MKV Cue Points

[Taddeusz]

Why doesn't Handbrake create MKV cue points? I had been creating files in the outdated AVI container and have now switched to MKV only to find out that Handbrake doesn't create cue points which causes all kinds of weirdness in various software and hardware. The most critical of mine is playback through SageTV. No cue points causes SageTV to return to the beginning of the video if a FF or REW is initiated. I realize the problem with SageTV isn't directly a Handbrake problem but is caused by a deficiency in the files it creates.

I realize I can run the MKV files through mkvmerge to create the necessary cue points but this is a step that should not be needed.

Is there any plan to fix MKV creation to add the proper cue points to the files?

[benjamintm]

This is a bit bothersome. I use Handbrake to encode my movies and then use the SageTV extender to watch. Right now I can work around it by using mkvmerge, but that is an added step.

An alternative is to give the user an option to run a program after an encode, which would allow them to call mkvmerge separately so that developers don't have to figure out how to add cue tables. Just a suggestion.

Ben

[smf]

im wondering benjamintm, could you post what u actually do with mkvmerge in order to get cueing to work with .mkv files generated by handbrake? do your files play with Sage TV, with functional chapter markers?

i can get cueing to work after passing it thru mkvmerge (i am no mkvmerge expert), but the resulting 'cued' .mkv files lack chapter markers -despite that 'create chapter markers' was selected in handbrake 0.9.1 and that these chapter markers are presumably in the .mkv file that handbrake generates.. could it be that i am damaging the chapter markers with mkvmerge, or are they simply not there to begin with in the .mkv that handbrake generates (ie. another deficiency/bug in handbrake's output of .mkv files)?

im using vlc 0.8.6d for playback, have also checked with quicktime/perian: cued files with no chapter markers accessable in these players.

[rhester]

Chapter markers, as implemented in HandBrake, are a uniquely QuickTime/MP4 construct.

Rodney

[jbrjake]

Chapter markers, as implemented in HandBrake, are a uniquely QuickTime/MP4 construct.

Um, no they're not...the MP4 chapter markers are uniquely QuickTime. This is MKV.

[rhester]

We support chapter markers in M4V? Oops. My bad.

I'm going to just stop answering posts. =)

Rodney

[royone]

could you post what u actually do with mkvmerge in order to get cueing to work with .mkv files generated by handbrake?

From this post, it's

Code: Select all

mkvmerge --engage keep_bitstream_ar_info -o <output filename.mkv> <original filename.mkv>

[smf]

Ok, thanks for the info everyone.

It seems I overlooked that the 0.9.1 (Mac?) GUI has a known bug that results in .mkv files without encoded chapter markers despite that option being selected.

This occurs if Film-preset .mkv encodes are the first item to be added to the queue via the GUI (see this thread)..

I've gotten around it by adding the Film-preset mkv-encode to the queue after adding a Normal-preset MP4 encode of the source, and then removing the first in the queue (the pending MP4 encode). The remaining mkv encode in the queue results in a .mkv with VLC readable chapter markers.

A subsequent passthru MkvMerge results in a cueable, chapter marker enabled .mkv !

One could (of course) could just stick to the CLI I think its worth mentioning this bug though, since its taken me a while to figure out where the actual problem was..