Making MKV seekable on a Blu-Ray player

[Rekrul]

Full disclosure: I have an OLD system, which runs an OLD version of Windows. Because of this, I use an OLD version of MKVToolnix. There may be a newer version that I can use, but for now this is what I have and it's sufficient to demonstrate the problems I'm having. With that out of the way...

This is an old, documented problem: You play an MKV file on (some?) Blu-Ray players, you try to fast forward, and instead it skips to the next file.

When I originally Googled this problem, the stated solution was to just use an earlier version of MKVMerge to re-mux the video. This didn't work. However adding the parameter "--clusters-in-meta-seek", does fix the problem, but only if I use version 5.3.0. If I use anything later, this doesn't work.

Here is the info from an MKV that won't seek on a Blu-Ray player;

(MKVInfo) |+ Seek head
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x15 0x49 0xa9 0x66 (KaxInfo)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4099
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x16 0x54 0xae 0x6b (KaxTracks)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4253
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x1c 0x53 0xbb 0x6b (KaxCues)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299689907
(MKVInfo) |+ EbmlVoid (size: 4044)
(MKVInfo) |+ Segment information
(MKVInfo) | + Timecode scale: 1000000
(MKVInfo) | + Muxing application: libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0
(MKVInfo) | + Writing application: mkvmerge v6.2.0 ('Promised Land') built on Apr 28 2013 12:22:01

Here is the result of using the command;

mkvmerge.exe -o output.mkv --clusters-in-meta-seek input.mkv

with MKVMerge version 5.3.0. This file DOES seek;

(MKVInfo) |+ Seek head
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x15 0x49 0xa9 0x66 (KaxInfo)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4099
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x16 0x54 0xae 0x6b (KaxTracks)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4259
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x11 0x4d 0x9b 0x74 (KaxSeekHead)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299638651
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x1c 0x53 0xbb 0x6b (KaxCues)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299627552
(MKVInfo) |+ EbmlVoid (size: 4027)
(MKVInfo) |+ Segment information
(MKVInfo) | + Timecode scale: 1000000
(MKVInfo) | + Muxing application: libebml v1.2.3 + libmatroska v1.3.0
(MKVInfo) | + Writing application: mkvmerge v5.3.0 ('I could have danced') built on Feb  9 2012 10:38:07

And here is the result of the EXACT SAME COMMAND using MKVMerge version 7.0.0, which does NOT seek;

(MKVInfo) |+ Seek head
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x15 0x49 0xa9 0x66 (KaxInfo)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4099
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x16 0x54 0xae 0x6b (KaxTracks)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 4260
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x1c 0x53 0xbb 0x6b (KaxCues)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299689925
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x11 0x4d 0x9b 0x74 (KaxSeekHead)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299702881
(MKVInfo) | + Seek entry
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek ID: 0x12 0x54 0xc3 0x67 (KaxTags)
(MKVInfo) |  + Seek position: 299717452
(MKVInfo) |+ EbmlVoid (size: 4010)
(MKVInfo) |+ Segment information
(MKVInfo) | + Timecode scale: 1000000
(MKVInfo) | + Muxing application: libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1
(MKVInfo) | + Writing application: mkvmerge v7.0.0 ('Where We Going') 32bit built on Jun  9 2014 15:08:34

As you can see, both of the re-muxed files contain the entry "KaxSeekHead", but the last one also contains "KaxTags".

It's a pain in the ass to have to keep two different versions of MKVMerge and to manually choose which one gets used.

My question is: What do I have to do on the command line to get MKVMerge 7.0.0 to output a file in the same format as 5.3.0?

[ProWo]

You could download clever FFmpeg-GUI (a very small portable app without installation).
If it runs on your pc, you can remux your mkv with it.

[Rekrul]

You could download clever FFmpeg-GUI (a very small portable app without installation).
If it runs on your pc, you can remux your mkv with it.

I want to use the command line so that I can automate the process via a script, which can be called from my file manager.

[ProWo]

I want to use the command line so that I can automate the process via a script, which can be called from my file manager.

Here you go:

ffmpeg.exe -i "input.mkv" -c copy -map 0 "output.mkv"

[Rekrul]

Allow me to rephrase the question;

Why do I get different results using the exact same command in two different versions of MKVMerge?

[Hoser Rob]

Allow me to rephrase the question;

Why do I get different results using the exact same command in two different versions of MKVMerge?

You may need to ask the dev that, assuming they'd answer the question.

[Rekrul]

You may need to ask the dev that, assuming they'd answer the question.

OK, let me try a different question;

If I were using the very latest version of MKVMerge, what command would I enter into the command line that would mimic the behavior of version 5.3.0 and produce an MKV file that will seek on all Blue-Ray players? Based on my experience so far, I have a strong suspicion that just adding the "--clusters-in-meta-seek" parameters won't be enough. So what other parameters would I need to add?