Forum Archive Home -> Mac -> Video format with chapter markers?
Video format with chapter markers? | ||
| whoisquilty posted 2009 Oct 19 21:36 | ||
| I've got a library of video files and play them on my media player. But it's cumbersome to fast forward to parts that I want to watch if I don't want to sit through the whole thing.
Is there a file format that I could convert them to that would allow me to put in chapter markers? I've heard that MKV allows for this, but I can't for the life of me find a piece of software that allows you to author MKV files. Can anyone point me in the right direction? | ||
| guns1inger posted 2009 Oct 19 22:15 | ||
| What media player ?
You can add a chapter file to the MKV file using MKVMerge, but not all players will observe it. .Divx allows for chapters on Divx Ultra certified players. | ||
| ffooky posted 2009 Oct 20 03:00 | ||
| What format are your video files in ? If they're DVD MPEG-2 then Handbrake can convert them to MP4/M4V or MKV, both of which support chapter markers.
If you already have MP4 files I believe you can use Subler to add chapters or something like Metadata Hootenanny. | ||
| rumplestiltskin posted 2009 Oct 20 08:47 | ||
| Whatever you do, stay away from MKV or you're in for a disaster of Biblical proportions.
As others have asked: What is your media player? | ||
| whoisquilty posted 2009 Oct 20 10:06 | ||
| I swear that I posted this last night.
My media player is a Seagate FreeAgent Theatre+. It plays almost everything and all in all I'm fairly happy with it. The interface leaves a little to be desired, though. And I wish that when viewing DVDs that you could group them by title (for TV shows or movies that span multiple discs). I can handle staying away from MKV. Was just curious about the format, which I've never played around with. But, I've got some AVIs and MP4s that I'd like to add chapters to. I downloaded Subler and it doesn't seem to be what I want. I also found a couple of utilities for MP4s and I'm wondering if anyone has used them: SimpleMovieX and MetaX. And apparently there's a patch for Handbrake to do this. But I thought Handbrake was simply for converting DVDs and that's not what I want. Are there any utilities for AVI on a Mac? What'd I'd love to find is some utility that would allow me to scrub the timeline and put in chapter markers where I want. | ||
| ffooky posted 2009 Oct 20 10:42 | ||
| Looks like Metadata Hootenanny may well do what you want for the MP4s. You're SOL with AVIs...no chapter support. | ||
| whoisquilty posted 2009 Oct 20 11:03 | ||
| Thanks for the info!
Dammit about the AVIs. I'll just convert I guess. Another question on MP4s then. How do I determine what a good data rate is? I want them to look perfect but I don't want to compress and have to redo just to get the right data rate. | ||
| ffooky posted 2009 Oct 20 12:47 | ||
No sarcasm intended but whatever looks good to you on your set-up. If you're compressing from your own DVDs with Handbrake then I'd suggest trying a chapter with one of the presets and seeing if that looks OK to you. It really all depends on how much of a factor storage space is. If you've got the space then take the high road...if you ain't then test lower but, as you say, you only want to do this once. With the AVIs I'd personally take no chapters over conversion any day but if they look acceptable to you... | ||
| rumplestiltskin posted 2009 Oct 20 13:59 | ||
| For 640x material I use between 700 and 1000 kbps depending on the fps rate. For 720p I tend to use 2000-2500hbps. I'm a bit picky so you might try a lower rate.
In Handbrake you may stop your encoding and review what's been done so far. Do two minutes worth at one rate and see how it looks. Rinse and repeat. |
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