How to Solve "Does VLC Play MKV or HD MKV Files" Issue on Mac and Windows?

The Best Solution to "Does VLC Play MKV", "Can VLC Play MKV" or "VLC Won't Play MKV"

Nov 21, 2014, Posted by Shirley White

Does VLC Play MKV Files?

From VideoLAN official website, we learn that MKV is really one of VLC Player supported video formats. Since MKV is a container format which can contain many tracks with different audio and video compression formats, many people are stuck with "VLC stuttering or choppy when playing HD MKV", "Can't hear the sound of MKV files at all" or "VLC just load MKV file all the time".

How to Make VLC Play MKV or HD MKV Well?

VLC Player No Sound Solution: Solution 1, Unmute your VLC Player; Solution 2, select Tools > Preferences menu to open Preferences dialog, select Audio on the left, and confirm Enable audio is checked. Then Click Output module drop-down button and try a different default.

MKV or HD MKV Skipping Solution: Select Tools > Preferences menu to open Preferences dialog, then select All at the bottom of the dialog, and then select Input/Codecs on the left. On the right of the dialog, in Advanced group, set the value of File caching to 1000.

MKV or HD MKV Choppy Solution: Try to disable hardware decoding. Go to Tools > Preferences menu, select Input/Codecs > Video codecs > FFmpeg. And then set the value of Hardware decoding to Disable in Decoding group.

A Universal Solution: Install appropriate codec pack. There are various free codec packs online which will allow us to decode and play MKV files. The disadvantage of this approach is that you have to download a lot of codecs but if you are only trying to play one type of video file. Another shortcoming is these codecs not always work well.

If all above solutions are not fit you or can't solve your issue, in this case, we highly recommend an ultimate and commonly used method to solve "VLC not playing MKV files" - convert MKV to VLC Player more compatible formats with Faasoft MKV to VLC Converter.

MKV to VLC Converter

As a professional MKV VLC Converter, Faasoft MKV to VLC Converter offers a wonderful solution to "VLC not playing MKV", "Does VLC play MKV" and "VLC won't play HD MKV files" etc.

Key Features of MKV to VLC Converter

  • Convert MKV or HD MKV files to VLC Player supported formats like MPEG, AVI, ASF, WMV, MP4, MOV, 3GP, FLV, MXF, etc;
  • Convert MKV, 720p MKV files and 1080p MKV files with AC3 codec or with 5.1 channels to VLC Player for playback smoothly;
  • Convert MKV or HD MKV with subtitles to VLC compatible formats in order to play MKV files successfully;
  • Convert any other video formats to enjoy them in VLC like Xvid, DivX, MOD, TOD, WTV, AVCHD, MTS, WebM, etc;
  • Convert almost all kinds of audio formats like MP3, WAV, AAC, AC3, FLAC, DTS, WMA, ALAC, APE, M4B, OPUS, VOC, CAF, AIFF, etc to VLC;
  • Convert any video to popular video and audio formats or convert any audio to famous audio formats;
  • Edit MKV files before conversion such as trim, crop, split, merge, adjust bitrate/sample rate/volume, change audio channel, and add effect/subtitle/watermark.

Convert MKV to VLC Formats

First free download and install MKV to VLC Converter on your Mac or Windows, and then launch it. Now just follow the step by step guide to convert MKV to VLC Player.

Step 1 Import MKV files
Just drag and drop MKV file to the main interface of the program to add MKV file. If you have several MKV files that you want to convert in batch, just drag the folder where the MKV files are to the software.

Step 2 Set output format
Click "Profile" drop-down button to select "Matroska Video (*.mkv)" as output format from "General Video" category. If your source file is HD, please choose output format from "HD Video" category.

Step 3 Convert MKV to VLC format
Now, simply click the big "Convert" button to start and finish MKV to VLC conversion with fast speed and high output quality.

Conclusion

After convert MKV to VLC more compatible formats, the following symptoms will be readily solved:

  • I'm having issues watching MKV files using VLC, halfway through, the sound is the fine but the picture is slowing and finally going pixilated and broken, I think it may be an issue with heat;
  • I used VLC to play one file end with MKV and this Error message came up "VLC does not support the audio or video format "h264". Unfortunately there is no way for you to fix this."
  • Since yesterday VLC won't play MKV files. When I open one MKV, it just loads forever.
  • I can't play HD MKV file using VLC player. VLC player says it doesn't have cook audio codec. So how can I play this file?
  • Playing MKV HD material is looking awful on my setup. I notice heavy blocks and stuttering when I play it on VLC;
  • I have heard that the VLC Player is one of the best open source media players out there, ESPECIALLY for HD Video files, so I must be doing something wrong. I cannot play MKV files without experiencing several problems, such as grainy pixilated images, skipping, freezing, stuttering or slow motion videos.