Trouble seeking in MKV files

MeltingIce · Post by **MeltingIce** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 7:33 am

For some reason, after I encode a video, I've had multiple people report that the video either "bounces" (meaning it jumps backwards and forwards), or crashes their video player when trying to scroll through the movie. If the video player doesn't crash, when you click somewhere on the timeline, the time marker starts low and keeps increasing until it reaches the time you clicked on. Then it can take a minute or two for video to kick back in. I've tried a couple of different options, but nothing has worked. I get the same errors whether I use Handbrake for Mac or for Windows. Here's my encoding settings:

.mkv file with H.264 and AC3 5.1
Framerate same as source
Bitrate at 2000kbps
Slower Deinterlace
2-pass encoding with turbo first pass

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

jbrjake · Post by **jbrjake** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 5:09 pm

Could you have made the title any more vague? Replaced it with something useful.

HandBrake doesn't write cue markers into MKV files, and Perian doesn't follow them anyway. I think VLC has some issues with seeking in HB-generated MKVs that will be fixed in their next release. Anyway, saintdev would be the one to say for sure.

MeltingIce · Post by **MeltingIce** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 6:33 pm

jbrjake wrote:Could you have made the title any more vague? Replaced it with something useful.

HandBrake doesn't write cue markers into MKV files, and Perian doesn't follow them anyway. I think VLC has some issues with seeking in HB-generated MKVs that will be fixed in their next release. Anyway, saintdev would be the one to say for sure.

I found a solution at another site actually. After encoding the video in Handbrake, if I send it though mkvmerge, then all my issues go away.

xyankee · Post by **xyankee** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:39 pm

Handbrake has never outputted good MKV files, see my original post on the subject that was never really answered nor explained.

What OS are you running mkvmerge on, MeltingIce, and when you say "run it through" what exactly are you doing?

I'll try one of the newer builds to see if there's any improvement there...[/url]

MeltingIce · Post by **MeltingIce** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 9:57 pm

xyankee wrote:Handbrake has never outputted good MKV files, see my original post on the subject that was never really answered nor explained.

What OS are you running mkvmerge on, MeltingIce, and when you say "run it through" what exactly are you doing?

I'll try one of the newer builds to see if there's any improvement there...[/url]

I am using Windows Vista to use mkvmerge. All I do is I add the file to mkvmerge, then have it output it without merging it with anything. Its basically a 2-click process and is very easy. I can show you with screenshots if you need me to.

xyankee · Post by **xyankee** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 12:46 pm

MeltingIce wrote:I am using Windows Vista to use mkvmerge. All I do is I add the file to mkvmerge, then have it output it without merging it with anything. Its basically a 2-click process and is very easy. I can show you with screenshots if you need me to.

Sure, that'd be great. Maybe PM me so we don't clutter up this thread. Any idea what mkvmerge is actually doing to the files to repair them?

MeltingIce · Post by **MeltingIce** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:21 pm

Well the screenshots might help other people out too, so I'm going to go ahead and post them here.

The first step is, if you haven't already, to download and install mkvmerge. You can get the Windows version here: http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoo ... ml#windows

Next, run mkvmerge GUI. When you are in mkvmerge, click the add button as shown below.

Once the file has been added, make sure to change the output file name so you don't overwrite the file you are trying to edit!

Finally, hit Start Muxing and once it has finished processing the video, you're all set!

You can delete the original video now if you wish to conserve space.