Wicked German UHD Disc - Versions

[KevM92]

Hi,

can somebody help me - when I open the Wicked (2025) UHD Disc - German Version I see a the Main Feature and also with the same size, length etc another version.

Wicked-MakeMKV.png (69.68 KiB) Viewed 295 times

Title information
Name: Wicked (Part 1) (English)
Comment: SEG_MainFeature
Source file name: 00801.mpls
Duration: 2:40:10
Chapters count: 20
Size: 85.6 GB
Segment count: 1
Segment map: 294
File name: Wicked (Part 1)-SEG_MainFeature_t00.mkv

Title information
Name: Wicked (Part 1) (English)
Source file name: 00294.m2ts
Duration: 2:40:10
Size: 85.6 GB
Segment count: 1
Segment map: 294
File name: Wicked (Part 1)_t12.mkv

Apart from the fact that the last version has no chapters, I don't understand what the difference is.

Am I missing something - can you please help me?

- Thanks
Kev

[dcoke22]

The segment map for both entries is the same. That means the video and audio is the same.

Blu-rays and 4K UHDs have a feature called seamless branching. This means a title can consist of 1 or more .m2ts files. .m2ts files have audio and video in them and on the disc they are all named with a 5 digit number. In your case, for Wicked, the .m2ts file that contains the whole movie is named 00294.m2ts. If you make a decrypted backup of that disc (on the first screen of MakeMKV, choose the icon of the yellow folder with the green arrow), you can find this file in the <backup>/BDMV/STREAM/ folder. All of the .m2ts files on that disc will be there and you can play them with VLC.

.mpls files can be thought of as a playlist of .m2ts files. .mpls files also define chapters and some other things.

In your example, the item with the source file name of 00801.mpls is the title defined by a .mpls file. It has chapters and consists of a single segment, 294 (00294.m2ts).
The item with the source file name of 00294.m2ts is not defined by a .mpls file; this is why it doesn't have any chapters. MakeMKV has mistakenly listed it a second time.

MakeMKV makes this mistake occasionally because not every title on a disc has to be defined by a .mpls file. When you navigate the menus of a disc, an item in the menu might point to a .mpls file or it might point to a .m2ts file directly. Because of this, MakeMKV sorts through everything on the disc and surfaces the important .mpls titles as well as the import .m2ts items. You can influence this behavior by changing the minimum title length in MakeMKV's preferences.

Seamless branching is usually how a disc can contain both the theatrical version of a film as well as the director's cut. The movie is chopped up into multiple segments and two .mpls files are defined. One with the theatrical segments, and one with the director's cut segments. Most of the segments for both versions would be identical. A blu-ray player can switch between segments (between .m2ts files) fast enough that it is unnoticeable to the viewer. MakeMKV stitches together multiple segments into one continuous video in a .mkv file.

In your case, choose the title with the chapters and ignore the other one.

[KevM92]

Thank you; this explanation was exceptionally helpful.
THANKS