Embedded Chapter Points for BluRay and DVD

@Stan Jones I only tried H.264 Blu-ray. 

@SCOTT_L I don´t agree on Adobes statement either. I stopped using Adobes H.264 BD due to quality issues and bought a plugin, TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro and when using that encoder the CM's always show up on I frames. I verify that in TMPGEnc Authoring Works 7 (See attached image)

The MainConcept encoder Adobe uses is good but fall apart quickly when there is too much details in the image such as trees, grass, water, etc, etc.

Thanks for your reply! 

 First I respecfully disagree about BluRay/DVD being ancient formats especially with UHD (4k) BluRay now available.  (Look at available titles on Amazon 😉 ), but that may be Adobe's stance...  I still Author many high profile titles per year.

As far as "other encoders that have this feature..."  Sony Bluprint, Scenarist being a couple of Pro encoders.  I'll attach a pic of Scenarist (CineVision) interface for Adding Chapter Points & forced iFrames

Stan Jones and I both tried to add chapter markers in a Premiere timeline and export to AME with unreliable results, unless I missed something, but we both tried.  I will attempt another try ot two to see if I can get it to work. You can view my settings in post below (pic) and also his comments about not getting reliable results.  In addition, the time code of the encoded .h264 (AVC) file ended up with 00:00:00:00 time code instead of my sequence time code of 01:00:10:15, making it harder to check iFrame placements without doing time code math...

Regarding you comment "When i export the added Chapter Markers end up in the correct time down to the frame. All my markers end up at an I-frame."

How are you verifying that those chapter marks are on an iFrame?  I use Scenarist BD to build BluRay Titles and it verifies ever chapter point entered as being on an iFrame, or not.  This is how I determined AME is not working as intended.

I really hope I can figure this out, as I mentioned, the encoder does a great job on final .avc/.h264 encoded file results!

Your input is much appreciated.

-Scott

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Are there any other encoders that have this feature today?

I am afraid that it never will be such feature added to AME since DVD/Blu-ray is considered an ancient/legacy format by Adobe. If i want precise chapters i place the master file on a matching timeline in Premiere Pro and use the Add Chapter command to place out my markers. I still even name them. When i export the added Chapter Markers end up in the correct time down to the frame. All my markers end up at an I-frame.

If i edit the entire project in Premiere Pro i add Chapter Markers on the timelie/s and never mess with the master file.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

@Averdahl,

Thanks for responding. What format are you exporting? As I noted, I expected what you describe, but it was inconsistent for me in my new tests. Very odd.

Stan

The encoder looks very good when I did a test encode to BluRay and was fast!  There really needs to be a way to enter time code based chapter points to be taken more seriously.  i.e. if you have a movie file that starts at time code 01:00:00:00 > 02:00:00:00 and you need a specifi frame at 01:03:07:11, for example, there should be a way to enter that time code into a list and have the software force an i-frame on the specifi time code frame so that authoring software can place a legitimate chapter point at that frame.  

By @SCOTT_L

Are there any other encoders that have this feature today?

I am afraid that it never will be such feature added to AME since DVD/Blu-ray is considered an ancient/legacy format by Adobe. If i want precise chapters i place the master file on a matching timeline in Premiere Pro and use the Add Chapter command to place out my markers. I still even name them. When i export the added Chapter Markers end up in the correct time down to the frame. All my markers end up at an I-frame.

If i edit the entire project in Premiere Pro i add Chapter Markers on the timelie/s and never mess with the master file.

Well the iFrames "distance" are based on how you set them inside of AME settings, i.e. every 23 or 24 frames for instance, etc.  It could be that your test chapters just by luck landed on one of those every 23 frames...  I would love to work with you guys on how to resolve/improve this as the encoding looks very good.  Not a programmer here but can totally expalin how they should work.  Ideally, there would be a place inside of AME to enter iFrame locations via timecode, assuming the original timecode gets carried into the final encoded file (which it doesn't appear to in this release), be it mpeg, AVC or whatever type of encoding used, or carried over from the export from Premiere Timeline Chapter Markers, but they should be editable inside of AME.  Feel free to contact me if I can help!

-Scott

Well, worth a try. I just got inconsistent results, and no time to try to make sense of them.

I looked for any old notes I had, and this is complicated by issues over the years of how this was supposed to work.

For example, no question these are Sequence markers that are set to be Chapter Markers. But at various points, inconsistent results were in part accounted for by whether the markers were named, exported using the correct PR presets for DVD/bluray, and imported correctly to Encore.

I can't use the test in Encore for iFrames because it is working only for MPEG. And I got 2 out of 3 markers on the correct marker, the one odd ball was one that was unnamed. Maybe coincidence. And in another sample, the xmpses file carried the frame accurate marker information, but the transcoded file in Encore was on a different frame (off by less than a second, but still a deal-breaker).

@Ann Bens @Averdahl @Richard M Knight 

Any ideas anyone?

Stan

So I tried your suggestios and unless I am missing a step, AME did not encode I-frames at the chapter markers - I changed setting to Chapter Marker inside in the Premiere Timeline, used Export - send to AME from inside Premiere.  Also I noticed that in the final encoded file from AME, the timecode reverted to 00:00:00:00 -  I had it "Set Start Timecode" to 01:00:10:15  inside of AME settings. Attached is a photo of settings I used.  Please advise.  BTW, I use Scenarist to test the files for BluRay Authoring, and it tells me if the chapter timecode is a valid I-frame for chaptering in the BluRay.  It did pass their "MUI Generator" so it is a valid BluRay stream, but each of the timecoded Chapter Markers from Premiere were invalid I-Frames.

Thanks Stan,

Scott

With a direct export from PR or "send to" AME for export, the Bluray and DVD presets create I-frames at the Chapter markers. It is one of the most important characteristics of the PR "Chapter" marker type.

Stan

Adding markers is all good.  What I am talking about is the ability to add "hard" I-frames into a file (authoring requires chapter points to be on an I-Frame) while encoding inside of Media Encoder.  Professional DVD and BluRay authoring allows you to add Chapter Points in the video stream at an EXACT TIMECODE FRAME, but these chapter points have to be encoded into the stream(s). This would be done inside of what ever encoding software one would use to encode to AVC, Mpeg, etc.  In most encoding software, this is done in a list of specific timecodes before encoding as part of the encoding set up.  You don't have to go into the editing software and re-export to add markers, you simply add them in the encoder set up.

Hope this help, happy to chat or talk further!

-Scott

Sorry, yes, what I described is done in PR.

Stan