Chapter markers

[Navihawk]

I searched the forums to look for anything similar to my question, but I didn’t see anything, so my apologies if this has been covered in another thread; and thanks in advance for any help with this.

Anyway, I’ve had HandBrake (version 0.10.5.0) on my computer for a while, but I’ve only recently started encoding some of my DVDs to watch the movies on my laptop (Windows 7) so I don’t have to carry around the actual discs. Through some trial and error and a little Internet research, I’ve found the optimal settings for encoding into mp4. (I know that mkv is a little better, but the processor and video on my laptop are a bit older, so sometimes an .mkv file pixelates and freezes some; mp4 just works better for me.) But one thing I’ve been trying to figure out has to do with chapter markers and subtitles.

I have figured out the best way to add subtitles to the movies: I usually use the Closed Captions and only turn them on in VLC if some dialogue is a little quiet or garbled (not due to encoding, but just the way the scene was filmed) or whatever and I want to know/clarify what someone said. But if I’ve enabled Chapter Markers when encoding the movie, that shows up as a second subtitle track (“Chapter 1”, etc.), so I have to cycle through that to turn off the subtitles and chapter markers completely. I know that if I don’t check the “Create chapter markers” box in HandBrake before encoding, the markers won’t show up in the subtitle tracks, but then the movie is encoded without separate chapters. It’s not a big deal, but it’s nice to have separate chapters on an encoded movie, just as if I was watching the original DVD itself. I have tried to find out info about VLC settings, to see if the track can be entirely removed (not just disabled) in the player, but I haven’t been able to find a solution that way either. I posted this same question in the HandBrake forums, and one response offered the explanation that most media players recognize a “flag” encoded in a digital file that ignores the chapter markers, so they won’t show up in the subtitles tracks. Another response said that VLC is open-source, so it was suggested that if I knew how to, I could probably change it myself, but that’s the thing: I don’t know the first thing about changing a program like VLC to do what I want.

So, my question is this: Is there some setting in VLC that will force it to recognize the flag so the chapter markers won’t show in the sub track (but will still be encoded in the file)? Thanks in advance for any info or help with this…

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Please share such a file.

[Navihawk]

I appreciate the reply to my post, but I don't think one certain file would help; my question is about settings for any file in general. I have encoded all the movies the same way, so I just need to know if there is a way to disable the chapter markers as a sub track on ANY movie file.

How would I share the file anyway? Upload it to here? Send it to you? They're all relatively large because they're movies, so they would take up a lot of space.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Any file you encoded this way is fine, or even a short clip.

Any uploading facility is OK.

[Navihawk]

I just don't see why uploading a clip of something I encoded will help. I explained how I encoded the movies usung HandBrake, so now I just want to know if there is a setting in VLC to do what I want. It seems I came to the wrong place for help. My mistake. Thanks for nothing.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

If you want us to fix a bug (chapter markers shown as subtitles), we need to have access to the file. I don't see what's the issue in asking that.