MKV Converting

[fwmarcel]

I have just discovered this project. And I really like it...

However, I have a question:
is there an exact reason why the downloads are always converted to mkv?
Is there a way to deactivate this? Possibly with an environment variable...

Many thanks

[PCJones]

MKV is really just a container with the original MP4 still inside, completely unchanged. Nothing is being converted.
MKV helps with player compatibility and metadata and will also allow adding subtitles at a later stage. It is also the de facto standard to use in any *arr related setting.

Now I could add an option to disable this, but what would be the reason for that?

[fwmarcel]

The MKV files take up more storage space for me. Without me seeing any advantage in this. Hence the question

[PCJones]

MKV files should be a few megabytes larger if at all. It is basically the same size, so I don't really see the argument to be honest

[fwmarcel]

an option to deactivate would be great. it would also be nice to save on conversion. Since I use tdarr anyway. So that would be double anyway

[rexjohannes]

MKV is really just a container with the original MP4 still inside, completely unchanged. Nothing is being converted. MKV helps with player compatibility and metadata and will also allow adding subtitles at a later stage. It is also the de facto standard to use in any *arr related setting.

Now I could add an option to disable this, but what would be the reason for that?

MP4 has actually better player compatibility than MKV. See here https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/codec-support/#container-compatibility