Matroska File Format
1. Matroska
ID: fe84eed7-478b-41b3-99ed-a2dac53e13e4 CREATED: <2025-04-05 Sat 14:30>
– Matroska Media Container Homepage – RFC 9559 - Matroska Media Container Format Specification
- libmatroska/libebml are the C++ libraries used in the standard applications
- libmatroska2/libebml2 are the low-level C libraries
- https://www.matroska.org/technical/notes.html
- ietf-wg-cellar/matroska-specification
- Codec Encoding for LossLess Archiving and Realtime transmission (cellar)
- Data Layout
1.1. Tagging
ID: 25692e81-f783-4706-9066-f30c13cd212f CREATED: <2025-04-15 Tue 15:13>
– Tags
The TargetType element allows tagging of different parts that are inside or outside a given file. For example, in an audio file with one song you could have information about the album it comes from and even the CD set even if it’s not found in the file.
For application to know what kind of information (like TITLE) relates to a certain level (CD title or track title), we also need a set of official TargetType names. For now audio and video will have different values & names. That also means the same tag name can have different meanings depending on where it is (otherwise we would end up with 15 TITLE_ tags).
| TargetTypeValue | Audio strings | Video strings | Comment |
| 70 | COLLECTION | COLLECTION | the high hierarchy consisting of many different lower items |
| 60 | EDITION / ISSUE / VOLUME / OPUS | SEASON / SEQUEL / VOLUME | a list of lower levels grouped together |
| 50 | ALBUM / OPERA / CONCERT | MOVIE / EPISODE / CONCERT | the most common grouping level of music and video (equals to an episode for TV series) |
| 40 | PART / SESSION | PART / SESSION | when an album or episode has different logical parts |
| 30 | TRACK / SONG | CHAPTER | the common parts of an album or a movie |
| 20 | SUBTRACK / PART / MOVEMENT | SCENE | corresponds to parts of a track for audio (like a movement) |
| 10 | - | SHOT | the lowest hierarchy found in music or movies |
1.2. EBML
ID: 8c02db6e-9d72-4c4b-be22-01c279b2532b CREATED: <2025-04-07 Mon 17:13>
– RFC 8794: Extensible Binary Meta Language -> XML
Extensible Binary Meta Language
1.3. MKA
ID: a1270838-1777-428e-89eb-513e3f86c63c CREATED: <2025-04-12 Sat 17:28>
Audio container format
1.4. MKV
ID: a4b8ed28-0e02-48c0-bd2b-fc05b05361d2 CREATED: <2025-04-12 Sat 17:28>
Video container format