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Enable non-iMovie movies' chapter markers in iDVD Apps
Ever wonder why sometimes iDVD won't recognize the chapter track in the movie file you're trying to import? It turns out that just having a chapter track present in a QuickTime movie file isn't enough -- that chapter track also needs some undocumented settings applied to it in order for iDVD to recognize it as a chapter track, and to offer to make a scene menu when you import the video.

Video exported from iMovie '06 contains these settings automatically, but if you edit your video in something other than iMovie, you're out of luck unless you want to hack the video file with a hex editor. So I've written a Java command line utility [8KB download | macosxhints mirror] to modify a .mov file that contains a text chapter track, and patch it so that iDVD recognizes it for what it is/ This utility automatically adds (or removes) the three "magic" atoms to the user data of a chapter track in a movie file. Once these entries are in the file, iDVD will recognize the chapter track and offer to make a scene menu for you.

NOTE: This utility will modify the specified movie file in place, so make a backup of the movie first.

The tool is provided as a single Java jar file. The jar file is nothing more than a zip file with a .jar extension that contains the compiled Java code and can be run from Terminal like so:

Show usage information:
java -jar FixChapterTrack.jar

Patch/enable the chapter track in a movie file:
$ java -jar FixChapterTrack.jar Test.mov

Unpatch/disable the chapter track in a movie file:
java -jar FixChapterTrack.jar -remove Test.mov

Those examples assume the jar file and the Test.mov file are in the same folder. If that's not the case, you'll need to specify full path names to the jar and movie files. Incidentally, this simple tool is cross-platform and will work on that "other" OS, too, as long as QuickTime and Java are installed. Of course, that "other" OS doesn't have iDVD ... but at least you could fully prep your video before bringing it into iDVD.

As far as I'm aware, there's nothing else out there that takes an existing QuickTime video file that already contains a chapter track and makes sure it is recognized by iDVD. Metadata Hootenanny allows you to take a QuickTime file and add a new chapter track that is recognized by iDVD, but it won't "enable" an existing chapter track.

More details and the 8KB utility (which includes the source) can be found in this post on my Regal Media site.
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Enable non-iMovie movies' chapter markers in iDVD | 3 comments | Create New Account
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Enable non-iMovie movies' chapter markers in iDVD
Authored by: fracai on Aug 24, '07 11:07:10AM

I wonder if this could also be done using AtomicParsley to add the 3 atoms, probably using the "reverse DNS" format.

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i am jack's amusing sig file



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Enable non-iMovie movies' chapter markers in iDVD
Authored by: bedouin on Aug 24, '07 09:28:40PM

Just for the record, iDVD will honor Final Cut Express and Pro chapter markers. At least it has for me on a number of occasions.



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Enable non-iMovie movies' chapter markers in iDVD
Authored by: mcnaugha on Jul 22, '08 09:09:24AM

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! WOW! What a simple solution. You cannot imagine the pain I suffered until i got your little fix. AMAZING! Thank you for sharing. May good karma come your way for this.



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