Suppose you want to watch an mkv file that contains multiple tracks in the same language. You want to select one of them. It's annoying to constantly switch the track to a desired one in your media player, if the default one is not the track you want.
Your media player chooses the track to play based on the default flag. If it's set to 1, the player selects it. Usually there is at least one default track of each type: one for audio, video and subtitles.
You can change the default track using mkvpropedit, but that is not convenient.
You need to specify the new default track using its number, you can't use its name.
Additionally, you need to remove the default flag from the previous default track manually,
again, by specifying its number.
Thus, I present you a small wrapper over mkvpropedit that simplifies the process
of changing default track in an MKV file. See examples below how to use it.
Prerequisite:
Install MKVToolNix and add it to your PATH.
Replace movie.mkv in the examples below with a path to your MKV file.
To set the second audio track as a default, run:
./mkvdefault.py -p -t audio 2 movie.mkvTo set the default flag to the track which contains shows in its name, run:
./mkvdefault.py -p shows movie.mkvTo set the second audio track as a default in all MKV files in the current working directory, run:
./mkvdefault.py -t audio 2mkvdefault.py [-h] [-p] [-s] [-t type] name|number [file ...]
Positional arguments:
name|number Name of the new default track or its number
file An MKV file in which you want to change the default track. If not provided, the CWD is used to discover files with an .mkv extension
Options:
-p, --print Print the tracks before and after modification
-s, --same-lang Reset the previous default only if the language is the same
-t, --default-type type
Type of the default track. Type can be audio, subtitles, or video
-h, --help Show this help message and exit