Files with mkv extension are videos in the open source Matroska Multimedia Container format. You can open it and play it with pretty much every multimedia player.
Software that open mkv file
MKV file extension - Matroska multimedia container video file
What is mkv file? How to open mkv files?
File extension mkv is used for Matroska Multimedia Container, an open standard free Container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks inside a single file.
MKV file format is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows. Matroska is similar in conception to other containers like AVI, MP4 or ASF, but is completely open source. Matroska file types are MKV format for video (and audio) and mka format for audio-only files.
Matroska is using EBML language. EBML is acronym for Extensible Binary Meta Language. EBML specifies a binary and octet (byte) aligned format inspired by the principle of XML. EBML itself is a generalized description of the technique of binary markup. Like XML, it is completely agnostic to any data that it might contain. Therein, the Matroska project is a specific implementation using the rules of EBML: It seeks to define a subset of the EBML language in the context of audio and video data (though it obviously isn't limited to this purpose). The format is made of 2 parts: the semantic and the syntax. The semantic specifies a number of IDs and their basic type and is not included in the data file/stream.
Updated: March 16, 2025
The default software associated to open mkv file:
Company or developer:
VideoLAN Project Team
Very popular multimedia player developed for Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, Unix, and various other operating systems and platforms.
VLC can playback many of the video formats (AVI, MKV, OGV, WMV, ASF, MOV...) and audio formats (MP3, AAC, M4A, OGG, FLAC...) as well as support of subtitles for video. It can also be used as a streaming server and multimedia transcoder.
Company or developer:
VideoLAN Project Team
VLC media player for Mac is popular multimedia player that supports variety of audio and video formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and streaming protocols.
Company or developer:
VideoLAN Project Team
VLC media player for Android is a free and open source multimedia player that plays most multimedia files as well as network streaming protocols on smart devices with Google Android operating system.
List of software applications associated to the .mkv file extension
Recommended software programs are sorted by OS platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android etc.)
and possible program actions that can be done with the file: like open mkv file, edit mkv file, convert mkv file, view mkv file, play mkv file etc. (if exist software for corresponding action in File-Extensions.org's database).
Hint:
Click on the tab below to simply browse between the application actions, to quickly get a list of recommended software, which is able to perform the specified software action, such as opening, editing or converting mkv files.
Software that open mkv file - Matroska multimedia container video file
Programs supporting the exension mkv on the main platforms Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile. Click on the link to get more information about iSkysoft Video Editor for open mkv file action.
