Split Files Crashing Player

[FactoriedMyAuth]

I found a Magilla Gorilla DVD at the store and picked it up to add to my server. Each episode of the show is actually an episode from 3 separate shows (Magilla Gorilla, Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long, and Punkin' Puss & Mushmouse ... in that order). 

TVDB has the episodes split out for each show, so I just used MKVToolNix to split the episodes on each chapter. That split apart each show's respective episodes. 

When I play any of the Magilla Gorilla episodes (the first episode of the split, main file starting at timestamp 00:00:00), Jellyfin plays the files just fine. If I try to play any of the other split files, I sometimes get a couple frames of video followed by a popup that says "Playback failed due to fatal player error".

I grabbed some of the ffmpeg logs and it looks like it freaks out right in the first frame. The odd thing is VLC and Windows Media Player have no issues with the files at all. I have attached a set of the ffmpeg logs if someone could take a look.

[FactoriedMyAuth]

After doing more searching, it seems this exact was an issue someone reported in the Emby community as well (https://emby.media/community/index.php?/...mkv-files/). The report is almost exactly what I have here. So, it seems that there is something going on with the MKVToolNix splitting that is just tripping up ffmpeg. I am going to keep looking for a solution. Maybe there is a setting in MKVToolNix that will perform the split and not freak out ffmpeg. I am hesitant to use another tool because I finally have solid batch scripts working for MKVToolNix and would rather not have to move to something else.

For those who are curious, I have seen this on DVD and Blu Ray. The Sailor Moon anime series is a good example of this. Each Blu-ray has 5-7 episodes on it. Rather than have all of the episodes split into individual titles, the publisher crammed all of the episodes together as a single title and uses the chapter markers to separate them. For something like Gumby, there was a single title with all of the episodes strung together but there was also each episode broke out into its own title. In a case like that, I always rip the individual titles.

[FactoriedMyAuth]

Doing some more searching, I am narrowing down the issue. I downloaded the Jellyfin Media Player client for my Windows machine. I pointed it to my Jellyfin server and started to play the videos that were breaking before. The videos played just fine. When I grabbed playback info in JMP, it reported:
 

• Playback Info
  • Player: MPV Video Player
    
  • Play method: Direct playing
    
  • Protocol: http
    
  • Stream type: Video
    

• Original Media Info
  • Container: mkv
    
  • Size: 237.3 MiB
    
  • Bitrate: 5.1 Mbps
    
  • Video codec: MPEG2VIDEO Main
    
  • Video bitrate: 4.9 Mbps
    
  • Video range type: SDR
    
  • Audio codec: AC3
    
  • Audio bitrate: 192 kbps
    
  • Audio channels: 1
    
  • Audio sample rate: 48000 Hz
    

 
This info also looked the same for the split files that worked (the first file generated of the 3 generated in the spit). I decided to look at the split video that actually played in the browser player and got this:

• Playback Info
  
  • Player: Html Video Player
    
  • Play method: Transcoding
    
  • Protocol: http
    
  • Stream type: HLS
    

• Video Info
  
  • Player dimensions: 1200x1751
    
  • Video resolution: 720x540
    
  • Dropped frames:0
    
  • Corrupted frames: 0
    

• Transcoding Info
  
  • Video codec: HEVC
    
  • Audio codec: AAC
    
  • Audio channels: 1
    
  • Bitrate: 8.1 Mbps
    
  • Reason for transcoding:
    
    • The container is not supported
      
    • The video codec is not supported
      
    • The audio codec is not supported
      

• Original Media Info
  
  • Container: mkv
    
  • Size: 227.1 MiB
    
  • Bitrate: 4.7 Mbps
    
  • Video codec: MPEG2VIDEO Main
    
  • Video bitrate: 8.0 Mbps
    
  • Video range type: SDR
    
  • Audio codec: AC3
    
  • Audio bitrate: 192 kbps
    
  • Audio channels: 1
    
  • Audio sample rate: 48000 Hz
    

 
So, obviously there is a transcode error that is crashing the player, but it is strange that it is reporting the container is not supported, along with video and audio. As a final test, I took one of the files that had not been split and ran it thru. As before, JMP did direct streaming and the web player transcoded (successfully). I am not sure why the web player has to transcode when the media player doesn't have to, but that doesn't seem that important. The fact that the web player happily transcodes the base file and the first part of the split file, but not the subsequent splits is what is throwing me. I'll do a little more digging on lunch break. Hopefully this rabbit-hole will help seed the forum for others running into this problem.

I should mention my Jellyfin version for Server, Web, and Build are all 10.9.3.

[TheDreadPirate]

I'd say about 50% of my rips, either DVD or Bluray, have all the episodes in a single file. I've only used MKVToolNix to merge files (2 DVD LotR Directors Cut).

You can use Handbrake to split by chapter, but Handbrake doesn't have an option to do that without re-encoding. But FFMPEG does allow for splitting on timestamps, not on chapter, without re-encoding (this is what I use).

I don't know enough about codecs to say for certain, but MKVToolNix is doing something to break the files.

[FactoriedMyAuth]

Maybe I'll grab the timestamps of the chapters I want to split and then use FFMPEG to do the splits on those timestamps. It's just a lot more work than I want to do. A lot of my cartoons are already at a quality disadvantage, coming from DVD, so I am trying to keep re-encoding to a minimum.

Do you have a suggestion for a good FFMPEG GUI tool? I can do it with command line, but it's just really tedious.

[TheDreadPirate]

Handbrake is a ffmpeg GUI tool...

I'm not aware of any others.

As long as you use good encoding settings, there will be little or no quality loss and massive space savings.

ffmpeg is a bear to learn.