Order of audio tracks
Order of audio tracks
While sorting through audio tracks, I have always operated under the assumption that they are listed in the same order, from top to bottom, in MakeMKV, MKVToolNix, and VLC. I've never noticed this not being the case, but I'm unable to find confirmation that this is indeed always true. If they are always listed in the same order in all three applications, why/how?
Re: Order of audio tracks
https://www.matroska.org/technical/diagram.html
.mkv files are structured in an ordered way. Each track entry in a .mkv file has both a track number and a unique track ID. A structure like this leads to an obvious way to interpret and display the data which is why the major tools show things in the same order.
There is no guarantee that this will always be the case. Surely code could be written to display details about a .mkv file in some non-obvious way. I don't know why anyone would want to do it, but you could.
In MakeMKV's case, if you're looking at a disc and not a .mkv file, I believe MakeMKV shows things in the order they're encountered on the disc which means you're subject to the whims of a disc's author. Furthermore, when creating a .mkv file with MakeMKV, the 'order weight' of a track can be adjusted to change the order of tracks in the resulting .mkv file. That means you can end up with a .mkv file with tracks in a different order than they are on the disc.
Out of curiosity, why do you care that the tools show things in the same order?
.mkv files are structured in an ordered way. Each track entry in a .mkv file has both a track number and a unique track ID. A structure like this leads to an obvious way to interpret and display the data which is why the major tools show things in the same order.
There is no guarantee that this will always be the case. Surely code could be written to display details about a .mkv file in some non-obvious way. I don't know why anyone would want to do it, but you could.
In MakeMKV's case, if you're looking at a disc and not a .mkv file, I believe MakeMKV shows things in the order they're encountered on the disc which means you're subject to the whims of a disc's author. Furthermore, when creating a .mkv file with MakeMKV, the 'order weight' of a track can be adjusted to change the order of tracks in the resulting .mkv file. That means you can end up with a .mkv file with tracks in a different order than they are on the disc.
Out of curiosity, why do you care that the tools show things in the same order?
Re: Order of audio tracks
I'm interested in the listed order, because as far as I know listening to the tracks in VLC and comparing it back to MakeMKV is the only way to know which tracks are what.
So, you got to my actual question of how do you know which tracks to rip when selecting them in MakeMKV? Right now, I rip all of them, listen to them each in VLC, assume they're in the same order, and either go back and re-rip only what I want or delete them in MKVToolNix.
I'm crossing my fingers you have a better way
So, you got to my actual question of how do you know which tracks to rip when selecting them in MakeMKV? Right now, I rip all of them, listen to them each in VLC, assume they're in the same order, and either go back and re-rip only what I want or delete them in MKVToolNix.
I'm crossing my fingers you have a better way
Re: Order of audio tracks
When I rip a blu-ray or 4K UHD disc, I first make a decrypted backup (icon of yellow folder with green arrow on first screen in MakeMKV). I then open that backup in MakeMKV. When you highlight a title on the left in the info box on the right the segment map line shows which .m2ts file is the source of that title. Those .m2ts files are in the <backup>/BDMV/STREAM/ folder. I use MPV, but VLC will play those .m2ts files also. Now you're playing the actual source of truth on the disc so the order of audio tracks will be consistent (unless in the rare scenario where a .mpls file suppresses an audio track from a title).
Re: Order of audio tracks
Clicking on the feature title in one of my backups, I'm seeing it links to a .mpls, not a .m2ts.
Even if it did show the correct .m2ts, how does opening the .m2ts in VLC help me know with certainty the audio track order in the MakeMKV left hand selection tree?
Even if it did show the correct .m2ts, how does opening the .m2ts in VLC help me know with certainty the audio track order in the MakeMKV left hand selection tree?
Re: Order of audio tracks
Are you wanting to ask a question that you're not asking?
Are you Ai? Juxtaposing re-ripping with mkvtoolnix as solutions is very curious since re-ripping is never required, it is analogous to remaking the bottle until it contains the correct amount of fluid.
A better way of what? You haven't defined the criteria you use to identify. Do you want to know the channel count, language, codec type or ...?
Are you Ai? Juxtaposing re-ripping with mkvtoolnix as solutions is very curious since re-ripping is never required, it is analogous to remaking the bottle until it contains the correct amount of fluid.
Re: Order of audio tracks
The .m2ts file(s) are listed on the segment map line.
By examining the .m2ts file you're looking at the same data MakeMKV did to build the selection tree. In my experience, the order of items in the tree matches the order of items in the source files. The only times this is not the case is when there are two .mpls files that point to the same set of .m2ts files. Usually one is optimized for Japanese (probably has only English and Japanese language tracks) and one is optimized for the rest of the world (probably has English and every other language except Japanese).
Using this method, probably 98 times out of 100 I end up with the audio tracks I want the first time.
Re: Order of audio tracks
Got it, thank you very much for the thoughtful explanations, dcoke22!
After playing around with the backups, .mpls, and .m2ts, I think I understand how it all fits together. I hadn't dug deep under the hood until now.
After playing around with the backups, .mpls, and .m2ts, I think I understand how it all fits together. I hadn't dug deep under the hood until now.