Note as of Jan 16, 2010: It's been several years since I've had to convert video using the methods in this article. A couple years ago, I had purchased a Popcorn Hour A-110 set top box which can play MKV files with H.264 video and any of a large number of audio codecs (and with 720p or 1080p resolution, too). Asking for help from me on any aspects of this guide will be pretty fruitless as I haven't had to deal with converting video files in such a long time.

Really, I won't be providing support for this guide, though I'll leave it up as it still seems useful to people. You'll be much better off going to an audio/video codec and conversion tools site.

As I promised earlier, I will post about how to convert an MKV container file with an H.264 encoded video and AC-3 encoded audio to an AVI container file with an XviD encoded video and, optionally, 2-channel MP3 encoded audio.

The MKV format makes a very good distibuting format, with the ability to have multiple audio streams and multiple subtitling streams, combined with the H.264 codec for high quality video. Unfortuntely, if you're like me, you have a DVD player that isn't able to play such files but can play XviD or DivX encoded video in AVI files (like my OPPO OPDV971H Player ) hooked up to a big-screen and an home theater audio system, but would wish to watch (or invite others to watch) that greatest and latest video that you've found on the internet, that's only available as an MKV file!

(I may have some errors in here. Feel free to comment to help with details or ask questions)