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refulgentis

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 14, 2006
114
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its possible, i've read handbrake and toast can do it, it looks like metax can too but doesn't allow you to add, only edit current ones...is there any tool that can add them?
 
I use this process for home movies

(The process works with QuickTime 7.4 Pro and Final Cut Express 4.0)
To add chapters to movies exported from FCE using the "Apple TV" preset in the Export menu:

In a text editor, like TextEdit in the Applications folder, type your list of chapters.
Make each item very short (preferably one word but no more than two or three words) and separate each item with a carriage return.
Choose Format/Make Plain Text.
Save the document as plain text.

In QuickTime Player, choose File > Open File, select the text file, and click Open.
Choose File > Export. In the Export pop-up menu, choose "Text to Text." In the Use pop-up menu, choose "Text with Descriptors."
Click Options. In the Text Export Settings dialog, select "Show Text, Descriptors, and Time"; select "Show time relative to start of Movie"; and set fractions of seconds to 1/30.
(The fractions really don't matter, we will change the value later)
Click OK, then click Save to create a text file with descriptors.

Open the exported list in your text editor, and open the target movie (formatted for Apple TV) in QuickTime Player.
Choose Window > Show Movie Inspector.
In QuickTime Player, drag the playhead on the timeline to find the first point in the movie where you want to begin a new chapter.
Use the Right and Left Arrow keys to step forward or backward a frame at a time as needed. Note the current time in the Inspector window.

In the text file, find the timeScale attribute and change to 24.46.
Next, find the first chapter title and change the timestamp just before that chapter title to the time you noted in the Inspector window.
Example: For a chapter called "one" that starts at 4 seconds, 21 frames into the movie, you would revise the text to look like this:
(00:00:04.21)
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}one
Ignore the textBox attribute.

Repeat steps until you've identified all the places in the movie that correspond to the chapter divisions and you've entered the proper timestamps in the text file.
Change the last timestamp (the one after the last chapter title in the text file) to match the duration of the movie.
Save the text file.

Open the text file in QuickTime Player.
Choose Edit > Select All, choose Edit > Copy.
Click in the target movie, make sure the playhead is at the beginning, choose Edit > "Add to Movie"
QuickTime adds the text track to the movie.

Choose Window > Show Movie Properties.
In the Properties window, select the video or audio track you want to associate with the chapter track, and click Other Settings.
Normally you would choose the main video track.
(alternatively, choose audio track from the Chapters pop-up menu. If you have a movie with alternate subtitle or sound tracks, you can create multiple chapter lists in different languages and set the appropriate subtitle or sound track as the owner of each chapter list. The chapter list will change to match the selected language.)
Select the text track.
Deselect the check box for the text track so that it doesn't display on top of the video.
The new track will still function as a chapter track.

Save the movie as a self-contained movie.
In the Finder, drag the movie to iTunes, and then Sync to Apple TV. The movie will play in Apple TV with Chapters!
-- This is modified from a QT7.2 tutorial, thanks to Tom Wolsky for pointing me in the right direction --
 
Chapter Icons?

So how do you add the chapter icons for itunes. Is there a program to do this. the movie already has chapters encoded through handbreak. :p
 

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More so where does one find the chapter information. AnyDVD HD doesn't seem to keep it, or if it does, Handbrake doesn't see it.
 
More so where does one find the chapter information. AnyDVD HD doesn't seem to keep it, or if it does, Handbrake doesn't see it.

By chapter information do you mean the chapter names or time code?

HandBrake (windows version at least) can read the chapters from a DVD and position them at the right time but carn`t read the chapter names.

But MetaX can add the chapter names manually or if the movie has a tagChimp entry that usally ontains the chapters names.

As for chapter thumbnails I`ve been searching for weeks for a solution and haven`t found one yet:(
 
Actually I've been ripping Blu-ray so I'm not sure if the problem is AnyDVD HD or Handbrake. But I mean the actual time code and chapter names since I can't get to them.
 
Thumbnail chapters

So how do you add the chapter icons for itunes. Is there a program to do this. the movie already has chapters encoded through handbreak. :p

Hey, i'm wondering if you got anywhere with sourcing info on the thumbnail chapters?
 
Does anyone know of a good site to find DVD / BluRay chapter marker timecodes and titles?
 
Drax can add/edit/delete chapters from mp4 videos. It's Windows, not sure if there's a Mac version or not.
 
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