Software Update: MKVToolnix 69.0.0

Moritz Bunkus has released version 69 of MKVToolNix. With this open source program, matroska files can be viewed, edited and converted. For example, sound tracks and subtitles can be added, removed or set as default. MKVToolNix is ​​a collection of separate command-line tools, but a graphical user interface is also included. Downloads are available for Windows, macOS and various Linux distributions. The following changes and improvements have been made in this release:

Important notes

• all: the spelling of “color” was changed to “color” throughout all programs to match the use of American English spelling in MKVToolNix. This not only affects documentation and user interface controls, but also program options for mkvmerge & mkvpropedit. Both programs will continue to accept the British English spelling of their respective options indefinitely. One breaking change is that the property names in mkvmerge’s JSON identification mode have also been changed to American English spelling. As those properties have only been introduced in release v68, this seems like a small enough window to make such a change.

New features and enhancements

• MKVToolNix GUI: the number of recently used entries (eg destination directories) remembered by the GUI can now be configured in the preferences. Implements #3362.
• MKVToolNix GUI: multiplexer: when adding files the track properties regarding color information & color mastering meta information will be parsed & set in the corresponding GUI controls. Implements #3359.
• MKVToolNix GUI: job queue: the job queue can now be sorted by clicking on the column headers. Part of the implementation of #3365.
• MKVToolNix GUI: job queue: when loading jobs from the queue directory that weren’t previously known to the program those jobs will be sorted by their “date added” timestamp instead of using the order the operating system returns them in. Part of the implementation of #3365.

Bug fixes

• build system: fixed compilation with fmt v9. fixes #3366.
• mkvmerge: HEVC ES parser: the parser will now parse at least the first full access unit before reporting that it has found all the required headers. Otherwise parsing might stop in the middle of the access unit due to the source reader not providing more data in the first call, leading to the parser not finding the unspec62 and unspec63 NALUs required for Dolby Vision. fixes #3363.
• MKVToolNix GUI: preferences: the default actions added to the “execute programs” section on new installations now default to use WebM file names instead of Ogg, matching the format of the included audio files.

Build system changes

• The bundled fmt library was updated to v9.0.0.