VLC and MKV-files

[huldrych]

Hello everybody. With "GordianKnot" I'm converting MPEG2-Files into MKV-Files. Now I tried to add chapters with "mkvtoolnix" to an already existing MKV-File. VLC loads the file, but I don't know how to jump to the particular chapters. In the menu-bar of VLC the option "navigation" is empty and with the button ">>" only the speed increases.
Another question: having loaded an MKV-file with VLC I moving forward in the film with the "scroll-bar". At the new position the picture of the current position merges with the last picture before moving in a kind of "block building". It looks very strange at first. And after two or three second the new picture is clear. Is that usual?
Thanks for your help!

[rigel]

About the "block building" effect - this is caused by seeking to a non-keyframe frame. When a player needs to seek to certain position specified by user, and it happens to be a non-keyframe, then there are 3 ways to handle it:
1) Decode all frames starting from the keyframe just before the new position. This can take several seconds during which the video is stopped.
2) Jump to the nearest keyframe. This is fast, but the position is not exactly the one that the user wanted.
3) Decode the non-keyframe frame using data from previous frame played. This is ugly, but fast and seeks exactly where you wanted. And if the next keyframe is near, then picture corruption might end fast.
IMHO it should be up to the user to select which option is used, but usually players/splitter filters just use one or another approach.

[huldrych]

Thank you very much for the detailled information. Obviously there are still many things to learn. Thanx.