www.makemkv.com

I'm an MKV newbie and have a question about the DVD version for MAC and subsequent playback.

I am ripping a bunch of DVDs mostly to save in the unfortunate event my kids scratch the discs. The secondary reason is to have a copy to stream for display by a projector in a media room streamed from a Readynas Pro. I will also compress the .mkv to a size more suitable to load onto my idevice for the kids to watch while on a plane using Handbrake.

I have had no problems ripping the dvds; however, when I select the correct title, there are typically multiple audio streams for that title. Typically (for most Pixar movies) there is a 5.1 and a 2 channel. I have been making an .mkv file of the title that contains the entire movie (as learned from playing in VLC) and also packaging with both audio streams with the thought being that the 2 channel will be used for the idevice after manipulating with Handbrake and the 5.1 to be played in the media room. Am I correct in assuming that the media extender (still need to get one that reads mkv) will know to select the 5.1 channel audio track to send to my receiver (Marantz av7005)?

Thanks for any help!

Generally speaking, if a player will handle MKV, it will also read any of the audio tracks in it that it has a CODEC for. So it is faster to let MakeMKV select all the audio tracks and put them into the MKV, although you can toss out any foreign languages you're not interested in.

When you're recoding with Handbrake, you can rearrange the order of the audio tracks to make your desired one the first found, or even the ONLY track. This reduces the chance the playback device would chose the "wrong" track.

Thanks Woodstock!

This is almost the right answer I've been looking for. Thanks for the tip, Woodstock.

I tried makemkv on my Windows 8 Pro machine. On playback, the video looks perfect, but I can't play the primary audio track. It will play the director's comments, foreign languages, but not the Dolby Digital 5+1 via my S/PDIF port that the original DVD uses. I've tried all of the video players that claim to play *.mkv format video, but the audio just doesn't seem to be there.

Which players did you test with?

One I would try this with is VLC, because it can play both MKV files and the raw DVD itself. If it can play the 5.1 track from the DVD but NOT from the MKV file, it probably won't be a CODEC problem.

Does it play the other tracks through the optical port?

I tested playing the MKP file with VLC, PowerDVD 12 Ultra (used to watch blue-ray disk), WinTV V7, Windows Media. Player. VLC, PowerDVD, and WinTV will play the alternate audio (foreign languages, stereo, Directors' comments, but not the primary English Dolby Digital 5.1 via SPDIF that I enjoy when watch from the original DVD.

VLC will play the original DVD with the desired audio track, but not the desired audio track on the MKP recording. Only DTS and Dolby Digital will play through the SPDIF. Mono and Stereo tracks will play through the stereo RCA inputs.

The Realtek High Definition Audio is on the motherboard. I use a ATI Radeon HD 4650 video PCIe card.