Converting .TS with variable frame rate to .MKV

[MeltdownSpectre]

Hi everyone,

Long-time lurker, this forum has helped a lot in the past.

Recently had an issue which I can't seem to get around.

I have some video content stored as .TS files, and I'd like to convert them to MKVs since my Plex server seems to have some issues with .TS files but plays everything else flawlessly.

So far what I have tried:

Using FFmpeg to just stream copy the TS to MKV, however that has some issues with the timestamps.

I get this at the end:

[matroska @ 00000246c72ce6c0] Timestamps are unset in a packet for stream 0. This is deprecated and will stop working in the future. Fix your code to set the timestamps properly
[matroska @ 00000246c72ce6c0] Can't write packet with unknown timestamp
av_interleaved_write_frame(): Invalid argument
[matroska @ 00000246c72ce6c0] Can't write packet with unknown timestamp
Error writing trailer of TEST.mkv: Invalid argument
frame= 430 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 Lsize= 19043kB time=00:00:16.80 bitrate=9285.0kbits/s speed= 169x
video:19002kB audio:387kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: unknown
Conversion failed!

A bit of reading around got me to realize that this has something to do with the file having a variable frame rate. I could be wrong though.

Here's the MediaInfo for the file:

https://pastebin.com/h6GtaXVU

A bit more reading on this forum, and someone had suggested to use TSmuxer, so I demuxed the file, and used mkvmerge for the .264 and .AC3 files that I got as output from TSmuxer.

MKVmerge does create a playable MKV, however it's all pixelated and the colours are all over the place.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong or why it's being such a pain to convert these files to MKVs?

All responses would be greatly appreciated.


MS

[noemi7]

Why don't you try to use mkvtoolnix-gui. It muxes anything playable, including ts container, and informs if there is any error. If your ts is a DVB capture it may have i.e. discontinuities due to reception errors.

[hello_hello]

Try opening the TS file directly with MKVToolNix and remuxing as an MKV rather than extracting the streams first. If it's not right, try selecting 50i for the frame rate when muxing (under the Timecodes and default duration tab) to force a constant frame rate.

According to MediaInfo your source is interlaced but there's nothing to indicate it has a variable frame rate. It does however, have a variable bitrate, which is a different thing and should be nothing to worry about.

[MeltdownSpectre]

Why don't you try to use mkvtoolnix-gui. It muxes anything playable, including ts container, and informs if there is any error. If your ts is a DVB capture it may have i.e. discontinuities due to reception errors.

Try opening the TS file directly with MKVToolNix and remuxing as an MKV rather than extracting the streams first. If it's not right, try selecting 50i for the frame rate when muxing (under the Timecodes and default duration tab) to force a constant frame rate.

According to MediaInfo your source is interlaced but there's nothing to indicate it has a variable frame rate. It does however, have a variable bitrate, which is a different thing and should be nothing to worry about.

I'm an absolute idiot. MKVToolnix was one of the first things I used, and every time I remuxed it, the file would open in VLC, but it would have no audio and VLC would display an error about an unidentified audio codec.


Including the subtitles in the remux broke the audio for some reason. I unticked the subtitles when remuxing this time and got the file I needed.


Thank you both very much.