How do I put chapters in an avi file?

[kurkosdr]

Wikipedia says it can be done, but it doesn‘t say how.

PS: Mods may move this to MPEG4 ASP or anywhere else if they see fit, i couldn‘t find a relevant category so i decided post under “general discussion“.

[hello_hello]

Using VirtualDubMod (not VirtualDub) you can open an AVI, then select Streams/Video Chapters. From there you can add them manually. They can also be imported as a text file. Then you'd resave the AVI using Direct Stream Copy for the video.

Here's a couple of programs for extracting chapter timings from a DVD or Bluray (I'm not sure you can extract chapter titles):
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ChapterXtractor
http://jvance.com/pages/ChapterGrabber.xhtml

Someone may be able to suggest a better way. I've never bothered adding chapters to an AVI myself.

[Midzuki]

Although there is a hack by Vidomi to store chapters in AVI files, those files exceed the AVI file specs and will only play in players that explicitly support that hack.

source: http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/a...er_config.html

[kurkosdr]

Is there something compatible with hardware Divx certified players (not just Divx Ultra certified players)? You know, something compatible with the three major chipsets (Sigma, MTK, ESS).

[hello_hello]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

Is there something compatible with hardware Divx certified players (not just Divx Ultra certified players)? You know, something compatible with the three major chipsets (Sigma, MTK, ESS).

generally people stick with a format that their player (or [cheap] alternatives on the market) is able to play, not vice-versa

[Music Fan]

You can also chapter an avi with DivxMediaBuilder and it will become a Divx container, but you will need a Divx Ultra compatible player.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by Music Fan

You can also chapter an avi with DivxMediaBuilder and it will become a Divx container, but you will need a Divx Ultra compatible player.

The reason i want to put chapters in divx avi files is because i want to create a divx file with menus and extras etc. But the viewer (and owner of non ultra player) needs to be able to jump from title 1 (main movie) to title 2 (extras) without having to fast forward manually. One way would be to put a chapter at the start of every title (of course, the titles themselves won‘t have chapters), if there was a method to do that.

The requirement of the DMF spec that all titles must be on the same .divx file is annoying.

[Ghitulescu]

Put the extras into a separate file and use the players' browser.

[kurkosdr]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Put the extras into a separate file and use the players' browser.

Isn‘t that going to ruin the menus?

[Ghitulescu]

Can you keep the menus after converting to AVI?
AFAIK only MKV and Divx Ultra support this feature, but you said non ultra in your reply.
And frankly I don't see the difference in pressing BACK/RETURN/EXIT/MENU then scroll down to the extras and OK/PLAY/ENTER/SELECT (the regular built-in browser) vs MENU, followed by scrolling down into the options of a menu and OK/ENTER/SELECT (DIVX/MKV style of menus).

Remember, all features that theoretically a format allows are also implemented in practice.

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

Isn‘t that going to ruin the menus?

Yeah but if I understand what you're trying to do it shouldn't matter. To me menus offer little more than a bit of unnecessary annoyance.
If you encode the main title and extras as separate AVIs, then if you give them names to make them easily identifiable it shouldn't be too hard to work out which file you want to play using the player's browser (the list of AVIs on the disc). Or you can play the first AVI and usually just jump to playing the next one by using the player's "skip" function.

If I encode the extras I put them in separate files and give the files names such as "movie.avi", "movie extras 1.avi", "movie extras 2.avi" etc and it's fairly easy to jump from one to the other. Pretty much all players show a browser containing the list of files on the disc whenever you hit the stop button.

One thought.... some.... well probably many.... DVD players display the titles of files using the old DOS 8 character type file names. So "movie extras 1.avi" may end up being displayed as "movie~1.avi" or "movie~2.avi" etc depending on the names of the rest of the files. If that's the case you might have to be a little creative in your file naming in order to be able to distinguish which is which when viewing the list of files using the DVD player. Or you can put the extras into a separate folder on the disc etc.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally Posted by kurkosdr

Wikipedia says it can be done, but it doesn‘t say how.

One question... Why?