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  20. 4.20 What is an MKV File

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How to Play MKV Files in VLC Smoothly

by Kayla Morrison • 2025-01-13 09:24:30 • Proven solutions

Although MKV has robust capabilities to handle video, audio, image, and subtitle content in a single container, even if they are in different formats, it’s not yet an industry-standard supported by any media player. Here we’d specifically talk about how to play MKV file in VLC, a powerful and open-source media player runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX OS and can reduce video size.

Part 1. How to Play MKV Files in VLC

First of all, you need to download the VLC media player from videolan.org, the official website. Otherwise, you might get unwanted malware. Follow the guide to install it correctly, and then you’ll have 2 ways to use VLC to play MKV.

Way 1: Right-click on the MKV video file and go to Properties in the context menu.

play mkv in vlc

Then click the Change… button to swap the default application with the VLC media player.

play mkv in vlc

After that, simply double-click the MKV file would open it with VLC.

Way 2: Open VLC media player and select Media>Open File… and then go to the location of the MKV video, as shown below, select the target file and click Open.

play mkv in vlc

Part 2. VLC Not Playing HD MKV Media File Issue

According to the official VLC feature, MKV is supported by default by VLC. However, VLC error that does not play MKV video happens at times, i.e., fail to open an MKV file, show a grey screen, or an error pops up a window while playing MKV file, and even loading MKV indefinitely. What’s worse, deleting preferences, reinstalling, and even rebooting will not solve the freezing, skipping, or stuttering problem. So we’ll tack these issues one by one in this part.

1. VLC Media Player Has No Sound

Check whether Sound is muted and ensure it is not muted before proceeding. In the case that this fails, then VLC menu Tools > Preferences menu to display the preferences window, then click on the Audio section and ensure that Enable Audio is checked.

play mkv in vlc

2. VLC Skipping MKV or HD MKV

Go VLC Menu Tools > Preferences to open the preferences window and select the All radio button on the preferences' bottom left. Go to Input/Codecs Section, and a list on the right will appear with preferences. Scroll to the bottom of the list to locate the File Caching (ms) option under the advanced section and set it to 1000.

play mkv in vlc

3. Choppy Video While Playing MKV and HD MKV on VLC

Go to the VLC Menu Tools > Preferences, and in the preferences window, click on the All radio button on the bottom of the window. Now select Input/Codecs > Video Codecs > FFmpeg and disable hardware decoding on the list that appears.

play mkv in vlc

Bonus Tip: Tricks on Playing MKV Files in VLC Smoothly

Top 30 MKV Players for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android

If you’re still having issues while playing MKV or HD MKV (dragging, error screen, choppy video), you can try to convert MKV to DivX, WMV, MPEG-4, and other VLC-supported formats as an alternative. Then Wondershare UniConverter (originally Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate) comes in handy, which is capable of 150+ video/audio format conversion and playing MKV with an inbuilt player.

Wondershare UniConverter - All-in-One Video Converter

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Security Verified. 5,481,347 people have downloaded it.
  • Convert MKV files to play in VLC with optimized presets.
  • Support 1000+ video formats, including MKV/MOV/MP4/AVI/WMV and more others.
  • Transfer videos from computer to iPhone, iPad, and other devices directly and vice versa.
  • Toolbox with additional functions like Screen Recorder, VR Converter, GIF Maker, Fixing Media Metadata, and more.
  • Supported OS: Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista, macOS 11 Big Sur, 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7.

Step 1 Install and Launch Wondershare UniConverter

Download Wondershare UniConverter to your PC, and then launch it after installation. Make sure you’re downloading the right version (take Windows version for an example).

Step 2 Add MKV Files to MKV to VLC Converter

Click the +Add Files button to add MKV files to the software or directly drag and drop them.

play mkv in vlc - add files

Step 3 Select VLC Output Format

Select your desired format that you want to convert to under the Output Format section on the right side. Then click the Start All to proceed with MKV to VLC conversion.

play mkv in vlc - conversion

Tips: You can also directly play MKV files by hovering to the video’s thumbnail icon and clicking on the PLAY button.

play mkv in vlc - play mkv

Pro-tip

With Wondershare UniConverter, you can merge videos using VLC with easy steps on Windows/Mac. Move to How to Merge Videos in VLC Easily and Quickly >> to learn more.

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Kayla Morrison

Kayla Morrison

staff Editor

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