www.makemkv.com

(I did search but didn't find this specific topic posted - please link if it has already)

Request: Make default chapter names start with 01 (or just 1) and not 00.

Recently started using MakeMKV instead of eac3to+MkvMerge and noticed that it is making the chapter name start with 00 which puts every chapter number 1 behind where it should be. While this doesn't matter to me for those discs with chapter names, as I have to go back and edit the chapter names anyway, I'd like to not have to do this for Blu-ray's that don't have chapter names. Of course, my ideal wish would be to have a chapter editor option before I click to start making the MKV but I'd be ok with at least having the standard chapter number start at 1.

This is unfortunately not that simple - chapters not always start with 00. Please answer to following questions:

1. Should the first chapter (regardless of its name) point to the very start of the file? (matroska spec and some players require this).
2. If the disc is mastered in a way that first chapter points not to the start of the file, how should it be named? Wouldn't it add confusion if additional "chapter1" is inserted at start and original first chapter named "chapter 2" ?

As for the question, MakeMKV inserts the chapter named "00" in the case like (2) - when the first chapter (as authored on disc) doesn't point to the start of file. Since 1.8.0 it is possible to inhibit such behaviour by editing "insertFirstChapter00IfMissing" option in conversion profile.

Thanks for the reply!
I'm not sure I understand the concern being described however. I've been putting my (~400) discs on my computer (as Movie+lossless track only) for years and the chapter file extracted by eac3to on the movie file has always pointed to the start of the file and exactly matches the chapter stops I see in the main movie when played back from disc (in TMT). It seems to be the same as what MakeMKV is generating with the exception of the name that MakeMKV is assigning. Those chapter stops on the disc you see in the disc UI via TMT/other, if they don't have names, always starts with 1 not with 0 and make eac3to extract calls it chapter 1.
I've used MakeMKV for about 20 of my discs now (and paid for it as I want to support these types of efforts) and everyone one seems to have started with 00. The 1 DVD I ripped for testing with MKV started at 01.

I've ripped hundreds of Blu-rays and I can say that, without exception, they always begin at Chapter 00, whereas DVDs always begin at Chapter 01. So even if there is the odd case that breaks the rules, how come DVDs work fine whereas Blu-rays don't?

It's inconsistent, and quite annoying. I have to go back and manually edit every chapter afterwards or my media player displays something like 02/32: Chapter 01 when you skip to chapter 2. It's remarkably confusing for the family.

Pualster: thanks for the confirmation.

Mike: I've attached specific example from The Hobbit of what we are describing.

I've attached an extract of the chapters from the Blu-ray and from the MakeMVK generated MKV file. As noted, the chapters all start at 0 seconds and the first chapter mark is always listed as "chapter 01", both from the Eac3to generated file and the MakeMKV extracted file. Eac3to raw pull leaves the "Name" of Chapter 01 blank but MakeMKV always fills it in as Chapter 00.

The link below is an image from the disc UI which, like all discs, calls the first chapter, chapter 1 and it starts at 0 seconds. Below that is clip of VLC playback showing the same section of the movie being called Chapter 00 due to MakeMKV naming.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=B ... 9CB69D!120

Sigh.

This turned out to be a bug - currently MakeMKV always ignores first chapter from blu-ray, and then "fixes" the absence of first chapter by inserting "00". This will be fixed soon in the next version - 1.8.1 .

Great! Thanks for looking into it further and for the upcoming fix!

Now on to pressing for the new feature request enabling manual chapter naming (for discs with them) before mkv creation..

Mike, apologize if I missed it but is there an ETA for v.next? Days? Weeks? Months?

Just curious as I've been holding off on putting a TV season on disc as it is a lot of episodes to have to manually correct.

Should be out in one week.

Great! Wasn't expecting so quickly. Thanks for again for the response!

This was actually previously reported as an issue/bug:

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=215

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3890

Yay! All better! Thanks!

You can also now rename them in GUI, before making MKV file.

mike admin wrote:You can also now rename them in GUI, before making MKV file.

Wow, thank you for pointing that out as I totally skimmed over that item in the release notes as I wasn't expecting it! It makes it so many of us will no longer need to use any other tool or process when putting movie/episode-only content on to disc. Huge net time savings!