How to Remux your MKV files into MP4 files with Little to No Encoding

I often get asked "How do you play MKV files on your iPhone or PS3?" or "How do you use the MKV files in Premiere Pro?" and the answer is...you can't. Not natively. Yes, iPhone has apps such as GoodPlayer that are capable of playing MKV files, however it is unable to play MKV files using hardware decoding, which means that the video will suck as it'll be choppy, especially as the majority of the time, it would be playing HD content.

Please note that we use "Scene" as a nickname for the standard MKV TV encode that you may find on the internet, convert to or something else.

The problem?

The "MKV" container is not compatible with these devices or software. This is mostly because it was designed as a "can contain all" container, including codecs that are not compatible with the devices so in most cases, it is just easier to block it off.

The solution?

For most cases, you can simply change the container to "MP4", which is more limited for what it can contain, but is compatible with pretty much everything out there.

 You cannot simply just change the file extension from .mkv to .mp4.

Why does this work?

A video file contains tracks. Usually, these tracks consist of 1 video track, 1 audio track and sometimes, 1 subtitle track.

The codecs used for the usual mkv are h264 for video and ac3 for audio. These are allowed in both mkv and mp4, thereby allowing you to simply "take them out of one, and stick them in another." The codecs may be different.

Please note that all iDevices are incompatible with AC3 audio in mp4 containers. You will need to convert the AC3 to AAC, which is detailed later. 

How do I do it?

There are a few ways to do this. Some require you to do it manually, others less so. At the bottom, there's a short list of software that can help you accomplish this. I can do a guide for these if I am requested to do so, but here is what I have found one of the easiest ways to do it, especially because this program is awesome enough to be able to do it in batch.

Changing from Apache MPM Prefork to Apache MPM Worker on Virtualmin in a post-install environment

On one of the sites I administrate, we have recently been experiencing some problems keeping it online when it had hundreds of people on it at once. I was told that Worker will run the site far more efficiently than Prefork, so we decided to try it.
After doing some research and trial and error, this is what I have come up with. Please note that this was done on an Ubuntu Server and may require slightly different procedures for CentOS and other OSes. Please also note that this is the experience off one install, as I have not extensively tested it. Experiences may vary and as such, there may be things missing that could apply to you.
While the actual process of changing a server from Prefork to Worker is literally a single line, you must first ensure it is compatible.

Ensuring Compatibility

 There are two main things you must do to ensure that your server is compatible. The first is simply to ensure that all of your virtual servers are not set to run on mod_php, but rather cgi or fastcgi.
You can find, and change, this under each virtual server, where Server Configuration > Website Options > PHP script execution mod. You must ensure it is set to either CGI wrapper or FCGID.

Worker is also incompatible with a few Apache directives for PHP. These are php_flag, php_admin_flag, php_value, php_admin_value. You must ensure that these are either removed or commented out of all configuration and htaccess files.

Prior to doing this, it would be a good idea to change to your root account in SSH.

A good way to find the files would be to use grep. I have provided the command for this in the example. There are most likely other, better, ways to find and fix the files, but here's a good way as, while it is fairly long winded, it'll help ensure no problems sneak up on you after switching.

First, cd to your public_html directory and run this command:

grep -E -r --include="*.htaccess" "php_flag|php_admin_flag|php_value|php_admin_value" *


It will display a list of all the mentions of any of the directives, so you may find some files mentioned more than once. You will need to go to and edit each one and comment out all the lines that are displayed. Sub-domains can be done all at once by using cd to "domains" folder, and performing the same command.

You'll need to repeat this for each user that you have on your system. If your site needs these overrides, you will need to find other ways of performing them, such as custom php.ini files.

Now, do the same to all the sites' Apache configuration files. This should be far quicker as I only needed to do it to my top-level domains and main apache2.conf file.

To do this, cd to /etc/apache2/ and perform this command:


grep -E -r --include="*.conf" "php_flag|php_admin_flag|php_value|php_admin_value" *


Repeat the same processing of commenting out the lines with these files. Files within sites-enabled are symlinks of files within sites-available, so you only need to change the ones in sites-enabled.

Installing Apache MPM Worker

An OS's package software should solve the dependencies automatically, and as such, you can switch them over with a single line.

sudo apt-get install apache2-mpm-worker

It should inform you of something that is close to the following:

The following packages will be REMOVED
  apache2-mpm-prefork libapache2-mod-php5
The following NEW packages will be installed
  apache2-mpm-worker

Enter "Y", and it will automatically stop the Apache service, uninstall Prefork, install Worker and attempt to start the Apache service again.

If you encounter any errors here, simply fix them (they will most likely be caused by errors similar to those we prevented above) and try to start the service again by doing the following:

sudo service apache2 start

Issues

It is worth mentioning that, as a foot note, I discovered an unexpected issue when doing this where our "Registered Only" plugin stopped working due to cases. It was fairly easy to fix, however. It is recommended to test your site out thoroughly on a developmental server before pushing the changes out to a production server.

It is also worth noting that you may be required to manually change the PHP Script Execution Mode (in Website Options) to FCGId for every domain you create.

Review: Doctor Who: The Power of Three

The final Life, Doctor Who and Combom non-spoiler review for Series 7 Part 1


The episode starts out with a comparison between life with The Doctor (containing some pretty short but funky music) and real life.

"Every time we flew away with The Doctor, we just became a part of his life. But he never stood still long enough to be part of ours."

It serves as a great explanation of the episode in case no one has seen the trailer, but besides that, the pre-titles sequence is rather pointless.

Having said that, the episode picks up straight after the titles again, which could be considered a bit of a disappointment again (at least for us males this time), by having Brian return to inform the Ponds of the "invasion of the very small cubes", where we are comforted by The Doctor being on top of a children's playground. Brians return doesn't just seem as trivial as that, where he actually begins of help, if only for a bit of humour early on.


Skipping on a few minutes, We are shortly introduced to the idea of the cubes all being the exact same, something which I find to be astonishingly hard to do. Billions of cubes, all being "not a molecule different" from each other. How impossible is that! After this though, we get the magnificent return of UNIT.

UNIT's return is, for some, long long overdue. Especially because, if for no other reason, we'd like to see how 11 would react to them. And he reacts beautifully. Given the return of UNIT, we also need a leader for them. This takes place in the form of Kate Stewart. Stewart is a character I'm sure we've all been waiting for, especially the classic fans.

One of the main problems with doing a story like this is making the boring bits interesting. We have a few cameos that I rather enjoyed here, such as the return of BBC News (I know, odd but a joyous feeling that), and celebs like the Alan Sugar and Professor Cox. This story does the "filling in" rather well, even if it does feel a little blank or possibly repeated from things such as Pond Life. The Doctor's restlessness is something that is once again featured, more prominently this time showing how much he can do and how bored he can get with normal life in just an hour. And his ability to keep track of the number of "keepy ups" helps with the argument about him not knowing his age.

Of course, The plot does pick up soon after this though. And his "This planet, these people are very precious to me." short speech definitely gives us that "Here we go" feeling, though I'm not sure it's as epic as we first imagined it when we saw the trailer. The way the cubes are handled and acts are brilliant, even adding a little bit of humour.

The actual plot of the episode is very much brilliant. Or would be very much brilliant if there were more things explained. For example, we have a new villain introduced to us, that The Doctor already knows of. I personally like things to be explained to us, but I feel they skimped out on a few things this episode. Fairly similar to the Toglafane.

The build-up to the end is rather magnificent. A lot of mystery and danger. But having said that, I find the ending solution feeling a tad rushed and short, probably another downside to only having 42 minutes rather than a full hour.

Having said that, this episode also has a clear purpose, and that is setting up for the finale of The Ponds, especially from a few magnificent scenes between the duo, trio and the "quadruple-o" that show off the joy they have for each other, despite the difficulties.

Acting wise, the episode is as great as ever, though the enemy of the episode feels very underused. Matt Smith carries his usual insanity, while Amy and Rory are their ever lovable selves. The only real new character we must see is Kate Stewart. Played by Emma Redgrave, she does given the impression of a very likeable leader, though one or two of her lines didn't help her.

Overall really, I'd rate the episode an 8/10.

Review: Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy

Another Life, Doctor Who and Combom non-spoiler review:

After, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship caused many people to be a bit disappointed (though I still say I liked it), A Town Called Mercy, written by Toby Whithouse, should be your pick-up of the series, simply because, it's unlike Dino in so many ways.

The plot of the episode as a whole is far slower, despite being spread across a larger time period, (ie. around 24 hours rather than 6), also allowing for scenes that you'd expect to see from a western. But there are most certainty less elements to this episode (probably why this review is so short). It also does feel a lot slower, especially after Asylum and Dinosaurs.

What may bother some people in this episode is the way that Whithouse seems to have gone through a lot of westerns, or maybe none at all, and picked up a few clichés from the theme. The entire episode is practically full of them, be it from a stand-off at mid-day, or a town beginning to turn against itself. Though it's usually up to the individual viewer as to whether this bothers them, personally, most of them didn't bother me that much, but one or two did irk me. On the other hand though, some may be excited that it's Doctor Who's turn to do these things.

Having said that, the story does make complete sense, without needing to suspend knowledge, as some had to for Dinos. It also includes a little bit of humour, but for the majority of the episode's last half, the tone of the episode is much darker. Especially on The Doctor's end.

The Doctor's actions in the episode are probably the most scariest of the episode, despite everything that is discovered. Was The Doctor right to kill Solomon in the previous episode? It's his actions in this episode that may cause the viewer a bit of distress. Amy, however, shows what the true purpose of a companion is. Again. Having said, The Doctor's scene later on does somewhat make up for his actions. It does give us a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

The acting of both the regular cast and the guest members of the cast was perfect, be it from pretending to be someone else to persuading the town (with a quick hint of a western accent in there).

The episode was filmed on-location in an already built town in Spain, so they are as you'd expect, perfect, as they have been used in more than a hundred films previously. They really make it work when you can go off to another country to film, and make it slot right in very well with the story. Likewise, the costumes are also great.

The music is something I must point out in this episode. Unlike the previous one, we have new and obvious tracks in this episode. The contrast between the music and the speech and SFX works so much better here as you can actually hear the pieces that are not just I am The Doctor replays/variations. On which note, I loved the I am The Doctor in the West variation, though it was a bit short. And the music towards the end is almost heart-breaking.

And on the note of the sounds, I found the voice of the Gunslinger to be nice and creepy, suiting the purpose really well.

As another contrast to Dinos, there is almost no CGI during this episode, besides from a couple of small ones. Instead, it's mostly real effects. And even then, there's very few. It works rather well actually by allowing more time for those precious dramatic scenes.

As an overall, I would rate this episode 7.5/10. But I'm sure other people's will vary.

Review: Doctor Who: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Poster for Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

This was done as part of my non-spoiler preview reviews for Life, Doctor Who and Combom, and as such it steers clear of any spoiler-y content in the episode.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. About as literal a title for an episode as you can get.

Moffat has already said that the new series episodes will be far more stand-alone from each other and be far more like block-busters and he wasn’t kidding.

Chris Chibnall

I have said this several times already.  Whatever Chris Chibnall (the writer of this episode) was smoking while writing it, I want some. This episode is one of the stranger ones of the series, and that works really well.

The pre-titles sequence to this episode is extremely similar to the The Pandorica Opens cold open. We begin off in Egypt 1334 B.C., directly after The Doctor saves Queen Nefertiti’s people where he proceeds to “pick her up” after receiving a message. We see both Earth 2367 A.D and the African Plains in 1902 A.D.

The Gang

The concept of “One story companions” that we saw back in the 2009 specials are further explored here. As you have seen, Amy and Rory are dropped off on Earth after the events of Asylum of the Daleks again so we see The Doctor on his own again. But, this time, we see The Doctor pick exactly who he wants as a companion (for one of the 3 newbies anyway) on how much they’re required. He saw he was against dinosaurs? Lets pick up a hunter to help. I felt that this worked rather well throughout the episode, however for some, it may draw attention away from the 5 episodes that are very much centred around the Ponds. Personally, I felt that this is a fairly good thing and I’ve always enjoyed it when others join, even if it’s just for one episode.

In a similar way to this, we also see the concept of how easily The Doctor could kidnap someone. The Ponds are brought into the story via a rather unique method. Materialisation. Think of Rose and the Dalek at the start of Parting of the Ways and apply that to Amy, Rory and Brian. Wait…Brian?

Brian is Rory’s dad. He’s just round to fix the bulb. He only goes to the post office and to play golf. The Doctor was really his “so clever and so utterly stupid” at this stage, that I had to laugh a lot, so I won’t reveal that to you. But I do feel a little disappointed in The Doctor’s actions towards Brian even after this throughout the episode.

But the Ponds. Amy begins to grow more as a companion as she begins to use skills she has picked up from The Doctor, despite the 10 month gap from her adventures during Asylum of the Daleks, and started to pick up one or two traits from his previous regeneration. I’m a little disappointed at the lack of Rory though, especially as it introduces his dad. But when you only have 45 minutes and you’re introducing 3 new characters (and those are just the ones on the good side), the regular ones sometimes needs to take a backseat and so, Rory is reduced to having an argument with the robots over manners. For now. All the same though, it does give a very slight rushed feel to certain aspects of it.

The other two characters that are introduced are Queen Nefertiti and John Riddell. Described as The Doctor himself as “just people, not Ponds”. These are not designed as companion replacements, however they work very well. They all feel important, but not too important that they over-take the main companions.

 We see Queen Nefertiti (Riann Stelle) as one of The Doctor’s “famous people that he’s met”, who Amy practically fangasms over. John Riddell (Rupert Graves) is the opposite type of character in this respect. One of those who thinks he left a legacy. Despite this, the two work very very well together, despite there being a bit of sexual tension at the beginning. Both are very open to violence if need be and are strong minded.

On the other side, we have Solomon, played by David Bradley. He’s another character who has met The Doctor before. He’s a very unlikeable character who will go far enough to use violence just to stop The Doctor asking questions and killing just to make a point. His two robots caused a fair few laughs, however, with a concepts of manners and being grumpy.

But with the Spaceship hurtling towards Earth and the Human Race preparing missiles to send at it, what can The Doctor do with 6 hours?

For the sake of saving the best things till last: there are, however, two failings that I feel about the episode. One of these is the title sequence. You’ve all seen Asylum of the Daleks’ title sequence. Well, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is pretty much the exact same, with a very slightly greener feel to it and different textured logo and episode information. I find that a disappointment after the massive build up given to us about it.

Excellent CGI 

And the other failing would be the scene right at the end. Without going into it in detail, I felt that the photoshop jobs on them were exceedingly poor. Previews only show us these in fairly low resolution (when compared with things like 1080p) so either I could be seeing things and be wrong about it. Or, as I fear, if I could see it on low quality, then it will be fairly obvious when showing it. For having such great CGI throughout the episode, it’s a little disappointing to see a job that looks like a fan who’s crap at it did it.

Exposed on a beach? Not as thrilled

The plot of this episode is great. We have multiple problems with a solution for each of them. Rest assured that the episode is not like Let’s Kill Hitler. The dinosaurs are a fairly a key part of the episode, from causing The Doctor more than enough interest to causing them problems and solutions. While we have a great overall problem that’s revealed just a few seconds from the start, we receive the main problem to that fairly close to the solution. This is probably the best way because, IMHO, the solution was very obvious if I thought about it so the show would have needed to get there before us.

But having said that, I believe that the solution is epic enough to make up for it regardless. I’m also very glad that it came from Brian. Sure, that’s predictable. But totally worth it.

There’s also a few scary moments in it, such as having a baby T-Rex, with lots of large sharp teeth, between your legs. But it’s clear that this episode is not meant to be primarily scary. A good episode for young children who don’t like the really scary episodes.

Balls

Also, Chibnall includes a few innuendos (look at the teasers for some examples) or other sex related things. I counted at least 5 of these throughout the episode. Most of these involve either Riddell (when he’s talking about those “two women”) or Nefertiti. Or, like most, with both of them. Be it “balls”, “big weapon” or “spanking”. They’ll be something.

I’m rather worried by The Doctor’s actions at the end of the episode, as we can see what happens when he travels alone, despite having FIVE companions with him this time. This could be a constant theme throughout this series. We have all seen the trailer from episode 3 where his actions are called into question too.

But Matt Smith still played him perfectly, if it’s sticking his tongue out, facial expressions or a croaky throat. Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan also worked brilliantly, despite not being together as much as you might have hoped. But they’re like usual. What about the new actors in this episode?

Well, I’m sure you all hate people simply saying “They’re great” just because it’s Doctor Who as much as I do, but again, I didn’t notice anything wrong. And if you don’t notice things wrong, then it’s pretty great really.

Murray Gold’s music is extremely similar. I don’t pay attention to music as much as most people do, but I didn’t notice anything new. The music is fairly quiet except for the few bits where I am the Doctor and its variants plays, and one or two other miscellaneous parts. Though the section when the dinosaurs are revealed is new. In other words, it’s just as good as it normally is.

But the best sides of the episode would be two things. One; Chibnall’s writing. He follows on from his previous writings rather well and keeps the insane, funny and extravagant plot lines while keeping the overall serious of a ship that’s either going to crash into Earth or going to be blown up. And the revelations about it increase that all the more.

Riding the Triceratops

The other is the wondrous CGI in the episode. Be it, if the Doctor is stroking a Triceratops, riding on it, or if it is returning a certain physical object. The interaction between real things and the dinosaurs is extremely realistic, despite the camera movements and other factors. Also, the spaceship looks very unique and amazing.

So when you combine these two things to have the ending scene with Brian, it just feels superb. I bet every Brit wishes they could do it. (You’ll have to watch it to find out!)

Overall, I would rate this 7.5 out of 10. Most things work fairly well but a couple of things let it down.

Welcome to my Review Blog!

Hello all!

This is my first post of my new blog. This blog is designed to be focused on my thoughts of TV shows and computer programs. Occasionally, I may review other things too. I'm mostly doing this because I would like to practice so it becomes far easier for me to do.

Most TV shows are, by now, either well into their seasons or almost over, so I'm only going to focus this on new seasons of shows. I'll also post reviews of things that I've already done.

If you have any questions, I'm available on Twitter.

Cheers.