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[HamDog]

I digitized my DVD and Blu-Ray concerts and have them on a file server as mkv files (one mkv file for each disc).  They play perfect on my Windows computer (HTPC) running jriver 20.  Is it possible to make a playlist of various chapters in different mkv files?  If not, any suggestions on how to approach a project to do this? 

[JeTie]

For starters you might definitly want to have a look into this Guide: Generate Chapter Based Blu-ray Particles (aka Rip Music BDs Like CDs)
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89627.0

[JeTie]

The general approach is to make use of Particles and for convenience you have to adapt Standard View and Theater View. See below a description of the procedure and setup changes which I consider actually best practice in context with http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Particles, i.e. I prefer to do it manually and do not make use of the script method in combination with chapterdb.org for it's way to  complicated in my opinion and one would have to reedit anyway to gain accurate results.

Think hard on where to put your mkv files because whenever you have to move them (or even rename them, I guess) all your effort is lost, i.e. your "chapter lists" are irrevocably gone for good - the major risk when entering Particle business  

Concert BD/DVD Audio Disc Handling
==================================

1. Backup disc to iso (via AnyDVD)
2. Convert iso to mkv (via VidCoder - optional)
 a) Audio Encoder: passthrough; failback AC3
 b) Video Encoder: H.264, CQ 18
 c) Import Chapter Markers from a prepared csv, e.g. "Queen - [2007] Rock Montreal.csv"
    1,01 Intro (Taylor)
    2,02 We Will Rock You (Fast) (May)
    3,03 Let Me Entertain You (Mercury)
    ...
 d) Save a screenshot of the Chapter Marker window, e.g. "Queen - [2007] Rock Montreal.png"
    The Start Times are necessary when creating Particles later in MC
 e) keep all audio tracks
 - see screenshot "VidCoder Concert.png"
3. Handover to MC
 a) File name: "<Artist> - [<Year>] <Album>", e.g. "Queen - [2007] Rock Montreal.mkv"
 b) Get Movie & TV Info...
 c) Set [Sub Media Type] to Concert
 d) Fill in tags [Artist] & [Album]
 e) Set Name to " <Artist> - <Album>", e.g. " Queen - Rock Montreal"
    (note the leading space to keep the file on top of the Particles)
 f) Create Particles of all "tracks"
    Stacks > Advanced > Create Particle...
    Particle Name: Copy&Paste from csv
    Playback Range: from png


MC adaptation: Standard View - Concerts
---------------------------------------
1. Add new View "Concerts" (type Categories) and customize:
 a) Categories Order: Album Artist (auto), Album
 b) Rules for file display: [Media Sub Type] is Concert
see also screenshot "MC Standard View - Concerts setup.png"

MC adaptation: Theater View - Concerts
--------------------------------------
1. Add new Library Item "Concerts" and customize:
 a) Set rules for file display...
    - Media Type is Video
    - Media Sub Type is Concert; Music Video
    - File Type is mkv; iso
2. Nest another item "Concert" and customize:
 a) Set rules for file display...
    - Media Sub Type is Concert
 b) Add an Expression for categorization...
    - Expression to group by: [Album]
    - Expression to display: [Name, 1]
see also screenshots...
  "MC Theater View - Concerts  setup 1.png"
  "MC Theater View - Concerts  setup 2.png"
  "MC Theater View - Concerts.png"

[tm125690]

Thanks for this description, it is very helpful.  Like you, I've purchased a few concert blu-rays/dvds and have ripped them to mkv.  I've had a few issues that I'm still trying to figure out:

I have struggled to get jriver to recognize the chapter breaks for the songs.  I can use the next and previous chapter buttons to advance one at a time, but I can't seem to find a way to separate out the chapters using jriver.  I have two motivations for wanting to do this:
  1) In addition to having the full quality video on my hard drive, I also want to convert the video to audio only for use on my ipod.  Interestingly enough, I was able to do this pretty easily with foobar2000.  All I had to do was open the mkv in foobar and it automatically showed all of the chapters as if they were different tracks on an audio album.  I highlighted them all and chose convert to flac, and that was it.  (I then took those flac files and imported them to jriver for audio listening and conversion to mp3 for ipod)
  2) I also want the chapter breaks available on the video itself, so I can navigate to a specific chapter of the concert while watching the video.  From my googling, it appears that particles are the way to do this in jriver?  JeTie, your post was very helpful.  I've created some particles using the time start and end points I've pulled from mkvextract chapters -sourcefilename.  I also figured out that I need to Link the particles so they concert will continue to play after the first particle ends!
Still having two issues though -
1) I get a little bit of a pause between chapters as the concert plays - is there any way to eliminate this or configure for 'gapless video playback?'. 
2) Also, I get a weird stutter whenever I use the next or previous arrows to advance to the next particle.
PS - the start/end times I'm using have some decimals in them - is this how you do it, or do you just round to the closest full second? Here's a sample line from the mkvextract output:  <ChapterTimeEnd>00:12:14.300233333</ChapterTimeEnd>

Many thanks in advance.

[tm125690]

OR, should every particle be set up with the correct start time, but then set to run to the end of the concert so I don't have the issue with pauses between particles?

(in which case I would also NOT want to link the particles, right?