Adding Chapters to MPG File?

[Astyanax]

Hi:

I have a TS recordcing that I have cleaned up and converted to MPG. Is there a simple way to add chapter breaks without having to re-encode?

I'm aware I will have to remux, but all the VCD/SVCD editors out there seem to want to re-encode. My file is over 10GB, and I don't intend to store it on any discs.

Just chapters, plain and simple. Is there a utility that will give me that?

Thanks!

[MaxPowers]

with 'Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD' you can cut your mpeg files and save them with less reencoding as possible (automatic mode, will only have to reencode the new endings of places where you've cut)

then you can hit 'DVD' button, in this window you can make chapters and even a menu screen with audio and everything for your dvd, cause you can't make chapters in a mpeg file (you can only split it in different files, and watch them seperately...)

hope this helps!

[SeeMoreDigital]

Provided your captured MPEG-2 video streams are standard-definition and your audio streams are DVD compliant.... You could try muxing them with MuxMan or DVDPlannerBasic (in "Wizard" mode).

EDIT: And unlike Womble, there are free versions of MuxMan and DVDPlannerBasic....


Cheers

[laserfan]

Hmmm, you want "chapter breaks" but you aren't planning to burn it to DVD? It's 10Gb so it wouldn't FIT on any DVD anyway... What software are you intending to play this file with that would recognize a "chapter break"?

I recently recorded a 3 hour HD Transport Stream (OTA) of about 20Gb. I used VideoReDo Plus to edit it, then HDTV2DVD to convert it from the original 1280x720 to 720x480 , then I used VRD+ again to make chapter marks and output the whole thing as Elementary Streams plus a chapters.txt file, then MuxMan to re-mux, finally PgcEdit, VobBlanker, and ImgBurn to assign a layer break and burn to DL DVD+R.

Sounds like a lot and it did take time but it wasn't very hard to do.

[Astyanax]

Yeah, I didn't want to reduce the screen size, but wanted to play the full MPG file on my Media Center HTPC. So making a DVD is out of the question.

After more research, I found that the best solution is to place the MPG file into an MKV file, using MKVMerge, and then I can merge in a chapter file too. No re-encoding, and chapters are preserved. Too bad Media Center's (MCE) native WMP player doesn't recognize them!

Oh well. Turns out, however, that cleaning up the MPG file in VideoReDo improved its performance, and my MCE chapter button does an instantaneous 30-second skip, and works well in very rapid succession. In some ways, this is a very nice marriage between chapter breaks and fast-forward.

Thanks for the feedback!

[SeeMoreDigital]

Please confirm whether your MPEG-2 in .TS sources are high-definition or standard-definition?

[Astyanax]

They are in high-definition.

[SeeMoreDigital]

They are in high-definition.Okay... You would have saved a lot of time if you had originally stated the resolution of your MPEG-2 in .TS sources....

If you refer to your other thread you should now be aware that you can't mux the original high-def MPEG-2 video streams into formats such as DVD VOB or VCD/S-VCD. These formats only support standard or lower definition MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 streams....

The only widely supported containers that support both high-definition MPEG-2 video streams and offer chapter navigation are .MP4 and .MKV (Matroska)....


Cheers

[Astyanax]

Yeah, I did finally figure it out. Sorry for the lack of clarity, and thank you for the information!