new to ripping DVD's have problems with MKV output files.

[DELTAsnake]

I'm ripping DVD's of my TV shows. I'm using MakeMKV to rip the DVDs then I've used MKVmerge to separate the episodes when they are lumped into a single file. I've encountered two problems with the output files. I'm using VLC to test the files before I play them back on my Xbox One using the new Media Player app.

First, one of the files as soon as it starts playing the progress bar will skip ahead to the end of the video, the audio keeps playing normally but the video freezes 2 or 3 seconds into the video. I have no idea whats going on beyond that.

Second, the last episode I split out has an incorrect running length in the progress bar. I thinks it has a running length of 1 hour and 40 minutes but it's actually 22 minutes long.

How should I fix these problems?

Also if there is some software I can buy for the Mac that will make the splitting and fixing errors part of the process easier I'm willing to spend a little money.

[Baldrick]

Does this happen if you try play the MKV before you used mkvtoolnix / mkvmerge also?

Makemkv makes mkv files with mpeg2 and they might not work perfect in all players. But they should work fine in VLC...

[DELTAsnake]

The first problem does happen on the before MKVmerge version where all the episodes are lumped together. The second problem only happens with the post MKVmerge version. I think that one is just a time code from the pre-MKVmerge version thats left over.

[ndjamena]

It sounds as if the video stream is corrupted or missing parts.

Is this before or after you changed the MPEG2 stream's AR to 4:3?
Are you sure you extracted the MPEG2 from the MKV before messing with the stream headers and are you sure you didn't append the corrected video to the MKV rather than just adding it? Did you make sure to remove the old video stream before adding the corrected one?

Post what MediaInfo says about the files.

-Edit- Macs make things difficult.

[DELTAsnake]

The first problem happens as soon as the original, unaltered rip hits chapter 6 which is the start of the second episode in the split version I made.

[ndjamena]

Are you using the Mac version of MKVMerge? Macs aren't officially supported by MKVToolNix, the version you have would be maintained by someone other than the original author so I'm not sure exactly what's in it. I've cut the first disc of Head Masters into individual episodes and found absolutely no problems.

VLC skipping ahead generally means there's a gap in one of the tracks it's currently playing and it's searched forward to find the next playable segment. But I don't see how "skipping ahead" and "audio continues normally" can happen at the same time. Can you elaborate?

MakeMKV shouldn't be capable of creating a file with gaps in.

They're both rather odd problems, open the file mentioned with the second problem with MKVMerge GUI, select Options | Show all elements and find the timecode of the last "Cluster"

OR

Look at the file with FFPROBE and find the "Duration" tags for each track to find anything relevant.

It's rather difficult at the moment figuring out exactly what's in an MKV.

[DELTAsnake]

I did use the Windows version of MKVMerge I didn't know there was a Mac version. What I mean is the audio keeps playing, as if it's playing normally. But the progress bar is skipping to the end as if it's super fast forward. The video just stops while the other elements are playing. I'll try re-ripping the DVD for the third time, this time I'll use MakeMKV on Windows. I'm guessing I can't use iMovie or Final Cut to work with MKV files. That would make this much easier.

[ndjamena]

If the original MakeMKV file plays properly then re-ripping shouldn't make any difference.

What you're describing shouldn't be happening, something is corrupting the files at some point.

I'm trying to imagine what on earth could be causing this kind of behaviour...

[DELTAsnake]

Same problem occurred on the fresh rip again it occurs in the original unaltered rip as soon as I hit the effected chapter. Is there a chance there is an error in the authoring of the DVD that doesn't show when played from the disk but MakeMKV is having an issue with? Is there another program I can try that will take a DVD or Blu-ray and turn it into a format I can play in a media player. I'm not worried if it doesn't make MKV files, and that would be a good thing actually given that while the Xbox One plays MKV files all my other devices don't.

[ndjamena]

If MakeMKV encountered a problem it wouldn't have finished the file in the first place, and this seems kind of serious. Can you try playing the original disc in VLC and see if the same thing happens?

Chapter, hmm. MPEG2 aspect ratios can change half way through, it shouldn't affect VLC but it might. In any case, you should just follow the master plan, extract the video with MKVExtract and run the m2v through ReStream to set the AR to 4:3. If there's a problem with the video it may pick it up.

Other than that you could try looking at the thing with other programs, AVIDemux would be a good start, it's rather good at picking up bad frames and skipping them and doesn't actually give a damn about aspect ratios.

There's a box set of Transformers Remastered in JB, hopefully I won't have this much trouble with my set, but if I do I'll figure it out.

[ndjamena]

What order does the first file come in in the grand scheme of things? If it's the second last episode the two problems may be connected.

[hello_hello]

If the duration is out you might be able to fix it by manually specifying a frame rate. 25p, 50i or 50p etc..... I'd try each to see if one of them fixes it.

You can open MKVs with tsmuxer (there's a Mac version) and remux them as ts files. Or you could try extracting the video and audio from the MKV with gMKVExtractGUI and muxing from scratch etc.

Just in case it's VLC's fault (have you tried a different player?)
https://trac.bunkus.org/wiki/FAQ%3APlaybackDoesNotWorkVLCCannotSeekMkvmerge590

[DELTAsnake]

It's not just VLC. The Xbox One can't play episode 2 at all, the one with the odd playback. And episode 5 the one with the odd timing has the same problem on the X1, at least that doesn't affect playback. I've done both disk two and three now of Season 1. Looks like all the episodes on those disk turn out fine. I did notice disk 1 also is a higher bitrate than the other disk and disk 3 doesn't have the aspect ratio issues that disk 1 and 2 have. I wonder if as I go through all the disk in the set if I'll find Madman authored each disk differently.

[ndjamena]

Entirely possible. Most of the Ghost in the Shell discs I have are progressive, sped up from the original 24p, but one disc had every episode blend converted. I had a Ben 10 Alien Force disc that had an added field frame rate conversion when all the others had been sped up as well.

My Pièce de résistance is season 1, disc 2 of Iron Man: Armoured Adventures on Blu Ray, all the episodes in the season had 24 bit PCM audio EXCEPT TWO and those two were part of the same title as all the others on the disc. MakeMKV made a complete mess of the audio on that disc and it took me months to figure out why (actually it took a day or so, but it took months for what had happened to actually sink in) when I finally reported it to Mike, The MakeMKV developer, he added the ability to convert the bit depth of these kind of mix bit depth PCM tracks to the higher bit depth. In the process he screwed up processing of surround sound PCM and a bunch of titles with the same problem (except with DTS-MA) failed to convert as well for a few months but everything's settle down now and MakeMKV is the better for it. Childrens' animation series in a small country like Austalia is probably the best place for issues like these to go undetected, so I'm not doubting that it's possible that there's something on that disc that's throwing MakeMKV off.

We've just got to figure out what it is and get it fixed.

I'm wondering if maybe the frame rate is wrong in sections, although I should think MakeMKV would be able to handle that. I wish we had another disc to test.

[ndjamena]

OK then, JB had 20% off DVDs and Blu Rays today, so it will be a few more months before I can afford proper Curtains in here.

I think I've figured out what the problem is though. The first episode has a commentary, none of the other episodes do. The second audio stream just stops at the end of the first episode. I THINK that's what's causing the problem, I'll have to look into it further (I'm pretty sure neither of the other discs have any commentary episodes, which is why they're fine).

[ndjamena]

1: OH MY GOD! MediaInfo now displays AppleText Chapters in all their glory!!!

2: It's definitely the errant audio track causing the problems with the second episode, if you mux it out using MKVMerge it should come out fine. You should probably mux out the subtitle track too, there's only one frame throughout the entire disc, it shows about 4 seconds in AND IT'S BLANK. Running the video through ReStream should solve the wrong AR problem, muxing out the audio from episodes 2,3,4 and 5 should solve the problem with the second episode, muxing the subtitles out of all of them is only practical.

3: The second problem is different, the original full MakeMKV file is fine, remuxing that file using MKVMerge just creates an exact duplicate of the file, muxing the file into an MP4 with FFMPEG shows no problems, yet for some reason cutting the file with MKVMerge at chapters 6,11,16 and 21 results in the time-codes in the 5th file jumping from 00:10:43:320 to 01:16:34.880 for no apparent reason. I'm pretty sure it's a bug in MKVMerge, which I should probably report, but I asked a question I didn't actually want an answer to and there's an email in my inbox I haven't read yet, so... Yes. Extract everything, then mux them back into an MKV, that should solve it.

MadMan Australia's Transformers Generation One Remastered Season 1 Disc 1 if anyone's interested.