mkvbatchmultiplex: MKVMERGE batch multiplexing

Changes since version 2.0.0

• The applications has been ported to Python 3.12 and PySide6.
• Added option to compute the CRC-32 of the output files and add it to the end of the file name.
• MKVToolnix is now embedded to help with the Linux .version
• MediaInfo is now also embedded. Pymediainfo was providing the library for Windows in the more recent versions of the package.

Description

mkvbatchmultiplex program is for processing mkvmerge command line and use it as a template to apply the multiplex instructions to all the files found in the directory. The command line is expected to be taken from mkvtoolnix-gui:

Multiplexer->Show command line

mkvmerge and mkvtoolnix-gui are part of the MKVToolNix set of tools to work with Matroska media container files.

Works with Windows (cmd.exe) or Linux/unix shells (bash, zsh, etc.)

Installation

pip install mkvbatchmultiplex

It is been developed on Windows the media server is Windows based. Made light testing on ubuntu. Will try to do more testing in linux ubuntu at least. Many reports of not woriking on linux are solved by installing MediaInfo this is an external dependency.

macOS will no longer be supported don't have harware to make tests.

If working with the source to execute the application first create the locale files. On the source directory execute:

python setup.py generate_catalog

Dependencies

• Python 3.12.1 or greater
  • lxml 5.1.0 or greater
  • natsort 8.4.0 or greater
  • pymediainfo 6.1.0 or greater
  • PySide6 6.6.1 or greater
• MediaInfo tested with versions 17.10->23.11.1
• MKVToolNix tested with versions 17.00->82.0.0

Usage

It assumed you have working knowledge of using MKVToolNix. Select a file make any operations needed copy command to clipboard. Remember to select and output directory:

Multiplexer->Show command line

Paste command on mkvbatchmultiplex push <Add Queue> is there are no more jobs push <Start Worker> button and wait.

Step by step examples are in the github repository wiki.

Algorithms explained

When the worker is processing a job before starting to work on a set of files the structure will be checked. If the structure is the same as in the pasted command the files are processed. If it doesn't match the program will behave according to the algorithm selected.

New algorithms:

With all Algorithms any file that is not flagged with and invalid structure the results are the same. They are different when the files are flagged with and invalid structure on what they do.

1. Algorithm 0 current behavior. If the structure check fails no command will be executed files have to be logically equal. The resulting file will have the same structure as the destination file on the command line. The resulting file is very likely to be the expected result as specified on the command line. If no file is flagged random checks usually are sufficient. Any flagged file has to be check to fix any problem and maybe run the command with MKVToolNix for that file.
2. Algorithm 1 if structure check fails it will try to find the tracks that best matches the base file and adjust the command accordingly. Any track not used in the command will be ignored. If no suitable track found no command will not execute. Resulting file structure if the same as in the command line but is not as likely to be the desired file as in Algorithm 0. Flagged files should be checked to see if the file is ok.
3. Algorithm 2 if Algorithm 1 fails tracks without match will be ignored and and the command still will execute. The resulting file will not be like the destination file in the original command. It may even be unusable. Any flagged has to be check to see if is usable.

Since in some occasions Algorithm 1 will produce the correct file it will be set as the default. The original files should never be erased until all the new files are watched or at least check with a player that the all the tracks are muxed as needed.

One case in which Algorithm 2 applies is when some episodes have commentary audio tracks. Algorithm 1 will fail because on files with missing commentary tracks there will not be enough audio tracks to produce a file with a structure logically equal. There are more tracks needed than tracks available. Algorithm 2 will ignore this and proceed. Additional files with commentary tracks will be muxed with it.

Other important difference to the current behavior is that text and audio tracks are match by language not format. For example:

In the original source the audio is English with flac format and in the current file is English with ac3. This track will be used for muxing the files.

For video tracks the language is always ignored in the testing.

Personally I still used Algorithm 0 because if I close the program without checking the flagged files just looking in the directory any missing file will exactly correspond to a flagged file. For more meticulous users Algorithm 1 is the better one.

Roadmap

This is just the base for the project. The roadmap is:

• Work on rename module to fetch metadata
• Work on the Spanish interface translation
• Easier installation for linux

For linux installations the AppImage binary format will be used for the forseeable future.

If the the program generates any interest any further changes and additions will also depend on user base needs.