Chapter Description in MKV

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EclecticeMusic
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:34 am

Chapter Description in MKV

Post by EclecticeMusic »

Does makeMKV preserve Chapter title or Description . I have converted DVD to .MKV using MakeMKV and play with WD TV Live. The WD TV LIve shows chapter numbers and plays the one selected. So far so good. However it would be better if WD TV Live would also show chapter description or Title as is shown in DVD.
Is this a problem in MAkeMKV? if no then I will try my luck with the WD TV Live folks
trondmm
Posts: 82
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:50 pm

Re: Chapter Description in MKV

Post by trondmm »

EclecticeMusic wrote:Does makeMKV preserve Chapter title or Description . I have converted DVD to .MKV using MakeMKV and play with WD TV Live. The WD TV LIve shows chapter numbers and plays the one selected. So far so good. However it would be better if WD TV Live would also show chapter description or Title as is shown in DVD.
I don't think DVDs have chapter names. They'll show names in the menu, but this is just graphics, and there's no way MakeMKV can extract that info from the disc.

What you can do, though, is to extract the chapters with mkvextract, edit this chapter file and fill in the names used on the DVD (they may also be printed in the cover), and mux this chapterlist backinto the mkv-file with mkvmerge. It's a bit of a hassle, but everything except typing the chapter names can be scripted.

I don't know if WDTV Live will display chapter names, though. Asus O!Play does not. Softwareplayers like VLC and MPC displays chapter names.

As a side note, I'll mention that on HD DVDs, chapters and titles has a "displayName" property, so if MakeMKV ever includes HD DVD support, it would be nice if it preserved the chapter and title names. Unfortunately, most discs use names like "Chapter 01" for the chapters, so it may not be all that useful.
mike admin
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Re: Chapter Description in MKV

Post by mike admin »

Some DVDs do have chapter names in text format and in that case MakeMKV will extract the names. These DVD are rare, usually concert music DVDs.
EclecticeMusic
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:34 am

Re: Chapter Description in MKV

Post by EclecticeMusic »

Thanks.

I tried your suggestion
What you can do, though, is to extract the chapters with mkvextract, edit this chapter file and fill in the names used on the DVD (they may also be printed in the cover), and mux this chapterlist backinto the mkv-file with mkvmerge
.

It works (I used Chapter Editor ) and WD TV Live does show the Chapter description.

I learnt (Somewhere else) that DVD menu is a seperate Video cell with Button mask and the actual Titles and chapters rarely have text descriptions.
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