Matroska Multimedia Container is one of the multimedia file extensions that can not only contain video files, but video with audio, video with subtitles, audio with subtitles, and all of them. This file extension is becoming more popular these days as it gives the freedom to add video, audio, subtitles, images in a single file. While .mkv extension is used for video with or without subtitles and audio, .mka is the extension for audio files only and .mks is used for subtitles only.

If you open .mkv, .mka or .mks files in Windows Media Player, it won’t be able to play them and displays a notice as “Windows can’t open this file”.  The fact is that Windows media player does not support the file types of Mastroska as it does not come with any codecs to support these file formats. You need to download and install compatible codecs to support the playback of Mastroska media files.

If you want to open and play Matroska files (.mkv, .mka or .mks) in Windows media player, download the following codecs and install on your system first.

1. CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack : CCCP codec pack supports most video formats such as AVI, MKV, MP4, FLV, TS, 3GP, OGM, OGG; video codecs such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, Xvid, DivX, 3ivx, lavc, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), WMV, VC-1, VP6F, Theora, H.263+; audio codecs such as MP3, MP2, MP1, AC3, DTS, AAC, Vorbis, FLAC, TTA, WavPack, AMR, LPCM, IMA ADPCM and subtitle formats such as SRT, Vobsub (.idx + .sub), SSA and ASS.

2. Haali Media Splitter : Haali Media Splitter comes with up to date DirectShow filters to support almost all Matroska file formats. The codecs pack also provides support for AVI, MP4, OGG/OGM and MPEG TS playback.

3. DivX for Windows : DivX 7 for Windows is a free codecs pack that supports high-quality digital videos, including HD H.264 (.mkv) videos with AAC audio, DivX or DivX Plus files (.divx, .avi), and videos created using all previous versions of DivX technology.