It is fairly possible to attach one, or more ,pictures to a MKV file. Usually, including the cover of the file, as for a movie for example. However, now tumbler uses ffmpeg to create a thumbnail of a MKV file, thus losting the chance to show the contained file. Tumbler could check if such a file is present in the MKV, and then show it. It could use the actual module otherwise.
New gstreamer thumbnailer checks for thumbs.