Matroska. How to playback subtitles and chapters?

[piscator]

I just found out about this container format, and am quite enthousiastic that it's possible to put everything in one container :)

So I used mkvmerge GUI 0.7.5 to put in:
+ AVI (divx5 + ac3).
+ Subtitles (3 VobSub streams).
+ Chapters.
Split doesn't seem to work (mkvmerge crashes).

But I would be happy to know how to playback the subtitles and use the chapters. I used:
+ Playback pack 0.6.
+ Core Media Player.
+ Other Media players as well.
To no avail, any clues?

EDIT: when I use mkxds (MKV DShow splitter), all players crash on opening a MKV file.

thanks,
Piscator

[ChristianHJW]

You need the very latest matroskasplitter and vsfilter from http://sf.net/projects/guliverkli to be able to play MKV files with vobsub subtitles.

We are preparing a new installer pack containing all those, 0.6 is outdated. mkxds.dll is obsolete, dont install it.

About TCMP, current version ( RC4 ) has problems with audio switching and chapters if the very latest matroskasplitter filters are being used, but RC5 is standing outside the door already, fixing all of those.

Your best bet currently is to use MPC ( Media Player Classic ) from the same link above, until TCMP RC5 is out. Latest BSplayer and Zoomplayer should work fine also ....

[piscator]

I was a bit busy lately, so a bit of a delayed response. After a lot of trial & error, I found out that the new matroskasplitter, as you mentioned, was the solution to displaying the subtitles in the following players:
+ Windows Media Player (old and new)
+ MPC

TCMP RC4 and BSPlayer 1.0-800 didn't work. MPC is the only player supporting chapters.


Today, I decided to give Matroska another shot with all the updates on it and the updates on both TCMP and BSPlayer. So I used:
+ Matroska Pack v1.0
+ MKVtoolnix v0.7.8

However, now I'm not able to make the desired Matroska file (as in first post). It's vobsub title related, because without these subtitles it works (quite trivial).
+ mkvmerge 0.7.8 crashes during muxing. Error: minus billion something.
+ mkvmerge 0.7.5 (using gui) already crashes when adding the subtitles.

I tried the newest VSFilter, but that only made the muxing crash at a different point.

Any clues?

thanks,
Piscator

[ChristianHJW]

There seems to be a problem with your subtitles. Can you upload them somewhere, so mosu can have a look ? What program do you use to extract them from the DVD ?

[Mosu]

Originally posted by piscator
However, now I'm not able to make the desired Matroska file (as in first post). It's vobsub title related, because without these subtitles it works (quite trivial).
+ mkvmerge 0.7.8 crashes during muxing. Error: minus billion something.

Please upload those subs to my FTP server: mosu.no-ip.com, user/password "upload"/"only".

Thanks.

[piscator]

I don't think there's a problem with the subtitles, since I was able to create the same MKV file before with Pack 0.6, latest matroska splitter and MKVtoolnix 0.7.5. I use VobSub 2.30 to get the subtitles.

The crash during muxing is somewhat random too (i.e. crash happens at another point during muxing). When doing the same file multiple times in succession; it crashes at the same point. Doing it again after a couple of hours; it crashes at a different point :confused:

Uploaded 2 vobsub files, having the following different behavior. Using the latest Pack 1.0.0. When mkvmerge crashes, it always returns error number -1073741819.

vobsub0_piscator.zip
+ mkvmerge gui 0.7.5: crashes during muxing (last night: hangs when adding subtitles).
+ mkvmerge gui 0.7.8: now works (last night: crashes during muxing).

vobsub1_piscator.zip
+ mkvmerge gui 0.7.5: hangs when adding subtitles (identical).
+ mkvmerge gui 0.7.8: crashes during muxing (but at a different point).



Also another point. mkvmerge gui doesn't add the chapter info anymore (both 0.7.8 and 0.7.5). I did it before with matroska pack 0.6 and mkvmerge 0.7.5. So, apparently it has something to do with the matroska filters.
When using the option 'Save to Matroska File' after the file is created, I get the error message:
"Wrote the meta seek element at the end of the file but could not update the segement size. Therefore the element will not be visible. The file has been changed!"
The text, "the file has been damaged!" :D would be more appropriate because it's broken after this.



Another point for wonder. Doing the muxing of the same files twice results, of course, in two files with the same size. But the files are not identical. There seems to be a difference in the header. Why is that?



A last point, and probably a known issue. Using 'mkvextract', I can't extract the vobsub subtitles. I get the message
"Warning: Unsupported CodecID 'S_VOBSUB' for ID 3. Skipping track.
Nothing to do. Exiting."

I think this is plenty for now. ;)

greetz,
Piscator

[Mosu]

Originally posted by piscator
Uploaded 2 vobsub files, having the following different behavior. Using the latest Pack 1.0.0. When mkvmerge crashes, it always returns error number -1073741819.

Thanks, I'll take a look at them.

Also another point. mkvmerge gui doesn't add the chapter info anymore (both 0.7.8 and 0.7.5). I did it before with matroska pack 0.6 and mkvmerge 0.7.5. So, apparently it has something to do with the matroska filters.
When using the option 'Save to Matroska File' after the file is created, I get the error message:
"Wrote the meta seek element at the end of the file but could not update the segement size. Therefore the element will not be visible. The file has been changed!"
The text, "the file has been damaged!" :D would be more appropriate because it's broken after this.

Interesting. So far I haven't had this problem. I'll try to recreate it. What exactly did you do (what kind of tracks did you merge into that Matroska file, and could you upload the chaters you created as well, please)?

Another point for wonder. Doing the muxing of the same files twice results, of course, in two files with the same size. But the files are not identical. There seems to be a difference in the header. Why is that?

Matroska files have two elements that should be unique to each file: the segment ID (a more or less random 128bit number that should be unique for each file allowing file linking. If you want to know more about this feature please read the mkvmerge documentation for this topic (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/doc/mkvmerge.html#FILE LINKING).) and the date of muxing (including the current time, so this is different for each muxed file).

A last point, and probably a known issue. Using 'mkvextract', I can't extract the vobsub subtitles. I get the message
"Warning: Unsupported CodecID 'S_VOBSUB' for ID 3. Skipping track.
Nothing to do. Exiting."

That's right. So far I haven't implemented this.

[piscator]

Interesting. So far I haven't had this problem. I'll try to recreate it. What exactly did you do (what kind of tracks did you merge into that Matroska file, and could you upload the chaters you created as well, please)?

I used the Ogg chapter text file format (as ChapterXtractor would have generated them). Only I used an awk-script to convert bsplayer format to ogg chapter format. Files are uploaded under names:
+ ogg-chapters0_piscator.txt
+ ogg-chapters1_piscator.txt

Matroska files have two elements that should be unique to each file: the segment ID (a more or less random 128bit number that should be unique for each file allowing file linking. If you want to know more about this feature please read the mkvmerge documentation for this topic.) and the date of muxing (including the current time, so this is different for each muxed file).
Thanks for the info. I guessed it had to do something with date/time. But it's good to know the purpose of it.

greetz,
Piscator

[Atamido]

Originally posted by Mosu
Matroska files have two elements that should be unique to each file: If a track is muxed from a non-Matroska source, it will also have a unique TrackUID, (a more or less random 32bit number that should be unique for each track to identify it for tags.) For chapters there is also a ChapterUID that serves the same purpose.