Sample MKV Files — Download Matroska Test Videos
Matroska Video · .mkv · MIME type video/x-matroska
Download a sample MKV file — the open Matroska container favoured by media servers, Blu-ray rips and anything that needs multiple audio tracks, subtitle streams or chapters in one file. Our samples carry H.264 video and AAC audio, so the codecs are universal even though the container is not.
Browsers do not play MKV, so a web app that accepts it must transcode or remux. That is the test: upload one of these, and check whether the result is an MP4 that plays, or an error, or worse, a file that appears to succeed and then fails in the player.
Download sample MKV files
| File | Details | Size | Download |
|---|---|---|---|
sample-video-480x270-1mb.mkv | 480 × 270 · 10 s · 30 fps · H264 · AAC audio · 756 kbps | 948 KB | |
sample-video-1280x720-2mb.mkv | 1280 × 720 · 10 s · 30 fps · H264 · AAC audio · 1469 kbps | 1.8 MB | |
sample-video-1920x1080-2mb.mkv | 1920 × 1080 · 10 s · 30 fps · H264 · AAC audio · 1506 kbps | 1.9 MB |
Use these files from the command line or CI
Every URL is stable and CORS-open. Pin the SHA-256 in your test and you will know the moment a fixture changes.
# Download one file curl -O https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/videos/mkv/sample-video-480x270-1mb.mkv # Verify it (SHA-256 is listed for every file above) shasum -a 256 sample-video-480x270-1mb.mkv # Machine-readable index of every sample file curl https://pnb-website-bucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/samples/index.json | jq '.files[] | select(.format=="mkv")'
MKV format at a glance
| Full name | Matroska Video |
|---|---|
| Extensions | .mkv |
| MIME type | video/x-matroska |
| Introduced | Matroska project, 2002 (open standard) |
| Container | EBML-based; WebM is a subset |
| Codecs here | H.264 + AAC |
| Browser playback | None natively |
| Magic bytes | 1A 45 DF A3 (EBML) |
What people test with sample MKV files
- Media-server ingestion (Plex, Jellyfin, Emby)
- MKV → MP4 remux without re-encoding
- Upload validators that must distinguish MKV from WebM (same magic bytes)
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert MKV to MP4?
If the streams are already H.264/AAC (as in these samples), remux without re-encoding: ffmpeg -i in.mkv -c copy -movflags +faststart out.mp4. It takes seconds and loses no quality. Only re-encode when the MKV contains codecs MP4 cannot hold.
Are these MKV files safe to download?
Yes. Every file is generated by our own open script from scratch — nothing is scraped or user-uploaded — and contains no scripts, macros or executables. The SHA-256 of each file is published on this page so you can verify what you received.
Can I use the sample MKV files commercially?
Yes. They are free for any purpose, including commercial products, test suites, demos and redistribution, with no attribution required. There is nothing to license and no one to ask.
Can I hotlink these files or use them in CI?
Yes. Every link is a stable direct URL over HTTPS with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * and long cache headers, so curl, wget, fetch() and test runners can pull them directly. A JSON index of every file is linked from each page (see the command-line section).
Related sample files
Testing a file pipeline? We build them.
Uploads, conversions, previews, document processing and media workflows are the kind of production systems Pine & Birch designs and runs for clients — which is why we needed these files in the first place.
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