A few questions on audio settings and playback programs

[boged]

Well I tried to do some searching to answer my questions, but my wife and I literally just had a baby and I am in the hospital with her recovering and feeding a newborn. I am hoping someone who has had kids will sympathize and answer my questions even if they have been asked before on this forum =).

First, I am preparing to rip my 50-100 Blu Rays and 100-200 DVDs to my new Netgear Readynas. I have no UHD discs. I will be accessing them via my two Nvidia shields. One shield is hooked up to a 42 inch 4k tv the other to a 50 inch 1080p tv. Each has a set of 2 computer speakers hooked up to them for audio. The 50 inch has the speakers hooked up via wireless USB directly to the shield, the 42 inch via 3.5 mm to the headphone jack of the tv. Neither will receive a significant audio upgrade.

I am brand new to makemkv and am curious about settings and play back programs. Space is not an issue, so I assume I want to do a lossless mkv rip, but I have a few other concerns.

I am wondering the following:

A) What settings should I use for audio if my primary play back environments are the above and will not be changing?

B) The two media players that come installed on my shields are Kodi and Plex. I am going to be accessing the mkv files over wired Ethernet network and am wondering if either player has significant benefits in the playback scenarios I have, or network scenario I have. Being able to stream my collection to other devices, tablet etc., would be a perk, but not the main thing I am after. I mostly want to enjoy my movie collection in lossless quality.

C) Are there any other settings I should be aware of, or tasks I will need to perform in order to view the mkv rips in either Kodi or Plex?

[drathbun]

Congrats on your family expansion.

I'm not an expert, but the process of ripping to a file doesn't do anything to the audio or video quality. It's what comes next that does. For example, my workflow includes ripping the disc with MakeMKV, then encoding the file with HandBrake, tagging it with AtomicParsley, and then storing it in iTunes. The step that determines the audio and video is HandBrake, so that's where I would be asking the question.

[boged]

Thanks for the congratulations

However, and I may be mistaken, I was under the impression that at least Kodi (and perhaps the Shield) could play most makemkv rips directly without being encoded by handbrake. But the audio issue has me concerned. Because I am playing back on computer speakers do I just need to select the correct audio tack in makemkv, or do I need to run my rips through handbrake to at least encode the audio track. And if I am running my rips through handbrake for audio, is there a way to leave the video file unaffected in terms of quality/compression? I am not entirely familiar with handbrake and its been a while since I have used it in any capacity.

Baby is doing well, and we are being discharged after a five day stay today!

[EPiPH0N3]

Congrats on the new baby! You should be able to leave all your rips as is. Go into the Kodi settings (I use SPMC) and make sure audio output is set to stereo. Assuming your only using stereo computer speakers. That should do it. No need for Handbrake here.

[boged]

Thanks again on the congratulations!

Whew, just setting the player to stereo is a lot easier than an extra step of encoding. Thanks for the tip!