How to stop chapter number being displayed on screen

[James65]

While I generally find this program great to use, one thing that I've noticed is that in every mkv file I create using this program, the chapter number is briefly displayed on screen at the start of every chapter (which I find slightly annoying). Does anybody know if there's a way to stop the chapter number being displayed on the screen? (i.e. turn off the option). If I create an MKV file using Handbrake, the chapter numbers aren't displayed so it doesn't seem to be something inherently built into MKV files. I would prefer to use this program as it's quicker to burn files.

[Woodstock]

This is an issue with your player, more than anything else. Not all players do it. VLC, for example, does not. The Seagate FreeAgent Theater and early Samsung TVs do.

On players that do, there MAY be a setting to disable it, but not always (Seagate doesn't).

The "fix" is to have an empty subtitle track, because the players I've noticed doing it would rather play the first subtitle track instead. This is the only way I've been able to universally fix the issue, other than removing the chapters track.

[James65]

Woodstock, thanks for the reply. In my case, contrary to what you state, the chapter number is being displayed on the screen when using VLC player. (It also happens on other players as well on my PC as well as when I burn any files to a disc). It happens if I create an MKV file using this program but not if I create the same type of file using Handbrake so it must be something to do with this program. Every time the file gets to a new chapter, the chapter number briefly appears on the screen (for a few seconds) then disappears. It's just something a find a little annoying. I can't see how subtitles has anything to do with it since I uncheck that option when I burn the files using this option (as I have no need for subtitles).

[ndjamena]

Can you give us the exact text for this "chapter number" that's displaying?

[James65]

At the start of each chapter, the words "Chapter xx" appear on the bottom centre of the screen (where xx is the chapter number, for example Chapter 01 etc)

[ndjamena]

OK, I can find nothing in the VLC settings that tell it to "display" chapter names as they play them, plus if you look at the Mastroska Specs you can see there is nothing in there that could possibly initiate such an action:

http://matroska.org/technical/specs/chapters/index.html

All I can think of is that you're complaining that chapters have names (by default MakeMKV calls chapters "Chapter 01" and so on.) According to the specs, chapter names ([ChapterDisplay]s) aren't mandatory. You could try enabling expert mode and blanking them out, but I'm not aware of any setting in the program to set default chapter naming conventions.

-Edit- Yup, blanking out the chapter names removes the ChapterDisplay elements from the output file.

*-sigh-* but MediaInfo no longer recognises that there are chapters present.

[James65]

I think my problem may have been solved. I upgraded from version 1.9.0 to 1.9.1 and now the chapter number is not displaying on the screen. Thanks for your help.

[ndjamena]

I have files ripped with 1.9.0 and no chapter numbers display when playing them with any software player, and I'll state again, there is nothing in the Matroska Specs that tells a player to display Chapter Names during playback. MakeMKV couldn't do what you're accusing it of even if it wanted to. The only possible way that could happen is if MakeMKV had been adding the Chapter Names as a subtitle, which since MakeMKV didn't support text subtitles in 1.9.0 and it has never been able to create sup/sub subtitles simply isn't possible.

If you're getting chapter names popping up during playback then there's something you've been doing after the fact that you didn't mention.

[James65]

I have not done anything to the files. I have simply selected the files to copy and clicked on the save selected files option. The fact that it's not displaying the chapter number now that I've upgraded to the latest version says to me that there was something amiss with the previous version. Whatever it was I don't know. I copied a dvd using the latest version and the chapter numbers now don't appear. However, when I copied that same dvd last weekend using the previous version, the chapter numbers did appear on screen. I didn't do anything different so I'm puzzled why the change. This dvd doesn't have any subtitles or other languages so I didn't have to unselect any options or change anything before copying. All I know is that everything's fine now so I'm happy. I'm not going to endlessly debate this matter so as far as I'm concerned this matter is closed.

[Chetwood]

I've done every upgrade and NONE including 1.9.0 showed any chapter names in VLC.

[ndjamena]

To be honest, if there is a way to force displaying chapter names during playback within the Mastroska specs I'd like to know about it. I've read the Specs and unless MakeMKV had been adding the DVD levels to the chapters and somehow the OP happened to have software that interpreted those levels as "Titles", which they then felt compelled to notify the viewer of (as far as I'm aware neither MakeMKV, nor VLC nor any other software supports such things), there's nothing in the specs that can do that kind of thing.

(And sadly, what's on the Matroska website is the entirety of the Matroska specs. I had been hoping there was more somewhere else that explains things in much more detail and that actually makes sense, but unfortunately that's not the case.)

-Edit- Maybe he could post the MKVInfoGUI/Show All Elements output of the files (just the forward and rear headers would do.)

[xpabl0b]

I have noticed this problem too so I thought I'd share my experiences here.

Wishing to make a single compilation disc from a set of DVDs I ripped all the episodes to mkv using version 1.9.1.

All of the mkv files played back in VLC without any unwanted display of chapter numbers.

I then used multiAVCHD and imgburn to produce a single BluRay compilation disk of the episodes I had ripped to mkv.

When I play the BluRay in a BluRay player (in this case a BDPS790) I too get the chapter display problem - in the sense that at every new chapter point the relevant chapter number is displayed automatically on the screen for a few seconds in the format 'Chapter xy'.

Most puzzling.

[ndjamena]

Is anyone else getting the sense that The Blu Ray Association may have developed a new tactic in dealing with ripping software?

[ndjamena]

I just downloaded and installed multiAVCHD, then drag and dropped an MKV file onto it. It immediately made a list of all the chapters in the file (ie "Loading Original Chapters") then made an srt file in the same directory that contained this:

1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:10,000
Chapter 01

2
00:01:24,298 --> 00:01:32,298
Chapter 02

3
00:01:45,269 --> 00:01:53,269
Chapter 03

4
00:07:13,930 --> 00:07:21,930
Chapter 04

5
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:54,440
Chapter 05

6
00:22:00,383 --> 00:22:08,383
Chapter 06

This has nothing to do with MakeMKV, multiAVCHD is telling you exactly what it's doing, plus it has nothing to do with the original topic of this thread. The OP said upgrading to the version 1.9.1 stopped whatever problem he was experiencing.