support.

You're quite right. We're a pretty small team, and if we hadn't been that committed Matroska could have died quickly. But I think we've established Matroska in the community now, so I don't really fear it dying any time soon.

I will suggest to use over and over.

Great Spread the word

from thana:
also i appreciate the separation in commandline-tools and a gui very much, i use them both on a regular basis. there's nothing more conveniant than setting up a batch file for 100+ files and letting mkvmerge do its job for the next hours.

Oh my God. 100+ files? You're insane But other than that I couldn't agree more

The separation is probably more the result of an evolutionary coding process. Before mkvtoolnix I hadn't done any serious GUI work, so doing a command line version first (or doing only a command line version) was the way to do. Around version 0.6 Florian Wagner joined us and wrote the first version of mmg. Unfortunately he was short on free time, so I decided to dive into it and do the whole thing myself.

Looking back that was a very important decision because it opened mkvtoolnix for a much larger user base.

OTOH mmg is really fantastic for your everyday mkv-mux-job. and i don't agree that its bad designed (i've seen much worse ones).

I'm not saying that mmg is total crap (who would say something like that about his own baby?), but it's pretty overloaded with functionality. It doesn't have an online help, its dialogs are sometimes not self-explanatory (e.g. the fact that stuff in the chapter editor is NOT copied into the output file)... Maybe it's an average-to-good GUI, but I simply don't know enough about usability and writing GUIs to make it a 'very good' one.

i'm already excited about the features that version 1.2+ will bring us. if you need someone to test them don't hesitate to ask, i bet there are more than enough users here which would be glad to help you.

Sure, I will. I have to get three things done before I can create a first tets version that does file/track concatenation:

1. proper handling of chapters/tags,
2. handling of some evil cases like concatenating two VobSub files while concatenating two AVIs (e.g. you've downloaded something including external sub files and don't want to mux to Matroska first and THEN append but skip the first muxing step),
3. add that stuff to mmg

This time I'll definitely post a couple of test versions here before releasing 1.2.

and i will of course continue reporting bugs, but there really wasn't much to report the last months (a good sign for 1.0).

That was kinda my goal for 1.0

from Tuesday:
I can't code myself but i'm pretty sure its not easy

Well, coding in general is probably as hard as doing well in other things like sports, arts etc. It's mostly how much you 'practice' and try to improve yourself. A certain level of understanding for abstraction, technical issues and mathematics does help, of course.

As for mkvtoolnix: Most of the stuff I deal with is not really hard in the sense that it requires genius to pull it off. Most is basic craftmanship/good engineering or whatever you want to call it. Hard work interfacing to libraries, findign out about file structures, thinking of good ways to implement this feature etc. But there are tough spots as well. For me the 'hardest' part is probably writing documentation (both for the code so that I or someone else knows what I wanted to do and for the usage of the programs themselves).

from Teegedeck:
I hope to see you continue your work on mkvtoolnix - and maybe start other stuff - in that same wonderful spirit.

I won't leave mkvtoolnix anytime soon At the moment I don't see other projects that I find as interesting as Matroska. Maybe when we all find the motivation to really start to work on our gstreamer&Matroska based video editor I'll pour as much time into that as I did with mkvtoolnix.

from outlyer:
Let's hope you get fame and money. I'm not that sure about universe domination...

What! No domination!??

from KpeX:
Your work should be an inspiration to other open-source / free software developers, especially your attention to user feedback and understanding of the value of the windows user-base.

I have to admit that I often curse about Windows and my decision to support it. But that's only because there are a lot of subtle differences in how software works on Windows compared to Linux (compiled from the same source). On the other hand I learned a LOT making mkvtoolnix cross-platform compatible, and all in all I consider this to be a win for myself.

from darkavatar1470:
I've been trying to get ppl use mkv for a long time, and a 1.0 "stable" muxer would make it easier...

My thoughts exactly. That's why I'll continue the 1.0 branch with bug fixes. I don't expect to have many releases, but we'll see New features will only be included in the upcoming 1.2 branch so that 1.0.x will be as stable and as bug free as I can manage.

from aaar9800:
I love you...

/me blushes

from IgorC:
And what about supporting of container for H.264 (AVC1).

That's definitely on my TODO list. I guess that transcoding it from AVI would be very easy but not the 100% "correct" way to do it. We definitely have to figure out how to do it correctly when reading it from MP4 files. Closely related is the subject of "native MPEG4 in Matroska" -- the never ending issue of how to timestamp B frames and adding support for that in the playback applications.

I won't forget it, but it's not right on top of my TODO list either.

Ok, enough text from me today. Again a heartfelt "thanks!" for your kind words.