using -ovc copy is both better and much faster, as it avoids re-encoding the video …. also mencoder’s default settings for video encoding are designed around non-HD quality and internet streaming, and you’ll end up having to dink around. I’m sticking with -oac lavc and leaving it to re-encode to the default non-Dolby “DVD style” audio (2 x 48kHz) since I don’t have surround sound set up yet and the file sizes are about 10% smaller.

My goal is to get stuff to play on the Sony PS3 which has become our DVD player - it happily plays files from CD-R and DVD-R (and presumably BD-RE though the blanks are kind pricey :-) and it will play AVI’s in HDTV formats, but it does not (as of the latest PS3 OS build) speak Matroska and likely never will (Sony being pro-proprietary)

Maybe use best of both approaches, and modify the original to just have:

message(”Converting %s to %s.avi” % (filename, basename))
os.system(”mencoder %s -ovc copy -oac copy -o %s.avi” % (filename, basename) )

I realize that people tend to “think” in their favorite language, but isn’t using python for this sort of like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer?

#!/bin/bash
[[ -z "$1" ]] && echo “usage: $0 filename” && exit
mencoder $1 -ovc lavc -oac lavc -o `basename $1 .${1#*.}`.avi

#!/usr/bin/python
# Little script to depack Matroska file, and repack them
# in a AVI + subtitle format.

import sys
import os

def message(msg):
TAB—>print “=” * 78
TAB—>print “= %s” % msg
TAB—>print “=” * 78

def usage():
TAB—>print “Mastroka repacker script”
TAB—>print ” Usage: “+sys.argv[0]+ ” filename”

if __name__ == “__main__”:
TAB—>if len(sys.argv) TAB—>usage()
TAB—>else:
TAB—>TAB—>filename = sys.argv[1]
TAB—>TAB—>basename = filename[:-4]

message(”Unpacking file: %s” % filename)
os.system(”mkvextract tracks %s 1:temp_video.avi 2:temp_audio.ogg 3:%s.srt” % (filename,basename) )

message(”Repacking file: %s.avi” % basename)
os.system(”ffmpeg -i temp_audio.ogg -i temp_video.avi -vcodec copy %s.avi” % (basename) )

message(”Cleaning files”)
os.system(”rm temp_video.avi temp_audio.ogg”)

#!/usr/bin/python
# Little script to depack Matroska file, and repack them
# in a AVI + subtitle format.

import sys
import os

def message(msg):
print “=” * 78
print “= %s” % msg
print “=” * 78

def usage():
print “Mastroka repacker script”
print ” Usage: “+sys.argv[0]+ ” filename”

if __name__ == “__main__”:
if len(sys.argv) < 2:
usage()
else:
filename = sys.argv[1]
basename = filename[:-4]
message(”Converting file: %s” % filename)
os.system(”mencoder %s -ovc lavc -oac lavc -o %s.avi” % (filename,basename) )

./mkvtoavi
File “./mkvtoavi”, line 9
print “=” * 78
^
IndentationError: expected an indented block

And i am not really good with scriptprogramming. but it seems it’s something thats missing :( please reply to my email as soon as you can :)