I have only found ways to re-encode a file to add chapters.
Being that there is a public data base where users can upload “chapter” files, I think a great addition would be to have Plex handle chapters like subtitle files.
instead of recoding a video file to embed the chapters, Plex could reference a “chapter” file (***.chp) that is simply a text file in the movie folder.
Adding chapters to an MKV file using MKVtoolnixGUI doesn’t require re-encoding it.
And Plex does recognise these.
I understand, but what about other formats. Currently if I have an mp4 file, I can simply add a txt file with the srt extension to add a subtitle. This concept could be a similar method for chapters
Your suggestion requires a MKV files. I was looking for a solution that supports multiple formats
We just had this very same discussion some months ago.
This other suggestion is asking for an option to lookup chapter information from the old chapterdb (discontinued platform) where no chapters are available in a file. So you might want to look into that suggestion and comment/vote there in order to avoid distracting or cannibalizing votes.
Beyond that… as per Otto’s response:
Chapter editors are available for all kinds of platforms and media formats. It’s fairly easy to do this with MKVToolNix for MKV files. On macOS I’m regularly using “Subler” to edit MP4/M4V files.
