Is converting disc content to mkv files really necessary?

[Trespasser]

Mike,
An option to dump the actual unencrypted Disc structure (vobs, etc.), instead of converting them to mkv files, for both DVDs and Blueray Discs, would be nice. The option could be placed at the stage where you're allowed to deselect subtitles and other languages, just before you click MakeMKV.

The code for MakeMKV should easily allow for such a simple addition/request.

With DVDFab Decrypter I can dump the decrypted main movie then simply burn it to disc. It would be nice to be able to do the same with MakeMKV. Of course, since I'm a Linux user I have to run DVDFab Decrypter under Wine (it runs quite well actually). Such an option would save me a lot of time instead of having to then run my mkv movie thru Devede.

Thank you,

Bob

[setarip_old]

Hi!

An option to dump the actual unencrypted Disc structure (vobs, etc.), instead of converting them to mkv files, for both DVDs and Blueray Discs

MakeMKV already has the capability to make FULL DISC backups (encrypted or unencrypted) of Blu-ray discs...

[Trespasser]

MakeMKV already has the capability to make FULL DISC backups (encrypted or unencrypted) of Blu-ray discs...

It would be nice to have that same feature for DVDs as well. I don't have, nor plan to get, a Blueray Disc player (though I suppose it's inevitable...someday. ).

Later....

[SiliconKid]

@Trespasser:

You do realise that the MKVs in this case simply contain the ORIGINAL audio and video streams and subtitles extracted from the source DVD, completely unaffected. No transcoding is taking place.

So all that is changing is the container, which is fairly irrelevant.

The container used by the DVD standard is the VOB container and generally there are several of those for any normal length movie, which is a pain and utterly useless in terms of digital storage so even MakeMKV didn't put everything into an MKV container for you, it would still be joining all the VOBs together into a single VOB at the very least. And a VOB is really just an MPEG2 container in the end anyway.

The reason MakeMKV puts everything in the MKV container in the first place is because the MKV container is by far the most flexible container available.

So I'm not really too sure why anybody would NOT want to keep the streams in an MKV container. If you're planning to re-encode the source video stream from MPEG-2 (in the case of DVD) to something more efficient like H264, you are going to have to change the container anyway, and if not, MKV is still the most convenient digital format by far.

Unless of course you want to actually go and burn what MakeMKV is ripping back onto discs again in order to watch the discs in an actual DVD player (wich I didn't think anybody actually did anymore), in which case you should either be doing a direct ISO copy using something like AnyDVD and burning that to another disc, or, if you need to get rid of some content so you can fit it on a smaller capacity disc (single layer DVD as opposed to dual layer) then you are going to need to do some remastering of what you've ripped back to a DVD compatible image anyway regardless of what ripping software you use.

The bottom line is that MakeMKV is all about ripping media OFF of discs and into digital format. It is not at all concerned with putting that media back onto discs again, which kind of defeats the object.

If you just want crack and copy a DVD, something like AnyDVD is a far better fit for you because that's what it specialises in.

Right tool for the job and all that.

[Smithcraft]

Or the original DVD Decrypter. However modern DRM will confuse it.

SC

[Trespasser]

Thank you SiliconKid and Smithcraft for your replies.

As I stated in my first post in this thread, I use Linux (more precisely Ubuntu), so AnyDVD is not an option, but thanks anyway.

It would be nice to rip a DVD with MakeMKV then simply burn the resulting files (vobs, etc) to disc. This option is not available for DVDs but is for Blueray. I'm sure there's a good reason why this is not offered for DVDs if Mike Chen could find the time to explain it.

Also, with reference to DVDFab Decrypter, it runs very well under Wine (a Windows emulation application for Linux) but the sheer size of the install (180 megabytes on a 32bit system...a lot more for a 64bit) always discouraged me from going that route. But it does rip the DVD to vobs which I can then burn to disc.

I can convert the mkv file to a DVD structure easy enough using Devede but it takes 50 minutes to do so for a 3.7 gigabyte mkv file. I'm just looking to reduce the time factor. I'm sure you can understand.

Thanks again.

Later...

[setarip_old]

@Trespasser

Hi!

I'm sure there's a good reason why this is not offered for DVDs

For one thing (That has been pointed out several times before)the Matroska/.MKV container cannot presently process DVD menus...

[Trespasser]

@Trespasser

Hi!

I'm sure there's a good reason why this is not offered for DVDs

For one thing (That has been pointed out several times before)the Matroska/.MKV container cannot presently process DVD menus...

I'll have to do some reading on the subject, but I did not know that. Thanks for the info, setarip_old.

I would like to add, and I suppose it's not said often enough to the developers, that I am tickled pink to have MakeMKV as an option for Linux. The only thing we have are applications that utilize libdvdcss2 to decrypt DVDs (which doesn't work for the majority of newer discs). We also have DumpHD for HD DVDs and Blueray, but I have no experience with that. So a BIG thank you to Mike and his team for this wonderful application. It is very much appreciated by me and I'm sure many other Linux users. .

Later...

[Vicky4]

(...)It is very much appreciated by me and I'm sure many other Linux users. .

+1 from me! And I too have dumped the whole idea of burning media to discs altogether. MakeMKV+Handbrake+mkvtoolnix-gui+XBMC (more specificaly openelec in my case) - the perfect combination and all native linux. My thanks to all involved developers!

[crowfax]

MakeMKV+Handbrake+mkvtoolnix-gui+XBMC (more specificaly openelec in my case) - the perfect combination and all native linux.

This is basically what I do except I have a WD TV for playback.

I couldn't be more happy with MakeMKV.

[MilesAhead]

Still, even an .iso output with no menus may be a nice feature. It may have seemed lame to burn to disc a few months ago. But now drives I bought for $80 to $90 a few months ago are selling for $240. Hard drive storage isn't so cheap anymore. At least not drives that perform like WD Caviar Black series. I took a look around for mkv to vob type programs in case I should want to burn to disc to make some space. Everything I found is for x264 video. Nothing I found assumes the source video is mpeg2.

[crowfax]

The hard drive price hike won't last for long. There are still plenty of deals to be had. I just got a 3tb external USB3 drive for $99.99 on Amazon last week.

If I ever need to go from MKV to DVD I just use ConvertXtoDVD. There's no passthrough option, but it does a nice job of re-encoding and making menu's and such.

[MilesAhead]

The hard drive price hike won't last for long. There are still plenty of deals to be had. I just got a 3tb external USB3 drive for $99.99 on Amazon last week.

If I ever need to go from MKV to DVD I just use ConverXtoDVD. There's no passthrough option, but it does a nice job of re-encoding and making menu's and such.

I don't buy externals. I use USB 3.0 docks with internal drives. Those are the ones with the price gouging. I have a USB 2.0 dock hooked to my WD set top box to play the internal drive contents.

To encode something that's already in mpeg2 seems silly to me. I can dumux and author myself. But I watch a lot of foreign films. When you demux with MkvExtractGui-2 it gives idx/vob subtitle instead of .sup. This is problematic for authoring. I did one as an experiment converting to .sup and authoring. Every time a subtitle appeared the color space changed and the rest of the video was gray.

Life would be a lot simpler if it just spit out a VIDEO_TS folder in Backup mode.

[Romansh]

With DVDs, there's the added complexity of dealing with structural copy protection.

[MilesAhead]

With DVDs, there's the added complexity of dealing with structural copy protection.

Oh well. I have the feeling there's a non-technical reason. I can understand it if that is so. I don't think I've ripped a DVD so far that gave MakeMKV a problem. That's a major reason I'd like to see the feature. But if it's not to be that's cool.