How to Convert MKV files to AVI format

How to Convert MKV files to AVI format
AVI and MKV are not formats, they are containers that can store audio, video tracks and subtitles.

Many people who download a file with the extension MKV will often try to play it back with video player software they have installed on their systems. Most of time this doesn’t work. And if then want to convert these mkv files into avi files, how to do that?
For this situation, I think you should make sure three things.

Question 1: What is MKV?
The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks inside a single file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows. Matroska is similar in concept to other containers like AVI, MP4 or ASF, but is entirely open in specification, with implementations consisting mostly of open source software. Matroska file types are .MKV for video (with subtitles and audio), .MKA for audio-only files and .MKS for subtitles only.

Question 2: What is AVI?
Audio Video Interleave, known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. Like the DVD video format, AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video, although these features are seldom used.

Question 3: How to convert mkv to avi easily?
An MKV file is a Matroska file. Matroska is an open source container format. It is an alternative to the popular AVI and MP4 formats and it also surpasses them in many areas.

Instead of using audio/video converters, especially those ones that are promoted by spam, you need to extract audio, video tracks and subtitles from MKV files and then mux them into AVI. This lossless process can be done with freeware AVIDemux.

Please note that MKV is a much newer container, so it supports much more features than AVI. If you can't remux MKV to AVI, you will need to use an audio/video converter. Note that you will lose some quality when using it.

Question 4: Why do I need to convert MKV to AVI?
Some hardware players do not support MKV files.
If you have problems playing MKV on your computer, just install a good freeware player like VLC or SMPlayer.

MKV is a flexible, open standard video file format that has quickly become the preferred file extension for high definition video on the Internet. It natively supports features like alternate audio tracks, multilingual subtitles and chapter points, as well as rich metadata authoring including cover art, ratings, descriptions and more. These features made it the perfect choice for DivX Plus™ HD video, allowing us to create an ideal viewing experience.

So what should you do if you've got a lot of wonderful MKV videos and want to watch MKV on your iPad? You have to convert MKV to any iPad compatible format by professional audio/video converter. Just don't use any low quality software from spammers who say that their software is professional, easy to use, gives excellent quality... Use your brain and test software before buying.

There is no need to use DivX when you can use x264, a free open source h.264 codec that gives excellent quality. Note that h.264 is a proprietary standard, so hardware manufactures pay for it.

Also note that there are 15-30 converters and DVD rippers that are actively promoted by spam. Most of them are just complete clones except for names and logos, which are developed by the same Chinese company. The quality of these products is very low. Besides they don't support users or give refunds.

Also note that instead of converting videos (and thus losing quality) in many cases you can remux them. For example, you can extract h.264 video and AAC audio from h.264/AAC .mkv file and put them into .MP4 file without losing quality and lots of time. Of course not all players will be able to play such videos, but it is highly recommended to avoid re-compression where possible.

And don't use software from spammers. Most programs these days have free trials, so at least test "recommended" programs before buying.