Have troubles with playing MKV on Mac? Wondering how to play MKV on Mac? In this article, we are suggesting options for solving this problem.
The era of digital video has come imperceptibly. Indeed, it is difficult to remember the moment when new movies on CDs and DVDs began to outlive such well-known and familiar VHS videotapes.
Today, having a high speed of the Internet, you can watch movies on your computer online. But, in this case, there are also some limits: the film quality doesn’t always satisfy. It is not always possible to find the desired film. You must have a stable Internet connection, preferably with a high connection speed. Read this article, to learn How to Clean MacBook | Top 9 Methods (Both Air and Pro)
As a way out of this situation, many people download movies from the network for further watching offline. However, moviegoers suddenly had a new “pain” — the incompatibility of data formats and media players. How often do you see a notification stating that the format is not supported? Gadget-from-Apple owners are familiar with the problem of playing or opening MKV files on a Mac. What’s the matter and how to deal with it? Let’s figure it out.
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Table of Contents
What Is MKV And What’s The Problem With Playing MKV On Mac?
The MKV (Matroska Video File) extension is a video container format supported by several compression algorithms. The format is designed to store different types of multimedia content on your PC. MKV extension is a kind of universal format for storing various multimedia data, such as video films or music. It’s mainly used for high-quality video. MKV format has absorbed all the best from the containers available today.
However, many users have problems running MKV on their computers. Despite the huge number of file formats, not all media players are supporting them. This has touched the owners of gadgets on MacOS as well. For example, Mac users can’t play or watch MKV videos on Mac as MKV format is not supported by QuickTime Player.
Surely, it would be very helpful to install one player and view all video files with its help. However, new formats and software are regularly appearing and updating, so it’s unlikely to come up with a universal player (once and for all). Let’s take a closer look at how to open MKV files on Mac.
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How To Play MKV On Mac?
Almost any popular universal media player from a well-known developer today supports the MKV format. But the built-in tools of the Mac operating system still can’t open such files. What can be done here? Read this article on top 10 MMORPG like WoW to play in 2023
Install QuickTime Plugin For Playing MKV On Mac
Unfortunately, Apple didn’t add the ability to play MKV to the built-in Quick Time Player. If you want to play or open the MKV file on Mac, you need to download and install the necessary codecs.
The Perian plugin has become the standard for Mac video and audio codecs. After installing the plugin on Mac, you need to reboot the device and play MKV files easily.
Install MKV Player For Your Mac
Many of us prefer watching TV shows and movies on the computer, but this requires a good media player. One that supports all file formats with a user-friendly interface and lots of settings. If you don’t want to install Perian on your Mac, you can choose another alternative media player here that supports MKV video file format.
The most popular and functional players are:
VLC Media Player
Suitable for users who have switched from Windows and can’t get used to macOS. VLC has built-in support and doesn’t require the installation of additional components. It’s easy to download and install the program.
You need to visit the official page and download the player. After the installation is complete, you will be able to watch any MKV videos.
Visit: VLC Media Player
MPlayer And MKPlayer
These players have approximately equal features. They are free, but MKPlayer — MKV & Media Player is available right in the Mac App Store, so it’s easy to install without any special instructions or settings. In general, the player interface resembles QuickTime, but it supports many more formats.
Over a hundred media players and thousands of plugins have been developed. For each operating system, it is better to choose a program that matches the configuration and required options. It all depends on the installed OS. For playing MKV on Mac, the above ones are most suitable.
Visit: MPlayer
Convert MKV To Another Format
If your media collection contains many MKV files that you want to play or edit on Mac, you should convert them to a more popular and compatible format, for instance, MP4. Conversion is necessary if you need to change the codec, file size, change container. You can find out how to convert MKV to MP4 here.
Moreover, the MKV file is large and may cause an error when playing it on Mac. Therefore, converting MKV files to MP4 for playing on Mac seems to be the most practical solution.
When choosing video conversion software, you should pay attention to the conversion speed and the final video quality. In addition to endless converting possibilities, many services offer some video editing features. They provide numerous filters such as cropping and pasting, applying special effects, cutting, and many others.
However, if after converting the MKV file to another format or playing it on another MKV player for Mac, it doesn’t work, this is a clear sign that the MKV file is corrupted.
Conclusion
This article is dedicated to the highly popular MKV format and how to play MKV on Mac. Multimedia has always been one of the main features of the PC. During its era, it has generated quite a lot of standards, specifications, rules, formats, etc. But now another media format appears — MKV. Problems with opening certain files are quite common among PC users, and the MKV format is no exception.
If you have never dealt with such a multimedia format as MKV before, before playing it on your PC, you will need to either install a plugin, or use MKV player for Mac, or convert MKV to another format. Anyway, one thing is clear — playing a file with the .mkv extension is not a challenge. We wish you all the best and enjoy watching your favorite videos!
