Stream to 3D with MP4 output instead of MKV

Need help? Start with User FAQ & Troubleshooting. For conversion basics, see Video File Conversion. For advanced encoding settings, see FFmpeg options.

Recent versions of Stream to 3D have moved to MKV as the default file output format instead of MP4. This is because MKV has a couple of distinct advantages:

• Media players can read the 3D output MKV file as it is being generated. This is not possible with MP4. This MKV feature means that you can begin watching your 3D output file without having to wait for conversion to complete.
• The MKV container format supports a much wider range of codecs than MP4. This means that audio and other elements can be copied from the source video without them needing to be re-encoded — this is both faster and can provide better quality output.

However, there are media players out there that may require MP4 format (for example Bigscreen). Bigscreen does not appear to support MKV files and may also have some constraints on MP4, see below:

Bigscreen codecs that work (external reference)

A few minor configuration changes are required to Stream to 3D to output MP4 files instead of MKV files:

• In “Settings/Conversion”, change “Converted Type” to .mp4 instead of .mkv.
• In the “FFMPeg Options” field, find -c:a copy and change it to -c:a aac. This makes Stream to 3D convert audio to AAC (supported by MP4), rather than copying the input audio codec (which MP4 may not support).
• If you are using Bigscreen to view the MP4 file, it may help to set “Video Coding” to “High Efficiency (HEVC, H.265)”, as there can be issues with “Advanced (AVC, H.264)” for some Bigscreen MP4s (see the link above).

See screen shot below: