10 replies to this topic

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm looking for some good (ie spec compliant) MKV files with chapters and/or segments for testing purposes. I do have some test files obtained from places like Doom9 posts etc - but I don't know how compliant they are with the spec (so if a file does not display chapters, I don't know if it is the player, or the file is simply broken). Does anyone know where I could obtain a few samples?

 

I must admit, I am not sure about the differences between chapters and segments. I *think* that segments are where the file is split into smaller parts and the video player (via the splitter), then reassembles those segments into the one complete file - I think in that case, I am more interested in chapter samples, but if anyone has any segment samples, I wouldn't mind testing those as well.

 

I do understand that there are external chapters (data in the xml file rather than the mkv file) and internal chapters (data in the mkv itself), so I would like samples of both these if possible. A bonus internet cookie for anyone knowing of a tool that can look into a file and state specifically what chapters are encoded in it, so I can check that against what a player shows (to make sure the player is showing the chapters correctly).

 

(Cannot confirm nor deny this may be Zoom related, lol)

 

ehat

[Hawke]

Here is a mkv encode I made muxed with an embedded OGG / text chapter file.

https://www.dropbox..../Mkv Sample.zip

 

The zip contains the separate chapter file in both the OGG and Matroska XML formats, I'm not sure what you're after but as far as I know those two are the most commonly used formats. I mainly save chapters using the OGG format as it's supported by most hardware players.

 

I use ChapterXtractor for DVD's.

https://www.dropbox....ctor_v0.962.zip

 

You can also use ChapterGrabber, supports DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

http://chapterdb.org/software

 

The only problem with it is you have to sign up to get a key to use its online database, it bugs you to do this each time you use it. You can just hit cancel to get around it though, I'm still using an older version that doesn't force you to do this.

https://www.dropbox....pterGrabber.zip

 

I enabled the Playback option Load Matroska XML Chapter files (".mtxchp" extension) for testing external chapters, muxed the video without embedding the chapter file, renamed the XML chapter file to videoname.mtxchp and it worked Zoom Player read the external chapter file. It didn't work using the .txt or .xml file extensions. and didn't work at all with the OGG format chapter file, which I'm guessing isn't supported.

 

Hawke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ehathgepiurhe]

Thanks Hawke, much appreciated What am I looking for? Well, essentially, the upcoming 9.1.0 release of Zoom will have two chapter enhancements. The first is already in the test build I posted previously (it is not in the current stable, v9.0.2), and that is support for reading Matroska chapters. In addition to recognising them (which has been a long standing wish on the tracker), it also creates entries for them in the Chapter Editor (Shift+C by default) as well. This is for convenience - Zoom won't be able to edit those chapters, you still need an external utility for that (you can though add other chapters, which will then be saved into the normal Zoom Player .zpchp file - though these are only accessible to Zoom obviously).

 

The second is that those chapters will display on the Zoom timeline as well Basically what I wanted was some files to run through Zoom - to see what it showed on the timeline and Chapter Editor, and then compare that to what has actually been coded into the file to make sure Zoom was recognising the chapters correctly.

 

I've asked bLight about that OGG format - you are correct, Zoom doesn't support it at the moment. It might be something bLight can add quickly - the format is simple plain text, two entries for each chapter.

 

ehat

[Hawke]

No problem, sounds good.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hawke, what file extension is used for the OGG format chapters? Though they are only plain text, bLight doesn't want to add support for them if .txt is the actual file extension (too many false positives).

 

ehat

[Hawke]

Yeah, the the file extension is .txt, external chapters are used the same way as external audio / subtitle tracks aren't they? They need to have the same name as the video file to be used?

 

Mad Max.mkv

Mad Max.ac3

Mad Max.srt

Mad Max.txt

 

I'm not sure how the detection logic works with Zoom Player, but if it doesn't work like above and is based on the file extension only, wouldn't it be possible to read the first 2 or 3 lines of the .txt file to determine that it's a valid OGG / XML chapter file first?

 

Hawke.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Thanks, I've put it to bLight that unless the filename of the txt file matches the video filename, they could be excluded from the process and thus should not cause any false positives (I also pointed out that a quick check of the first line or even the first two lines would confirm if it is a OGG formatted file or not).

 

ehat

[Hawke]

Thanks.

[SorryForMyEN]

(...)

Zoom won't be able to edit those chapters, you still need an external utility for that (you can though add other chapters, which will then be saved into the normal Zoom Player .zpchp file - though these are only accessible to Zoom obviously).

(...)

 

 

Is there any way to convert zpchp files to xml or txt files that come stored inside mkv containers? I see that ZP can successfully read chapters in mkv with these formats, but on the other hand, I do not know any mkv video editor or converter that can package the zpchp format.

 

greetings!

[ehathgepiurhe]

The zpchp format is already plain text. I don't know of any specific utility to take the values (time and chapter name) from a zpchp file and convert it to external MKV chapters though. If there weren't too many chapters, guess you could do this manually (just by opening with a text editor I mean).

 

ehat

[SorryForMyEN]

It's that I have several musical shows in mkv with about 15 songs each, and ZP makes it very easy to split the songs in chapters. But since zpchp files can not be inserted into mkv (as far as I know), nor converted to txt/xml/cue, I always need to remember where the chapter files are when I archieve medias.