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<html>
<head>
<title>A guide to mkvmerge GUI</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>A guide to mkvmerge GUI (mmg)</h1>
<i>Moritz Bunkus</i>
<hr>
<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<p>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#introduction">Introduction</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#whatismatroska">What is Matroska?</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#whatismkvmerge">What is mkvmerge?
What is mkvmerge GUI?
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#latestversion">Obtaining the latest
version
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#scope">Scope of this guide</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#setup">Setting up mkvmerge GUI</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#muxing">Creating Matroska files</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#basics">Basics</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#fileoptions">Options for input
files
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#trackoptions">Options for each
track
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#attachments">Attachments</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#globaloptions">Global options</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#global_title">File/segment
title</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#global_split">Automatic
splitting and file linking</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#global_link">Manual
file/segment linking</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#global_chapters">Chapters</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#global_tags">Global tags</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#doit">Starting the merge
process
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#saveload">Saving and loading
muxing settings
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#jobqueue">Queueing several jobs</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chaptereditor">The chapter editor</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chapterconcept">Matroska's
chapter concept
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chapterexamples">Examples</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chapterformats">Chapter formats
supported by mkvmerge
</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#cfsimple">Simple/OGM style
chapter files
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#cfxml">Full-featured XML
style chapter files
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#cfkax">Chapters found in
Matroska files
</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#creatingchapters">Creating
chapter files
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#editingchapters">Editing existing
chapters
</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#headereditor">The header editor</a>
<br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#he_addingremovingheaderfields">Adding
and removing header fields</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#he_analyzingthefile">Opening an existing file</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#he_editingthefile">Editing header fields</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#he_validation">Validation</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#he_saving">Saving the file</a>
</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
</p>
<hr>
<a name="wxhh_introduction"></a>
<h2><a name="introduction">1. Introduction</a></h2>
<h3><a name="whatismatroska">1.1. What is Matroska?</a></h3>
<p>(<i>Note: simply copied from <a href="http://www.matroska.org/">
www.matroska.org</a>.</i>)</p>
<p><b>Matroska</b> aims to become THE Standard of Multimedia Container
Formats. It was derived from a project called MCF, but
differentiates from it significantly because it is based on EBML
(Extensible Binary Meta Language), a binary derivative of XML. EBML
enables the Matroska Development Team to gain significant advantages
in terms of future format extensibility, without breaking file
support in old parsers.</p>
<p>If you need any more info please head over to
<a href="http://www.matroska.org/">Matroska's homepage</a>.</p>
<h3><a name="whatismkvmerge">1.2. What is mkvmerge? What is mkvmerge
GUI?</a></h3>
<p><i>mkvmerge</i> and <i>mkvmerge GUI</i> (or just <i>mmg</i>) are two
programs created by <a href="mailto:moritz@bunkus.org">Moritz
Bunkus</a>. They're part of the <i>mkvtoolnix</i> package. <i>mkvmerge</i>
can read a lot of different multimedia files and put their contents into
Matroska files. Unfortunately this is a command line program, and not
everyone is comfortable working on the command line. This is where
<i>mkvmerge GUI</i> comes into play. It is a GUI that provides the user
with an intuitive but powerful interface to <i>mkvmerge</i>.</p>
<p>Both programs are available for both Windows and GNU/Linux and
other Unix derivatives. The program is licensed under the GPL, so
the source code is available to anyone interested.</p>
<h3><a name="latestversion">1.3. Obtaining the latest version</a></h3>
<p>You can always find the latest version of <i>mkvtoolnix</i> on
<a href="http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/">Moritz
Bunkus' website</a>. Windows users will have to download the runtime
DLLs as well as the <i>mkvtoolnix</i> binaries. Linux/Unix users
will probably download the sources and compile
<i>mkvtoolnix</i> themselves.</p>
<h3><a name="scope">1.4. Scope of this guide</a></h3>
<p>This guide only focuses on the GUI part of these tools. All
command line options are explained in detail in
<i>mkvmerge</i>'s man page/HTML page.</p>
<hr>
<a name="wxhh_setup"></a>
<h2><a name="setup">2. Setting up mkvmerge GUI</a></h2>
<p>(<i>Note: This section does not cover compilation and
installation. <i>mkvmerge</i>'s own documentation and the
<code>README</code> files that are included in the
<i>mkvtoolnix</i> package.</i>)</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/selectmkvmergeexecutable.gif"
alt="selecting the mkvmerge executable">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 1: Use this button to select the path to the
<i>mkvmerge</i> program.</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>The only thing that <i>mmg</i> needs to know is the location
of the <i>mkvmerge</i> binary. Under normal circumstances it
will be found automatically. But if not then you can select
the binary to use on the <i>Settings</i> tab.</p>
<hr>
<a name="wxhh_muxing"></a>
<h2><a name="muxing">3. Creating Matroska files</a></h2>
<h3><a name="basics">3.1. Basics</a></h3>
<p><i>mkvmerge</i> strictly differentiates between <i>files</i> and
<i>tracks</i>. An input <i>file</i> usually contains one or more
<i>tracks</i>. <i>mkvmerge</i> needs at least one input file and the file
name of the Matroska file it should create before it can do any
work. Starting with this minimal set of options the user can add more input
files, select advanced options for each track, apply some more global
options etc.</p>
<p>The typical basic steps are:<br>
<ol>
<li>Select some input <i>files</i>,</li>
<li>set language options for the <i>tracks</i>,</li>
<li>set the movie/file title,</li>
<li>select the file to write to and</li>
<li>start the muxing process.</li>
</ol>
</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/addremovefiles.gif"
alt="adding and removing files">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 2: Use these buttons to add and remove
files.</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>When <i>mmg</i> starts up it shows the first and probably most
important tab: the <i>input tab</i>. Here you see four different
elements. The topmost input box lists all input
<i>files</i>. Directly under this box are options that apply
to the currently selected input <i>file</i>.</p>
<p>Figure 2 shows the three buttons to the right of the upper list box that
can be used to add files to the list box with the <i>add</i> and
<i>append</i> buttons and to remove the selected entry with the
<i>remove</i> button.</p>
<p>There is a difference between <i>adding</i> and <i>appending</i> a
file. Normally, the tracks of all <i>added</i> files are put into the
resulting Matroska file in parallel. This is usually the case if you
have e.g. a video track, one or more audio tracks and one or more
subtitle tracks. They all contain material that belongs to the same
timecodes and that has to be played simulatneously.</p>
<p><i>Appending</i> a file on the other hand will cause all tracks of the
second file to be appended to tracks of a previously <i>added</i>
file. That way the contents of those tracks will be played one after the
other. You can only concatenate tracks that are of the same kind (video
to video tracks etc), have the same codec (e.g. MP3 to MP3 but not MP3
to AC3) and the same parameters (e.g. the sample rate must match).</p>
<p>You can tell an <i>added</i> file from an <i>appended</i> one by
looking at its name. <i>Appended</i> files and tracks start with
&quot;<code>++&gt;</code>&quot;.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/trackselection.gif"
alt="selecting specific tracks">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 3: One enabled and one disabled track. The second
track will not be copied into the output file.</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>Once the user has added at least one input <i>file</i> in the upper
list box the second list box will contains all available
<i>tracks</i>. Each track is ENabled by default and will be
muxed into the resulting file. However, you can change that by
simply clicking on the check box right in front of the track's
name in the second list box. This is shown in figure 3.</p>
<p>For each of these tracks the user can select track specific options with
the input boxes and check boxes below the track listing. These options will
be described in the following sections.</p>
<p>To the right of the track list box there are two buttons with which
you can control the order of the tracks in the output file. By hitting
the <i>up</i> and <i>down</i> the currently selected track is moved in
the appropriate direction. There are some restrictions to moving
<i>appended</i> tracks around (the ones that start with
&quot;<code>++&gt;</code>&quot;) like an <i>appended</i> track must not be
the first track etc.</p>
<h3><a name="fileoptions">3.2. Options for input file</a></h3>
<p>Once the user has added and selected an input file he can set options
that apply to this specific file. At the moment three such options have
been implemented, and they all are only available for Matroska files:
<code>No chapters</code>, <code>No attachments</code> and <code>No
tags</code>. These options tell <i>mkvmerge</i> not to copy any
chapters / attachments / tags from the current source file.</p>
<p>More information about chapters can be found in the section about the
<a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chaptereditor">chapter editor</a> in this
document and in <i>mkvmerge</i>'s own documentation.</p>
<h3><a name="trackoptions">3.3. Options for each track</a></h3>
<p>Depending on the type of the currently selected track (audio,
video, subtitles) and even depending on the contents of the track
only a subset of all the track specific options are
available. These options span over two sub-pages. There
are <em>general track options</em> and <em>format specific
options</em>.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/generaltrackoptions.gif"
alt="typical options for a video track">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 4: Options common for all kinds of tracks</font>
</p>
</div>
<p><b>Note:</b> Unless overridden by the user <i>mkvmerge</i> will
either copy track settings from the input file if the source format
supports such information, or it will use sensitive default
values.</p>
<p>The available general options are:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>Track name:</code> The user can set a name for the current
track. This name is a free-form string. Practical examples could be
'director's comments' or 'great view of Seattle'. Note that these names
are not meant to contain the movie title!</li>
<li><code>Language:</code> The user can select the language for each track
regardless of its type. This language is coded in the ISO639-2 language
code. The drop-down box contains all ISO639-2 codes so the user does not
have to worry about selecting the wrong language code.</li>
<li><code>Cues:</code> The <i>cues</i> are for Matroska what the index is
for AVI files. They contain links to the key frames. Usually this option
should be left on the value 'default'. <i>mkvmerge</i> will automatically
chose the best method for any given track type. A full explanation of
tracks can be found in <i>mkvmerge</i>'s documentation.</li>
<li><code>Make default track:</code> Matroska knows a flag which tells the
player that a specific track should be preferred upon playback if the user
does not chose another one. Of course each track <i>type</i> has its own
default track - e.g. the default audio track is the English one, and the
default subtitle track is the French one. If no track is set to be the
default track then <i>mkvmerge</i> will promote the first track of each
type that it finds to be the default track. This is consistent with the
behavior of various media players.</li>
<li><code>Tags:</code> For each track you can create a XML tags file. For a
full explanation of all tags please refer to the example file and <a
href="mkvmerge.html"><i>mkvmerge</i>'s own documentation</a>. In probably
99% of all cases you want to use THIS option and associate tags with a
specific track. The tags option on the global tab is probably not what you
need.</li>
<li><code>Timecodes:</code> Normally <i>mkvmerge</i> will derive the
timecodes for each frame from the source file, but it can also
read and use timecodes from an external text file whose name you
can specify here. This feature is a very advanced feature. Almost
all users should leave this entry empty.</li>
</ul>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/videotrackoptions.gif"
alt="typical options for a video track">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 5: Typical options for a video track</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>The format specific options include:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>Aspect ratio:</code> With this option the user can set the aspect
ratio that should be used upon playback. It defaults to the aspect ratio
that the movie was encoded with but can be changed, e.g. for anamorphic
encodings. The GUI expects the format to be either a floating point number
(e.g. '2.33') or a fraction (e.g. '16/9').
<br>
Another possibility is to set the values for the display width and display
height manually. This can come in handy if you want to adjust the
parameters to a specific resolution. If you specify the aspect ratio then
<i>mkvmerge</i> will calculate the display dimensions based on the size of
the video track.
<br>
This option is only available for video tracks.</li>
<li><code>FourCC:</code> Matroska does not normally store the Four-CC
which is used in other containers to identify the codec used. Matroska
has its own format, called <i>CodecID</i>, but it also has an AVI
compatibility mode. In this mode the FourCC is also stored. With this
option the FourCC can be forced to a different value. However, you
cannot change the <i>CodecID</i> used by <i>mkvmerge</i>.
<br>
This option is only available for video tracks.</li>
<li><code>Stereo mode:</code> There's a technology of providing
pseudo three dimensional images by playing back two video tracks
that have been filmed from slightly different positions
simultaneously. Each eye only sees one of those tracks. This is
called <i>stereo mode</i>. Most users should leave this empty.
<br>
This option is only available for video tracks.</li>
<li><code>FPS:</code> Number of <i>frames per second</i> for
AVC/h.264 video tracks. When you add AVC/h.264 elementary streams
then <i>mkvmerge</i> must be told which how many frames per second
this video was recorded with because that piece of information is
not available in elementary streams. If you don't select anything
then <i>mkvmerge</i> defaults to 25. You can either enter a
floating point number (e.g. 29.97) or a fraction
(e.g. 30000/1001).
<br>
This option is only available for AVC/h.264 video tracks read from
AVC/h.264 elementary streams.</li>
</ul>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/audiotrackoptions.gif"
alt="typical options for an audio track">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 6: Typical options for an audio track</font>
</p>
</div>
<ul>
<li><code>Delay (in ms):</code> In some cases audio and video are
not synchronized properly. With this option the user can offset
the timecodes of any track by a given amount, either positive or
negative. The number you enter here is the amount in milliseconds
that is added to each timecode after the <code>Stretch by</code>
factor has been applied (see below).
<br>
This option is available for all track types. However, timecode
adjustments work best for video and subtitle tracks during
playback.</li>
<li><code>Stretch by:</code> In some cases audio and video slowly
drift apart during playback. This can be fixed by supplying a
factor of how much the time codes should be stretched
by <i>mkvmerge</i>. If nothing is entered then '1.0' is assumed
which does not alter the time codes.
<br>
The value you enter can either be a floating point number or a
fraction, e.g. &quot;1/2&quot;. The factor is applied before
the <code>Delay</code> is added (see above).
<br>
This option is available for all track types. However, timecode
adjustments work best for video and subtitle tracks during
playback.</li>
<li><code>Subtitle charset:</code> Some text subtitle formats do not store
the charset that they were created with. This is important because text
subtitles are automatically converted to the UTF-8 charset during
muxing. <i>mkvmerge</i> will normally assume that the system's current
charset is the same that the subtitle file was written in. But in case
this is not true the user can select the correct charset.
<br>
This option is only available for text subtitle tracks.</li>
</ul>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/textsubtitlestrackoptions.gif"
alt="typical options for a text subtitle track">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 7: Typical options for a text subtitle track</font>
</p>
</div>
<ul>
<li><code>Compression:</code> Matroska features a powerful system for
compressing tracks with lossless compression algorithms. Those
compressions can be applied to any given track, but some players only
support this for VobSub tracks. This is where it's most useful. Other
tracks, especially audio and video tracks, are already compressed so
that additional compression will not yield any result. For VobSubs you
can achieve an additional gain of about 30% if you enable zlib
compression. That's why it is the default for VobSub tracks.
<br>
You should just leave this setting at <i>default</i>.</li>
<li><code>AAC is SBR/HE-AAC/AAC+:</code> The new technology called 'high
efficiency AAC' has some drawbacks when it is being stored in
<code>.AAC</code> files: it is not possible to detect the HE-AAC part
for these files. Therefore the user has to check this option manually
if it applies. Please note that this problem does not exist for HE-AAC
stored in <code>.MP4</code> files.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="attachments">3.4. Attachments</a></h3>
<p>Matroska files can also contain other files, called attachments. This
works basically just like with your favorite email program. The idea is to
provide additional information about the file. Some examples could be cover
photos for a CD rip, additional background information in text form about
the movie or even some compressed fonts for the subtitles.</p>
<p>Every attachment needs two things: the file name (obviously) and the MIME
type that should be associated with the file. The usage is very easy and
similar to adding files on the
<i>input</i> tab.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/addingremovingattachments.gif"
alt="adding and removing attachments">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 8: Add and remove attachments with these
buttons.</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>On the second tab of the GUI, the <i>attachment</i> tab, you can add a
file with the <i>+</i> button and remove the selected attachment with the
<i>-</i> button. Once an attachment has been selected the other controls on
this tab will be available. You do have to select a MIME type for each
attachment, but the description is optional - although it is a good idea to
always provide a description. This makes it easier for others to identify
what you've attached to this Matroska file.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/attachmentoptions.gif"
alt="typical options for an attachment">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 9: Typical options for an attachment</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>The last option, <code>attachment style</code>, is only evaluated when
you also split the output into several files. (Splitting in general is
explained in the following section.) If the option <code>To all
files</code> is selected then the current file will be attached to all
output files created. If the option <code>Only to the first</code> is
selected then the file is only attached to the very first output file
created.</p>
<h3><a name="globaloptions">3.5. Global options</a></h3>
<p>The third tab, <i>Global</i>, is packed full of options that apply to the
complete file and not just to one or more tracks.</p>
<h4><a name="global_title">3.5.1. File/segment title</a></h4>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/movietitle.gif"
alt="selecting a movie title">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 10: Selecting a title for the movie</font>
</p>
</div>
<p><code>File/segment title:</code> This title is used for the actual
movie title, e.g. 'Vanilla Sky'.</p>
<h4><a name="global_split">3.5.2. Automatic splitting and file
linking </a></h4>
<p>The <code>Split</code> section handles how the output file is split
into several smaller files. If no splitting is selected then only one
big file is generated. If splitting is activated then you can tell
<i>mkvmerge</i> to start a new output file after either a specific
amount of data has been written to the current file or after a specific
timecode has been reached. The accepted formats are:
<br>
<ul>
<li>For the size: A number optionally followed by the letter 'K', 'M'
or 'G' indicating kilobytes (1024 bytes), megabytes (1024 * 1024
bytes) or gigabytes (1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes). Examples: '700M' or
'100000K'.</li>
<li>For the time: The format is either <code>HH:MM:SS.nnn</code>
with up to nine digits for up to nanosecond precision or a number
followed by the letter 's' indicating a number of
seconds. Several timecodes can be entered separated by
commas.<br>
Please note that the timecodes refer to the unsplit output
stream. Therefore entering '00:10:00,00:20:00' will result in
three files of which the first two will be roughly ten minutes
long. The third piece will contain the rest of the input
stream. This is independant of the 'file linking' feature.<br>
Examples: '01:20:00' (split after 1 hour, 20 minutes) or
'1800s' (split after 1800 seconds = 30 minutes).</li>
</ul>
</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/splitting.gif"
alt="typical options for splitting">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 11: Typical options for splitting. Create two files
which will be approx. 700megs big.</font>
</p>
</div>
<p><code>Don't link:</code> This option controls how <i>mkvmerge</i> will
handle splitting. A little explanation about this feature:</p>
<p>Matroska supports file linking which simply says that a specific file
is the predecessor or successor of the current file. To be precise, it's
not really the files that are linked but the Matroska segments. As most
files will probably only contain one Matroska segment I simply say 'file
linking' although 'segment linking' would be more appropriate.</p>
<p>Each segment is identified by a unique 128 bit wide segment UID. This
UID is automatically generated by <i>mkvmerge</i>. The linking is done
primarily via putting the segment UIDs of the previous/next file into
the segment header information. <i>mkvinfo</i> prints these UIDs if it
finds them.</p>
<p>If a file is split into several smaller ones and linking is used then
the time codes will not start at 0 again but will continue where the
last file has left off. This way the absolute time is kept even if the
previous files are not available (e.g. when streaming). If no linking is
used then the time codes should start at 0 for each file. By default
<i>mkvmerge</i> does not use file linking because some players still
don't handle linked files properly. If you want linking that you can
turn it on by enabling this <code>link files</code> check box.</p>
<h4><a name="global_link">3.5.3. Manual file/segment linking</a></h4>
<p>Regardless of whether splitting is active or not the user can tell
<i>mkvmerge</i> to link the produced files to specific
UIDs. This is done by entering a valid segment UID into the
two input boxes, <code>Previous segment UID</code> and
<code>Next segment UID</code>. These options accept a segment
UID in the format that <i>mkvinfo</i> outputs: 16 hexadecimal
numbers between 0x00 and 0xff prefixed with '0x' each and
separated with spaces, e.g. <code>0x41 0xda 0x73 0x66 0xd9
0xcf 0xb2 0x1e 0xae 0x78 0xeb 0xb4 0x5e 0xca 0xb3
0x93</code>. Alternatively a shorter form can be used: 16
hexadecimal numbers between 0x00 and 0xff without the '0x'
prefixes and without the spaces, e.g.
<code>41da7366d9cfb21eae78ebb45ecab393</code>.</p>
<p>If splitting is used then the first file is linked to the UID given in
the <code>Previous segment UID</code> input box, and the last file is
linked to the UID given in the <code>Next segment UID</code> input
box. If splitting is not used then the one output file will be linked to
both of the two UIDs.</p>
<h4><a name="global_chapters">3.5.4. Chapters</a></h4>
<p>With the browse button you can select the chapters to add to the
output file. A full explanation of all aspects around chapters can be
found in the <a href="mkvmerge-gui.html#chaptereditor"> Chapter editor
section</a>.</p>
<h4><a name="global_tags">3.5.5. Global tags</a></h4>
<p>Unlike the tags you can select for each track on the input tab the
tags selected here have to contain the track UIDs. These tags are not
assigned to any track automatically. In 99% of all cases this is NOT the
option you want to use!</p>
<p>The full explanation can be found in mkvmerge's documentation.</p>
<h3><a name="doit">3.6. Starting the merge process</a></h3>
<p>Once everything has been set up the muxing process can be started. The
last thing to do is to chose where to mux to. With the
<code>browse</code> button you can select the output file. After this has
been done hit the <code>Start muxing</code> button or select the same entry
from the <code>Muxing</code> menu.</p>
<p>If everything has been set up correctly <i>mmg</i> will show the muxing
dialog. The progress is shown at the top, as is a general description of
what <i>mkvmerge</i> is doing at the moment.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/muxingwindow.gif"
alt="the muxing window">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 12: The muxing window</font>
</p>
</div>
<p><i>mkvmerge</i> knows three different 'severity levels' for its messages:
status reports, warnings and errors. All status report messages are shown
in the upper window. These include the track types encountered and other
interesting things.</p>
<p>Warnings are shown in the middle window. <i>mkvmerge</i> will not abort
when it issues a warning, but it might stop muxing the track for which the
warning was printed. You should pay close attention to all warning
messages.</p>
<p>Errors are show in the lower window. Errors are always fatal, and
<i>mkvmerge</i> will stop muxing right after it has printed the error
message. Such a message might be that the hard disc is full or that the
source file is damaged and cannot be processed any further.</p>
<p>The button <code>Abort</code> sends <i>mkvmerge</i> the signal to stop
muxing. Unless <i>mkvmerge</i> is stuck in some endless loop it will stop
soon after you've pressed the button. With <code>Save log</code> you can
save the complete output from <i>mkvmerge</i> into a text file for further
study or in case you've encountered a bug and want to send me some
additional information.</p>
<h3><a name="saveload">3.7. Saving and loading muxing settings</a></h3>
<p>All your hard work of setting options does not have to be lost when you
exit the program. You can save all your muxing settings into text based
configuration files with the <code>Save settings</code> option in the
<code>File</code> menu and restore them later with the <code>Load
settings</code> option. The default extension is <code>.mmg</code> and is
usually not used by other programs. You can also associate this extension
with <i>mmg</i> so that it automatically loads the settings if it is called
with the name of such a settings file.</p>
<h3><a name="jobqueue">3.8. Queueing several jobs</a></h3>
<p>For the case that you have several files that you want to mux you don't
have to prepare the first file, wait for it to finish muxing, prepare the
second, wait for it to finish muxing etc. <i>mkvmerge GUI</i> contains a
job manager which can queue complete jobs and run them one after another at
your conveniance. The basic steps when using the job manager are:</p>
<p>
<ol>
<li>Add all files, set all the options, set the output file name.</li>
<li>Hit the <code>Add to job queue</code> button and select a title that
this job will be referred under.</li>
<li>Repeat as often as wanted.</li>
<li>Bring up the job manager window by selecting <code>Manage jobs</code>
from the <code>Muxing</code> menu.</li>
<li>Hit the <code>Start</code> button.</li>
<li>Get something to drink, go shopping or talk to your significant other
;)</li>
</ol>
</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/jobmanager.gif" alt="the job management dialog">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 13: The job management dialog</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>Each job has six attributes: an ID which is automatically chosen my
<i>mkvmerge GUI</i>; its status (<code>pending</code> - it hasn't been
muxed yet, <code>done</code> - muxing has completed successfully,
<code>done with warnings</code> - muxing has completed successfully but
there were warnings, <code>failed</code> - the muxing process failed); the
name that you've entered before; the time and date on which the job was
added to the job queue; the time and date when the muxing process was
started for this job and the time and date when the muxing process
finished.</p>
<p>The general controls are located at the bottom. The <code>Start</code>
button will start the muxing process for all jobs whose status is
<code>pending</code>. The <code>Start selected</code> button will start
the muxing process for all jobs that are currently selected independent
of their status.</p>
<p>The buttons on the right manipulate all selected jobs. The
<code>Up</code> and <code>Down</code> move the selected jobs up and down in
the list. The <code>Re-enable</code> button sets the jobs' status to
<code>pending</code> so that they will be started the next time the
<code>Start</code> button is pressed. The <code>Disable</code> button
will set the status to <code>done</code>.</p>
<p>During the muxing process <i>mkvmerge</i>'s output will not be shown but
saved. If you want to see a job's output you can hit the <code>View
log</code> button. This is useful if a job completed with warnings or if it
failed completely.</p>
<hr>
<a name="wxhh_chaptereditor"></a>
<h2><a name="chaptereditor">4. The chapter editor</a></h2>
<p>One of the new features of <i>mmg</i> is a full-featured chapter
editor. It can read text based chapter files, import chapters from existing
Matroska files, write text based chapter files that can be selected on the
global tab and write chapters directly to existing Matroska files.</p>
<h3><a name="chapterconcept">4.1. Matroska's chapter concept</a></h3>
<p>Unlike a lot of other systems Matroska supports <i>nested</i>
chapters. This basically means that you can define sub chapters for
chapters.</p>
<p>A chapter entity in Matroska consists of at least four items: The UID of
the track(s) it applies to, the chapter title/name, it's start time and the
language code associated with it. Additional elements are optional and
include the end time, more language codes and country codes. Usually the
user will only need the mandatory elements. Of these he can only specify
the name, the start time and the language code. <i>mkvmerge</i> will then
automatically assign all chapters to the complete file.</p>
<h3><a name="chapterexamples">4.2. Examples</a></h3>
<p>The first example is a simple one. The movie in question contains four
parts: The intro starting at the beginning, the first act, the second act,
and the credits. Note that the end timestamps are optional.</p>
<p><code>Intro (from 00:00:00, language English)
<br>
Act 1 (from 00:01:00, language English)
<br>
Act 2 (from 00:05:30, language English)
<br>
Credits (from 00:12:20 until 00;12:55, language English)</code></p>
<p>A more complex example including sub chapters. Let's take Ludwig van
Beethoven's opera Fidelio. For the sake of brevity I'm only including the
first three pieces of the two acts.</p>
<p>The first act contains:
<ol>
<li>Overt&uuml;re (6:24 long),</li>
<li>Arie: 'Jetzt, Sch&auml;tzchen, jetzt sind wir allein' (4:46
long) and</li>
<li>Dialog: 'Armer Jaquino' (0:10 long).</li>
</ol>
The second act contains:
<ol>
<li>Ouvert&uuml;re und Arie: 'Gott! welch Dunkel hier!' (10:46
long),</li>
<li>Melodrama und Duett: 'Wie kalt ist es' (5:21 long) and</li>
<li>Dialog: 'Er erwacht!' (0:59 long).</li>
</ol>
</p>
<p>The first act, which will be our first chapter, has a combined length of
11:20. Our second act has a length of 17:06. These chapters would look like
this:</p>
<p><code>Erster Akt (from 00:00:00 until 00:11:20, language German,
country Germany)
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ouvert&uuml;re (from 00:00:00 until 00:06:24, language
German, country Germany)
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Arie: 'Jetzt, Sch&auml;tzchen, jetzt sind wir allein'
(from 00:06:24 until 00:11:10, language German, country Germany)<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dialog: 'Armer Jaquino' (from 00:11:10 until 00:11:20,
language German, country Germany)
<br>
Zweiter Akt (from 00:11:20 until 00:28:26, language German,
country Germany)
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ouvert&uuml;re und Arie: 'Gott! welch Dunkel hier!'
(from 00:11:20 until 00:22:06, language German, country Germany)
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Melodrama und Duett: 'Wie kalt ist es' (from 00:22:06
until 00:27:27, language German, country Germany)
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dialog: 'Er erwacht!' (from 00:27:27 until 00:28:26,
language German, country Germany)
</code>
</p>
<h3><a name="chapterformats">4.3. Chapter formats supported by mkvmerge
</a></h3>
<p><i>mkvmerge</i> and <i>mmg</i>'s chapter editor both support different
formats for chapter files.</p>
<h4><a name="cfsimple">4.3.1. Simple/OGM style chapter files</a></h4>
<p>One of the most basic formats is the format used in OGM files. It is a
text based format. Each chapter entry contains of two lines, the first
containing the start time, the second the chapter's title/name. All lines
are numbered.</p>
<p>The first example from above can be expressed in this format:<br>
<code>CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000<br>
CHAPTER01NAME=Intro<br>
CHAPTER02=00:01:00.000<br>
CHAPTER02NAME=Act 1<br>
CHAPTER03=00:05:30.000<br>
CHAPTER03NAME=Act 2<br>
CHAPTER04=00:12:20.000<br>
CHAPTER04NAME=Credits
</code>
</p>
<p>The second example cannot be expressed in this format because it supports
neither language specifications nor end times or nested chapters. The
advantage is that such files are very easy to create, and there are several
tools available for both Windows and Unix/Linux that create such files
directly from DVDs.</p>
<p>Due to its limitations <i>mmg</i> cannot output chapters in this
format.</p>
<h4><a name="cfxml">4.3.2. Full-featured XML style chapter files</a></h4>
<p>I've created a XML based chapter format that closely matches the system
Matroska uses. With this format you have the full control over all
features. I won't describe this format here in detail. Please have a look
at the example XML chapter files that came with <i>mkvtoolnix</i>.</p>
<h4><a name="cfkax">4.3.3. Chapters found in Matroska files</a></h4>
<p>The chapter editor can read chapters directly from Matroska files. These
can be written to XML chapter files or back to the same Matroska file or
another Matroska file. All features are supported.</p>
<h3><a name="creatingchapters">4.4. Creating chapter files</a></h3>
<p>The chapter editor consists of three parts: the tree view of all
chapters, the four buttons used for adding and removing chapter entries,
and the input boxes which are used for setting the chapter entry's
data.</p>
<div align="center">
<p>
<img src="images/chaptereditor.gif"
alt="the chapter editor">
<br>
<font size="-1">Figure 14: The chapter editor showing the example from
above</font>
</p>
</div>
<p>In Matroska files one chapter is defined by having a start time, a name
and a language that is associated with that name. You can have several
names for one chapter and each associated with a different language. You
may also add an end time, but that is not mandatory.</p>
<p>A new chapter file is started with the <code>New</code> option from the
<code>Chapter editor</code> menu. You can add a new chapter with the
<code>Add chapter</code> or <code>Add subchapter</code> buttons. The
difference between these two buttons is that when a chapter has been
selected <code>Add chapter</code> will append a new chapter directly
after the selected chapter on the same level, and <code>Add
subchapter</code> will add a new chapter as the last child of the
currently selected chapter.</p>
<p>The <code>Remove chapter</code> has to be used with care. It removes the
complete subtree without asking for confirmation, and there is no undo
option available at the moment.</p>
<p>After selecting a chapter entry you can change its data. The format for
the start and end time are either <code>HH:MM:SS.mmm</code> or simply
<code>HH:MM:SS</code>. One chapter name will already have been added. You
can edit it and select the language that this name is given in. This way
you could provide names in several languages, e.g. 'The hero arrives' with
'eng' as the language and 'Der Held kommt an' with 'ger' as the
language. Just hit the <code>Add name</code> button if you need more
entries and <code>Remove name</code> in order to get rid of one.</p>
<p>Creating many chapters and always changing the language can be quite some
work. Therefore you can select which language and country tags
<i>mmg</i> should add by default with the <code>Set default values</code>
menu entry in the <code>Chapters</code> menu. The
<code>Set values</code> button does something similar. With it you can
apply a language and/or country to the currently selected entry and all its
children.</p>
<p>Saving chapters to XML files can be done with <code>Save</code> or
<code>Save as</code>. <code>Save as</code> cannot be used to write chapters
to an existing Matroska file - you'll have to use <code>Save to Matroska
file</code> for that.</p>
<h3><a name="editingchapters">4.5. Editing existing chapters</a></h3>
<p>You can load existing chapter files or chapters from Matroska files by
selecting the <code>Load</code> option from the <code>Chapter editor</code>
menu. <i>mmg</i> will automatically detect the file type used and read the
chapters.</p>
<a name="wxhh_headereditor"></a>
<h2><a name="headereditor">5. The header editor</a></h2>
<p>
mmg features an editor for header fields of existing Matroska
files. It can be started from mmg's &quot;File&quot; menu by
chosing the &quot;Header editor&quot;.
</p>
<p>
The header editor allows the user to edit certain fields of the
segment information headers and of the headers of each track
without having to remux the whole file. Its usage is simple: load a
file, select the header fields you want to change, change its
value, and save the file.
</p>
<h3><a name="he_addingremovingheaderfields">5.1. Adding and removing header fields</a></h3>
<p>
The Matroska file format allows for most header fields to be
present or absent. mmg's header editor will show inputs for all
header fields it supports even if they're currently not present in
the file. It allows the user to add fields that are currently not
present to the file and to remove currently present fields from the
file.
</p>
<h3><a name="he_analyzingthefile">5.2. Opening an existing file</a></h3>
<p>
The user can start editing a file by chosing &quot;Open&quot; from
the &quot;File&quot; menu. After selecting the appropriate file the
header editor will scan the file for all important elements. This
can take some time depending on the file's size. This is neccessary
due to Matroska's flexible file structure.
</p>
<h3><a name="he_editingthefile">5.3. Editing header fields</a></h3>
<p>
After opening the file the left pane will show one element for the
segment headers and one element for each track that is found in the
file. Each node in the tree contains a number of sub-elements which
represent the actual header values. When the user selects such a
sub-element the right pane is updated to show a number of facts
about the element:
</p>
<p>
<ul>
<li>its type (a number, a string etc),</li>
<li>its name,</li>
<li>a short description of its contents,</li>
<li>whether or not the element is currently present in the file
including an option to remove it if it is or to to add it if it
isn't,</li>
<li>the element's original value if it was present when the file
was opened and</li>
<li>a control to modify its content.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
Most value types are self-explanatory: numbers, strings etc. The
binary type however is shown as a sequence of hex digits. The
accepted formats are the same as mkvmerge's various options for
specifying segment UIDs: either a simple sequence of hex digits
(e.g. 1857a7fe7d...) or the hex numbers prefixed with
&quot;0x&quot; before each pair (e.g. 0x18 0x57 0xa7 0xfe 0x7d...).
</p>
<h3><a name="he_validation">5.4. Validation</a></h3>
<p>
The user can validate your changes by chosing &quot;Validate&quot;
from the &quot;Headers&quot; menu. Validation is also run
automatically each time the user wants to save the
files. Validation makes sure that the values the user supplied can
be stored in the element in question. For example a number element
must not contain characters.
</p>
<p>
If validation fails then the first element failing validation is
selected so that the user can correct the mistake.
</p>
<h3><a name="he_saving">5.5. Saving the file</a></h3>
<p>
The user can save the changes by selecting &quot;Save&quot; from
the &quot;File&quot; menu. If no changes have been made then mmg
will say so and not modify the file.
</p>
<p>
Before modifying the file mmg check if the file has been modified
by another application since it has been opened. If this is the
case then mmg warns the user, discards all changes and reloads the
file in order to ensure that the file will not be corrupted.
</p>
<p>
mmg tries very hard to find suitable spots for writing the modified
headers. It will overwrite existing header elements at their
original position, EbmlVoid elements and all other instances of the
headers it finds. It will also update the meta seek heads so that
the headers can be found easily by applications reading that file.
</p>
<p>
After saving the file the header editor will automatically reload
and analyze it again. This is done to ensure that no file
corruoption occurs. As it slows down the process of saving the file
considerably this safety feature will be removed in a future
release of mmg after enough testing has been done.
</p>
</body>
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