iPod video Chapters

[ssj2_goha]

Has anyone found a way to add chapter markers to iPod video files? I have tried mp4box with no results. any ideas would be very helpful.

[Soopafresh]

http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-115864.html

[ssj2_goha]

That is a bad way of doing it..... There is obviously a way to imbed the chapters into the files.

[GMaq]

Hi,
Nero Recode embeds the chapters from your your Source DVD ar allows you to create your own chapter points, MeGUI will also allow you to set chapter points manually, however it seems to me that the problem with iPods are that they don't recognize the chapter indexes even if they are present in the file, I live in Canada so I can't download movies from iTunes so I can't say whether or not their .m4v format has chapters that work or not.

[ssj2_goha]

Yeah the iTunes store movies do work. i got a movie and noticed they had them so i wanted to figure out how to add them to videos encoded with a tool i'm working on.

[geowharton]

Try MovieChapterizer 1.4 (for macs). Get it at
http://js8media.com/moviechapterizer/


I tried the ch2ipod and only got a message saying "beta expired".

Can anyone help with this?
Nero has the ability to ad chapters when you make the movie, but has anyone found another way to add the chapters to an existing video without reencoding?

[ssj2_goha]

Still no luck....... Anyone have any ideas? I'm looking for a way to do this to add it to program.

[Heymbit]

As far as chapters go, I'd like to say now that YAMB doesn't work. At least, I tried making a chapter file, YAMB took it, but I could've made a problem, but YAMB didn't say anything about it. I'd love to know if anyone has had success with YAMB.

[ssj2_goha]

i'm not surprised yamb didn't work it's just a wrapper for mp4box.

[geowharton]

A good way that works on the Ipod if your movie is ASV or ISO.

Get Quicktime Pro. Check the help file under "Editing and Authoring" under "Creating a chapter list".
The first step is a bit tedious, but if you save the text file that QT wrote you can use it many times with simple modification.
QT will save the file as .mov and it works on the Ipod perfectly...

Unless I try to use this method in a video that is AVC everything seems to work until I save the movie. It doesn't save. The modified movie's chapters work while I have just aded the chapters, but it just doesn't save.

Maybe someone has a fix for this?

[ssj2_goha]

I guess I'm surprised nobody has figured this out yet........

[Heymbit]

I'm trying a way in quicktime pro that no one's suggested, yet. It'll take another hour or so of testing before I have results, and I will edit this post with final results, but know this, I'm not giving up, I want my iPod Videos to have chapters!

[ssj2_goha]

I need a free CLI way....... well once someone gets it to work we can look at the b4 and after video to see what was changed then we can figure it out.

This feature and adding ratings are the only thing i have to add to iConverter b4 i release it.......

[Heymbit]

Thank to the help from philsh from demonoid, I was able to do it!!! Just follow this guide, but do not, I mean DO NOT, do Step 12. If you do step 12, it won't work. Pretend step 12 doesn't exist. I don't know of any step 12s.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/chaptertracks.html
Note, I've only tried this on a mac because I only have a mac. If PC users can't do it, tough.

[ssj2_goha]

does this work for m4v files?
and can someone figure out how to do it with a cli program?

[Heymbit]

Well...yes and no. QuickTime takes the m4v files and saves them as .mov files. If you follow the guide exactly, except for step 12 which you should not do, then the .mov file will load into iTunes and load onto an iPod. Also, do note, the video plays jerky in iTunes (not jerky anywhere else) and in front row, the top left hand corner of the screen has a black box showing what chapter is currently playing, but besides that there are no problems. Plays perfectly on an iPod, and in VLC it just treats it like a movie with no chapter options . But this does solve the chapter problem with iPods .

UPDATE! The black box problem is gone! I found a way to make it invisible, so it's no longer an issue! In quicktime, when you have your final video, go to movie properties, select the text one, go to visual settings, under transparency, select Blend, and for transparency percent choose 100%, and it goes away!

[ssj2_goha]

did you try to save the file as a m4v? looking at that guide i have an idea i'm gonna try.

[Heymbit]

I tried, but quicktime won't let me save it as anything except .mov
If you can find a way to force quicktime to save it to what you want, please tell. Also, don't do the export feature. If you export the movie, the chapter track does a great disappearing act (not to mention it takes ages to export).

[ssj2_goha]

can you post a copy of the txt file you used? i think i might have figured it out with mp4box but adding the chapters marks as a subtitle not a "normal" chapter track

[Heymbit]

Here's what I typed (I also attached it just in case you wanna download it)
{QTtext}{font:Geneva}{plain}{size:12}{textColor: 65535, 65535, 65535}{backColor: 0, 0, 0}{justify:center}{timeScale:30}{width:160}{height :48}{timeStamps:absolute}{language:0}{textEncoding :0}
[00:01:53.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 1
[00:06:55.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 2
[00:11:57.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 3
[00:16:59.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 4
[00:22:01.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 5
[00:27:03.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 6
[00:32:05.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 7
[00:37:07.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 8
[00:42:09.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 9
[00:47:11.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 10
[00:52:13.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 11
[00:57:15.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 12
[01:02:17.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 13
[01:07:18.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 14
[01:12:20.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 15
[01:17:30.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 16
[01:22:32.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 17
[01:27:34.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 18
[01:32:36.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 19
[01:37:38.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 20
[01:42:40.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 21
[01:47:42.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 22
[01:49:44.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 23
[01:53:46.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Chapter 24
[02:01:05.99]

chapter%20list.txt

[Heymbit]

Note, the final time has to be the total time of duration that the movie is. This one was for Battle Royale Director's Cut.

[geowharton]

Heymbit,
That is the same instructions from the QuickTime Pro help file. And it only works with QT Pro.

If you do not uncheck the text file, then the chapter numbers are always on the screen with your movies.

ssj2_goha,
You need to always uncheck the text file box just as the instruction says.

[Heymbit]

Actually, not the exact same instructions. In the QTPro ones, there are nearly 19 steps, on this one only 13, and you omit the 12th one, so it's a little different. Most probably, just written different, but it's not copy and paste.

[ssj2_goha]

I have looked into it alot more.... I found if you use mp4box with the -nhml command you can extract the "chapter marker" subtitle track. I just need to find away to convert time code to the numbers needed to to reference the right part of the file.... when i get home I will post the text files i get from it. any help would be appreciated.

[Heymbit]

Oh, neat update. The beat for Handbrake (you gotta search the site a good bit to find it) has the source code of it's latest beta that can be compiled in Windows and OSX. What makes that important is that one of the new features is that you can add chapter markers to file that output in mp4 (note, you gotta change the name to m4v for the chapters to show up, it's an option in preferences). So now your dvd rips can have the same chapter markers that are on the actual DVD ^_^

[ssj2_goha]

cool i will have to ask them how they did it and look at the source code.

[jonas more]

QuickTime Pro works great for adding chapters to iPod video.

In my experience the steps in the guides listed above (QuickTime User's Guide and the QuickTime Tutorial on Chapter Tracks) have to be slightly modified.

Step 17 of the User's Guide states that you should "Choose the main video or audio track from the Chapters pop-up menu."

The only options in the Chapters pop-up menu are 'None' and 'Text Track'... so choose Text Track.

Step 10 of the QuickTime Tutorial states "Open Show Movie Properties from the Window menu, choose the new text track. Choose other settings then choose Text track in the Chapters popup."

If you choose the new Text Track in the top window then Other Settings as described, the only option provided in the Chapters pop-up menu is 'None'.

Be sure you choose either the main video or audio track in the top window then select 'Other Settings' as described.

These are the only modifications I make in the guides and my iPod videos play perfectly with chapter points! (again, I do NOT omit ANY steps and the chapter track works perfectly)

Anthony

[jonas more]

I gave HandBrake a try yesterday and while the quality of the video output is very good, I couldn't get it to add chapter points.

The Windows version doesn't have an option to save the file as a .m4v and doesn't even mention the ability to add chapter points.

Anthony

[ssj2_goha]

the *.nhml file (from cursed from the iTunes store)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<NHNTStream version="1.0" timeScale="44100" mediaType="text" mediaSubType="text" specificInfoFile="cursed_track4.info" baseMediaFile="cursed_track4.media" trackID="4" >
<NHNTSample DTS="0" dataLength="29" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="19889100" dataLength="23" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="37661400" dataLength="23" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="55742400" dataLength="27" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="72632700" dataLength="24" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="98343000" dataLength="31" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="114086700" dataLength="29" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="124229700" dataLength="21" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="139135500" dataLength="21" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="152233200" dataLength="29" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="171593100" dataLength="22" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="190467900" dataLength="23" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="208504800" dataLength="26" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="218250900" dataLength="35" isRAP="yes" />
<NHNTSample DTS="242461800" dataLength="25" isRAP="yes" />
</NHNTStream>

the .media file

 Beware The Moon   encd  
  	Car Wreck   encd  
  	Bad Dream   encd  
  
Morning After   encd  
  
Endangered   encd  
  Mark Of The Beast   encd  
  Wrestling Match   encd  
  Bad Day   encd  
  Bad Dog   encd  
  Hall Of Mirrors   encd  
  Showtime   encd  
  	The Beast   encd  
  Still Cursed   encd  
  What Doesn't Kill You   encd  
  End Credits   encd  

the .info file

   
   
ÿÿÿÿÿÿ             

Using this They make the chapter points. any idea how to convert "normal" time codes (00:00:00.00) to those DTS values?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jonas more]

HandBrake 0.8.5b1 was released today which is said to offer "Chapter markers (QuickTime-style)"

Can't wait to give it a try!

Anthony