Feature Request: Ability to de-select (uncheck) the video track

Discussion of advanced MakeMKV functionality, expert mode, conversion profiles
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Radiocomms237
Posts: 344
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:23 am

Feature Request: Ability to de-select (uncheck) the video track

Post by Radiocomms237 »

Hopefully this is the correct place for a feature request? Or should I email support directly?

I need a way to de-select (uncheck) the video track, even when there's only one video track.

All too often lately I find myself ripping an entire 40GB file just to extract one audio and/or subtitle track from it. A prime example are these Universal Pictures discs that split the Japanese languages off into a separate playlist (.mpls file).

I have to rip the main .mlps with all the other languages AND rip the duplicate .mpls with the Japanese tracks, just so I can extract the Japanese audio and subs and mux them back into the main file (both are mapped to the same .m2ts segment, but if I just rip the segment with ALL the audio tracks then I don't get the chapters).

It would be so much quicker if I could de-select the video track and only rip the audio & subtitle track(s) without all the bloat of copying duplicate video tracks just to delete them again immediately afterward.

Another example is testing subtitles, I often rip a disc just to extract and identify the subtitle tracks, then I can name them correctly (or de-select the ones I don't want) in MakeMKV, then rip the disc all over again. It would be heaps quicker if I could rip the file without the video track, and then extract and inspect the subs.

The resultant files may need to be exported as .mka (for audio), or .sup/.srt (for subtitles), or .xml files (for chapters), or even just the .jpg file by itself.

It would make the program so much more versatile.

Thanks in advance!
dcoke22
Posts: 2560
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:25 pm

Re: Feature Request: Ability to de-select (uncheck) the video track

Post by dcoke22 »

Have you tried making a decrypted backup of your blu-ray? MakeMKV can then make .mkv files from the decrypted backup. This effectively means MakeMKV only has to read from the optical disc once. Operations performed on the decrypted backup will happen at whatever speed the underlying storage can support. This will actually be faster than MakeMKV being able to only output audio files when ripping from an optical disc.

The underlying .m2ts files on a blu-ray are multiplexed. That means the audio and video are all mashed together in the file. This makes sense since when you play the disc in a player, you hear the audio synced to the video. The player has to be able to read the audio and video at the same time with the single laser emitter & capture assembly in the player. Even if MakeMKV only outputs the audio from a title on a blu-ray, the optical drive will have to read all of the .m2ts file(s), including the video, to capture all the audio.
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