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View Full Version : HD-DVD Chapters to MKV (Matroska)? Possible? How?

homerpez
15th May 2007, 22:22
EVO Demux has the ability to write chapter info to a text file... which I was hoping to translate into a MKV container...

So, in MKVmerge GUI, I loaded up the text file generated by EVO Demux in the "Chapter Editor" menu, and it seemed to parse the information correctly.

It balked at me that I needed to add it to the "Global" window as well, so I did.

However, when I muxed the video... no chapters.

Then I noticed they wanted "xml" or "ogm" extensions... so I renamed the text file to "xml" at the end, since it looked like that's what it was, and I repeated this process. Again, it parsed the chapters correctly in "Chapter Editor", and was loaded in "Global".

No chapters.

Can someone explain how to do this? (If it can be done?) :thanks:
foxyshadis
16th May 2007, 10:31
Can you post a sample? (Either as an attachment or inside [code] tags.)
Taktaal
16th May 2007, 22:32
XML != XML

The two programs use completely different formats for storing the chapter definition. I wrote a XSL converter to make .txt chapter descriptions from the Evodemux output, however it hasn't really proven very useful because there's no players around that support mkv chapters

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<xsl:for-each select="Title">
<xsl:for-each select="ChapterList/Chapter">
<xsl:variable name="chapnum">
<xsl:number count="Chapter"/>
</xsl:variable>

CHAPTER<xsl:value-of select='format-number($chapnum, "00")' />=<xsl:value-of select="substring(@titleTimeBegin, 1, 8)" />.<xsl:value-of select="substring(@titleTimeBegin, 10, 2)" />0<br/>
CHAPTER<xsl:value-of select='format-number($chapnum, "00")' />NAME=<xsl:value-of select="@displayName" /><br/>

</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:for-each>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Take that code, and save it as chapters.xsl in the same directory as the xml file from Evodemux.
Then open the xml file from Evodemux and copy&paste these two lines at the start of it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="chapters.xsl" ?>

Double click the xml file and you get a converted chapter file in your browser (unless you're using like Netscape 3.0 or a similarily old one). Save that into a .txt file, open that in MMG and save it to the mkv.
homerpez
17th May 2007, 04:48
It looks like I got it... I guess the txt file produced by EVO Demux IS the XML chapter list, just without the .xml extension... and they WERE getting added to my MKV file, I just couldn't see it except in the tiny, little white icon in the taskbar window. Then I could right-click as the movie was playing, and see the chapters WERE there, with titles and all... Very odd that it works this way, but it's figured out.
KoD
17th May 2007, 09:55
... there's no players around that support mkv chapters

Not true. At least MPC and ZoomPlayer allow you to change chapters from a player interface. And you can change chapters in any DirectShow based player that doesn't try to be too smart by using the Haali splitter icon in the systray.
Milvus
17th May 2007, 10:50
You can add The Core Media Player, KMPlayer, VLC, MPlayer... All of them have integrated MKV chapters support. I fact it seems all recent and decent media players know how to deal with them...

Taktaal, perhaps you were thinking "MKV Menus" ?
The_Keymaker
17th May 2007, 16:53
The chapter format produced by EVOdemux is a .txt file (not an XML) and it is in the OGM format.

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge.html#CHAPTERS

Using the chapter editor in Mkvtoolnix, you can load this .txt file and it will parse it and convert it to an .xml chapter file which you then save. Now you have an .xml chapter file.

You can also load the .txt file as it comes from EVOdemux and it should also work (at least according to the MKVmerge documentation).

Next, you go to the global section of MKVtoolnix and specify the chapter file (either XML or the .txt file). It should MUX this into your MKV file (along with your audio and video).

I have done the above but have not yet been able to "see the chapters". I have not been able to get Zoom Player to reliably play .mkv files so i have not been able to verify this yet. I will try the clicking on the Haali icon trick today to see if that lets me see the chapters.

EDIT: Finally got Zoom Player setup to play MKV files and confirmed the chapters were successfully muxed and Zoom Player does navigate to them.