Picture-in-Picture Tracks

[koberulz]

Are these possible to rip? I've just done The Hangover, and ended up with three movie playlists: one the unrated cut, one the theatrical cut, and one the theatrical cut with an additional audio track for the PiP, but no video for the PiP.

[koberulz]

Bump.

[Woodstock]

This was actually discussed a few years ago; one of the forum users dug in to what "PIP" involved, in terms of Java support in the player. If I recall, the player has to have Java, so it can read a second, separate track, and display it in the main track.

If your target is to have an MKV file with PIP, you need BOTH the extra track and the Java code, and a player that understands such an MKV file. And there currently isn't a standard for such a file.

It is simpler to use the MakeMKV backup function, and play the title from the mpls file.

[koberulz]

The MPLS isn't supported in Emby either though.

There also doesn't appear, within MakeMKV, to be any way to even just get the second track at all. I'd take being able to compile it together with just those bits and pieces as their own video file, or recreate and re-encode, or something. But there doesn't seem to be a way to access the footage at all.

[Woodstock]

Some additional information from searching the forum, from someone who doesn't hang around here anymore:

https://makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... %2A#p40178

And proof that this isn't a new topic:

https://makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2240

[jymbob]

1. backup the bluray with MakeMKV
2. open the main movie stream in MKVToolNix
3. deselect the main video track, leave the secondary video track selected
4. multiplex into a new file.

You should now have an mkv with just the secondary video track.

Bonus round: DTS-Express
Quite a lot of the PIP tracks I've come across have a DTS-Express soundtrack, which my computer doesn't like to handle natively, so...
1. extract just the PIP Audio track
2. re-encode to AC3 using FFMpeg
3. recombine the new audio track with the video track in MKVToolNix.

[Radiocomms237]

Why can't MakeMKV display this second video track and allow me to rip it to a separate .mkv file?

I don't care if it's not superimposed over the main feature video, I can do that myself (and have two different versions of the movie, one with PiP & DTS Express audio and the other without).

Any chance the option could be added?

[dcoke22]

The only movie I've seen with PiP is War (2007) and in that movie the PiP is in a subtitle track that just happens to be 521MB. MPV plays it just fine.

What movie have you got with PiP?

[Radiocomms237]

There are heaps of titles released by Universal Pictures with PiP/DTS Express tracks under the guise of "U-control".

Without even looking too hard, some obvious titles in my media collection that have it are:

Apollo 13
Battlestar Galactica (reboot series)
Death Race (the Jason Statham version)
The Da Vinci Code

I know I've seen many more than those, I just can't remember what they were at the moment.

Also some commentary tracks have PiP video, one particular series of Doctor Who episodes spring to mind.

[Radiocomms237]

I just finished yet another title, Zombieland (2009), where I had to do a full disc backup just to extract the second video (picture-in-picture) track and the associated DTS Express audio.

So the question remains, why doesn't MakeMKV show me these additional video tracks so I can rip them straight from the disc?

[Radiocomms237]

Add another one to the list... Serenity (2005), the Firefly movie, has two separate Picture-in-Picture tracks (hidden by MakeMKV) in the main title's mpls file. One is a video commentary and the other a behind-the-scenes/making-of track.

It would be so much easier if I could rip these straight from the disc instead of going through the whole backup process and then having to mux the files by hand.

[Radiocomms237]

Another couple of titles to add to the list:

Contraband (2012) has a PiP "Making of" track (with DTS Express audio); and

Green Zone (2010) has no less than three PiP tracks hidden by MakeMKV, two video commentaries and another behind-the-scenes track.

Once you start taking notice of these hidden tracks, I'd estimate about one in ten discs would have them.

[Radiocomms237]

Just finished the TV Series "Heroes" on Blu-ray... what a PITA!

Almost every episode has a PiP commentary track, and worse than that, the commentary audio is not available as a 'normal' audio track that's rippable by MakeMKV, so if you want to save the commentary you have no choice but to go through the process above (full decrypted backup of every disc, then convert the MPLS files with MKVmerge to extract the commentary).

All we need to fix this is for MakeMKV to display (and allow us to rip) any second or subsequent video tracks in a file, even if it's only shown in the M2TS file where the DTS Express track is.

Pretty please, with sugar on top?!

[Radiocomms237]

I've been doing quite a lot of Dreamworks titles of late (Dragons franchise, Madagascar franchise, etc.) and a lot of these have PiP commentary that they call "Animator's Corner" (get it, as in the 'corner' of the screen, haha).

[Radiocomms237]

Ripping mostly TV series of late, which is dragging down my average, but I just finished "The Pacific" that has a hidden PiP commentary track on every episode, and "Band Of Brothers" that has two hidden PiP tracks on every episode.

Having MakeMKV make these video tracks available for ripping is becoming quite a priority for me.