Matroska Encoder Matroska like a Russian doll, is a container, able to store a variety of sub-formats. A popular container format supporting the latest codecs. Supported video encoders:

• H264, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or Advanced Video Coding (MPEG-4 AVC), is one of the most commonly used video formats, universal support,
• H265, also known as High Efficiency Coding (HEVC), MPEG-H Part 2. Typically is half of the filesize for same quality as h264,
• H266 (VVC) is the latest mpeg encoder, although playback support is limited,
• AV1 is the successor to vp9 and offers compression on a par with h266
• VP9 is a royalty free codec, AV1 should be chosen in its place.
• FFV1, archival lossless video codec,
• [copy no encode] can be used if the video is already in a compatible format and it is copied 1:1 over, saving re-encoding.

Extension: .mkv

Compression Options Being a container many encoding options are present for Matroska: H264, HVEC H265 and VP9, as well as the option to copy 1:1 (re-mux) an existing format (such as h264 in a .mp4 file) which copies video and audio without encoding. A quality slider chooses encoding quality, or bit rate, a drop combo below the slider offers 4 types of encoding (depending on encoder chosen):

• Constant Bit Rate a fixed bit rate is used through out encoding,
• Average Bit Rate like Constant Bit Rate except there is some encoding flexibility, for difficult parts a higher bit rate is used, overall though the bit rate averages out to the requested value,
• Constant Quality a desired quality is achieved throughout the encoding process, by varying bit rate, this is the recommended mode for most people.
• Lossless encodes video without loss of quality, expect end files to be large, test to ensure compatibility with various players.

Advanced options page offers Tuning for specific video types. GPU Encoding In addition to software encoders, there is the choice of using a GPU encoder (should a compatible graphics card be installed), with selections for Nvidia, Intel QSV and AMD. Hardware encoders typically will have less options, and have less quality than a software encoder, however they encode many times faster. If using a GPU encoder, combine with the DSP effect 'GPU Accelerated Decoding'. Audio A multitude of audio formats are available to be chosen, with the option also to copy 1:1 from source if the audio is already in a correct format. If re-encoding audio, on the advanced page is an option to normalize volume.