Convert h264 to dxv-encoded?

[blipson]

When I try to open my h264 file in Alley, it's grayed out, so can't be opened. Is there a way to dxv-encode a h264 file? The h264 came from an mkv file, and I see the thread asking about converting mkv to dxv here:

https://resolume.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18733

hasn't gotten a single response. I would have guessed that converting h264 that's contained in mkv isn't that uncommon.

[Zoltán]

Does your h264 file play in windows Movies and TV?
What's the file's extension?

[blipson]

The extension is h264.

It plays in VLC on my Mac.

[Zoltán]

Alley should be able to handle what the OS native player can without conversion.
So, does the file play in OSX Quickview?

[blipson]

I guess you mean QuickTime? QuickTime doesn't play h264.

[Zoltán]

Yeah, no, I mean QuickView, the viewer that opens when you press Space on a file selected in Finder.
You could try to rename or convert your .h264 to mp4, or re-pack the file to a mov container.

[blipson]

I see. When opening the h264 in QuickView, it brings up a graphic with file information, not playback. Yes, creating an mp4 using the h264 file does play back in QuickView, and then Alley converts that, no problem.

But I have a ton of h264's that are in mkv's. It would be nice if Alley could handle these mkv's directly instead of having to convert to mp4.

[Zoltán]

It would be nice if Alley could handle these mkv's directly instead of having to convert to mp4.

Re-packing the files to .mov could be possibly done without re-converting, and should be much faster.
I'd also try to simply renaming the .h264 to .mov

[blipson]

Alley let me open the .h264 file that was renamed to .mov, but then Alley reported, "Failed to load media file."

I'll look into re-packing to .mov.