mkv chapter file problem

[Bully9]

Just been trying to get my head round mkvs recently.

I want to add a subtitle file to the container so i extracted the video, audio and chapter files using mkv extract. But when i open the chapter txt file in notepad, it simply contains the follwing text: "Error: Unrecognized command line option ''. Maybe you put a mode specific option before the input file name?"

And when i try to merge it back with the video, audio and subtitle files in mkvmerge (by loading into the chapter editor) i get "unknown chapter file format" - as i suppose you would expect!

The thing is, the original mkv seems to have a perfectly valid chapter file included ("jump to" in mpc works fine) so i can't see why mkvextract just gives me text file with Error: Unrecognized command line option ''. Maybe you put a mode specific option before the input file name?

Also, why is a txt file not an option for adding to the input files in mkvmerge?

Sorry if these are dim questions, but i'm very new to this mkv lark.

Thanks for any help/suggestions

[Ai Haibara]

Are you using the latest version of mkvtoolnix? (And MKVExtractGUI, if you have that installed as well (to the same directory as mkvtoolnix).)

[Bully9]

Thanks for the reply. I've updated as you suggest and this time in the mkvextract 'content' window, as well as 'Track ID 1 video', 'Track ID 2 Audio' and 'Chapters', i also get 'Chapters:16 entries'.

However when i hit extract, i get exactly the same 3 files as before (_Track 1.h264, _Track2.ac3 and _Chapters.txt. And the Chapters.txt file has the same text in it, i.e. Error: Unrecognized command line option ''. Maybe you put a mode specific option before the input file name?

Incidentally, mediainfo shows the following chapter info

Chapters #0
Language : English
1 : 00:00:00.000 00:00:00.000
2 : 00:06:16.834 00:06:16.834
3 : 00:15:17.917 00:15:17.917
4 : 00:23:38.250 00:23:38.250
5 : 00:30:34.833 00:30:34.833
6 : 00:36:19.427 00:36:19.427
7 : 00:42:46.313 00:42:46.313
8 : 00:46:41.215 00:46:41.215
9 : 00:51:07.272 00:51:07.272
10 : 00:59:27.730 00:59:27.730
11 : 01:08:19.095 01:08:19.095
12 : 01:16:48.061 01:16:48.061
13 : 01:24:15.008 01:24:15.008
14 : 01:31:19.557 01:31:19.557
15 : 01:38:47.004 01:38:47.004
16 : 01:45:22.482 01:45:22.482

[Bully9]

Well, i found a way around it by building a chapter file using the chapter editor using the timings from the mediainfo data. It's a bit longwinded tho And if i demux the new mkv file again, i get the same txt file with the same error message all over again.

Question: what's the diference between having a subtitle file inside or outside the container? [I'd like to have default (on all the time) subs for the non-english dialogue but still have switchable subs for all the dialogue throughout the film.]

[Ai Haibara]

Are you using the command-line version of mkvextract, or the GUI?

I can't remember offhand all of the main differences between having subtitle streams muxed into a video and external subs, but it does make it easier to have multiple switchable subtitle streams (it may be a bit more difficult to switch between multiple external subtitle files for players), and (though I'm not sure about this) that software may support muxed subtitle streams a little better.

Besides, if you're using a subtitle format like .ass, which has support for different fonts and effects, you might also want to package those fonts within the video, as well, etc.

[Bully9]

Thanks for answering my question.

With regard to the chapters problem, I'm using the gui version.

[Ai Haibara]

Hmm... that's odd. Does it do that for every MKV you feed to MKVExtractGUI? I haven't seen that happen with chapter files it's produced for me - but I also only look at them perhaps one or two percent of the time.

[Bully9]

So far every single time. And if it had happened to you, you would have noticed as it makes it impossible to simply mux them back in when you've made any edits, additions or subtractions to the bundled files.

Edit: Well, it seems the way to do this is just to use mkvmergegui. Load chaper using the original mkv title then save it and reload the saved xml file on the global page. Seems there's no need to use mkvextract at all unless you want to edit a file.

[Ai Haibara]

Sounds odd to me that you wouldn't be able to extract the chapters with mkvextract(GUI - I'd possibly have recommended trying the command-line version without the GUI, if I knew how to use it... ), edit, and then remux. But if the other method works for you without much trouble...

I was trying to run some experiments on a handful of MKVs (was gone all day yesterday), but couldn't reproduce the problem.

[Bully9]

Must be geting our mkvs from different sources

[ikarishinji41]

I also have the same problem. Whenever I try to extract the files, the chapter.txt file contains only Error: Unrecognized command line option. Never had it before, installed mkvextract gui on Windows 7, the problem came up. But haven't been able to test whether the mkv files. Also, many files that show this problem open on the mkvextract wizard but show no contents (no extractable files).

[Ai Haibara]

Make sure you've installed mkvtoolnix and MKVExtractGUI to the same folder. Also, make sure you're using the latest version of both programs.

Also, you might want to try the new MKVExtractGUI-2. I haven't tried it yet, myself (I've downloaded it, but the original MKVExtractGUI is still working without any evident problems, for me, so I haven't been in a hurry to try it. )

[ikarishinji41]

Thank you. I'll test the KMVEXTRACTGUI-2 later. The MKVCleaver worked fine!