www.makemkv.com

Hey folks,

I've dumped a couple of TV Series, and while most of them do things neatly with one episode per file, some have one big file containing all the episodes.
While this may be okay for most, I'd rather have a single file per episode.

I've heard about MKVToolNix but haven't tried it out yet.

My guess is that this is a fairly manual process where I'd need to identify before which chapters I should split and I could get around that.
Now, I'm curious about the output produced by MKVToolNix.

Basically, the current format is something like
Episode01Intro - Episode01Part1 - Episode01Part2 - Episode01Outro - Episode02Intro - Episode02Part1 - Episode02Part2 - Episode02Outro - Episode03Intro ...

I would split before Episode02Intro, Episode03Intro,... and get as many files as episodes...
Now, would the existing chapters be preserved if I split the file that way?

I.e. would my new files look like this:
Episode01Intro - Episode01Part1 - Episode01Part2 - Episode01Outro
Episode02Intro - Episode02Part1 - Episode02Part2 - Episode02Outro
...

Or would they look like
LargeEpisode01FileWithOnlyOneChapter
LargeEpisode02FileWithOnlyOneChapter
...

I've done this with MKVtoolnix, but generally do it using handbrake command line, since I generally process all files through HB for size. The files are generally broken down in "chapters", with a group of them for each episode. For example, chapters 1-5 are episode 1, 6-10 and episode 2, etc.

In these cases, the command line differs in the episode name, and having "c 1-5" or "c 6-10" in it. Generally a PITA when there are 25 or 40 episodes, often spread across multiple files.

Occasionally, this falls apart, such as Rizelmine, where they put the show start and end as "common sections" for dozens of episodes.

Thank you, I'll try it out.
So according to your comment both MKVToolNix and HandBrake preserve the current chapter setting?

I'm not that worried about file size, so either might work for me. Time to dig out my command-line skills again .

Generally, yes, I keep the sections in order. With handbrake, doing differently is pretty much impossible with how it is designed, but MKVtoolnix CAN do it, with complicated command lines. More trouble than it is worth, in my opinion.