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Windows 10 supports MKV, HEVC out of the box

Written by James Delahunty @ 05 Nov 2014 7:15 User comments (4)

Windows 10 supports MKV, HEVC out of the box

Microsoft's next Windows revamp supports the popular Matroska (MKV) container in Media Player, along with immediate support for H.265/HEVC.
The flexibility offered by the MKV multimedia container format has made it popular over the years, particularly with HD content. Typically, on Windows you would need to install a splitter for the container, like Haali Media Splitter, or use a player with built-in support, such as VLC.

With Windows 10, Media Player supports the MKV container out of the box, as confirmed by Gabriel Aul, providing updates on the Windows Insider program on Twitter.

When asked later by another user whether Microsoft will include a codec for H.265/HEVC video streams, Aul confirmed that HEVC is "also supported in-box."

The promise of HEVC is to make it possible to stream and download ultra high resolution video content without having to push up the bitrate to the same degree necessary with other standards.



Windows 10 is set to ship in late in 2015.

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4 user comments

15.11.2014 23:00

I have tried both Win 8 (several versions) and now the Win 10 Preview. What I fail to understand is why it screws up on logical drive access! Some of these that Win 7 can read and write to without any problems ALWAYS get locked out or are not recognised at all. So what it can do is less of interest to me than what it can't do. BTW I have them installed in their own independent partitions. Every time I go back to Win (after a session on Win 8 or Win 10)Win7 detects some error flag and runs full chkdsk on every logical drive!

26.11.2014 00:54

I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see Microsoft supporting an open standard like MKV. I guess someone finally got the memo that AVI is an obsolete, hackish turd in this day and age. :-D

36.11.2014 05:47

A bit late to the party but still a welcome addition.

46.11.2014 11:11

it's all the money if ain't broke don't fix it !!!

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