Arrow Films encoded? - Donnie Darko and others

[Jack Burton]

I've run into an odd issue with a few Arrow releases that show that the video stream has been encoded after ripping it with MakeMKV. For example, I used MakeMKV on Arrow's release of Donnie Darko (FCD1403) and Mediainfo shows that the video has been encoded with the following settings:

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cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=0:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=1 / keyint=24 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=24 / rc=abr / mbtree=0 / bitrate=35000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.10 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=38000 / vbv_bufsize=28500 / nal_hrd=vbr / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.50

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General
Unique ID                                : 10689983116424849453756998880067780707 (0x80AD0DC20D9D4AAC0534FC88A630063)
Complete name                            : J:\Videos\Movies\Donnie Darko (2001)\Donnie Darko (2001) - Director's Cut.mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 34.4 GiB
Duration                                 : 2 h 13 min
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 36.8 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2020-05-08 20:42:29
Writing application                      : MakeMKV v1.15.1 win(x64-release)
Writing library                          : libmakemkv v1.15.1 (1.3.5/1.4.7) win(x64-release)

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 3 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 2 h 13 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 35.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 38.0 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.704
Stream size                              : 31.8 GiB (92%)
Title                                    : MPEG-4 AVC Video / 35000 kbps / 1080p / 23.976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Writing library                          : x264 core 128 r2216 198a7ea
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=0:-1:-1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=10 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=1 / weightp=1 / keyint=24 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=24 / rc=abr / mbtree=0 / bitrate=35000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.10 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=38000 / vbv_bufsize=28500 / nal_hrd=vbr / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:0.50
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS XLL
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 2 h 13 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 542 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 2.38 GiB (7%)
Title                                    : DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 2542 kbps / 24-bit
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4353 (0x1101)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 2 h 13 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 192 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 184 MiB (1%)
Title                                    : Audio commentary by writer-director Richard Kelly and filmmaker Kevin Smith
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Text
ID                                       : 4
ID in the original source medium         : 4608 (0x1200)
Format                                   : PGS
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 2 h 13 min
Bit rate                                 : 25.4 kb/s
Count of elements                        : 2206
Stream size                              : 24.3 MiB (0%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Menu
00:00:00.000                             : en:Chapter 01
00:09:36.450                             : en:Chapter 02
00:18:10.547                             : en:Chapter 03
00:27:06.833                             : en:Chapter 04
00:38:40.026                             : en:Chapter 05
00:50:57.387                             : en:Chapter 06
01:05:16.078                             : en:Chapter 07
01:18:38.880                             : en:Chapter 08
01:29:47.006                             : en:Chapter 09
01:44:37.854                             : en:Chapter 10
01:51:07.911                             : en:Chapter 11
02:03:17.098                             : en:Chapter 12

Of the many Blu-rays I've ripped with MakeMKV this is the first time seeing this. Usually there would be no encoding settings shown because MakeMKV doesn't encode, but for some reason it's showing encoding with x264 on a few of my Arrow Blu-rays. So I tried ripping it twice with the same result. There is also no obfuscation of the playlists, there's only one main title to pick from so I know I'm not just picking the wrong stream. I also used MakeMKV to back-up the whole disc to BDMV folder, the main stream "00004.m2ts" shows the same encoding settings as the MKV rips.

These are my other Arrow Blu-rays and which of them have somehow been encoded right out of MakeMKV:

• The 'Burbs (FCD931) - Encoded
• 12 Monkeys (FCD1821) - Encoded
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (FCD884) - Encoded
• To Live and Die in L.A. (FCD1384) - Encoded
• Being John Malkovich (FCD1914) - Encoded
• The Boondock Saints (FCD1759) - Encoded
• Children of Men (FCD1826) - NOT encoded
• Oldboy (FCD1922) - NOT encoded
• RoboCop (FCD1918) - NOT encoded
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (FCD2025) - NOT encoded

I'm using MakeMKV v1.15.1 win(x64-release), ASUS BW-16D1HT with LibreDrive enabled. I have ripped dozens of Blu-rays with this drive, and other Arrow Films releases using the same MakeMKV version that didn't show encoding settings used. There were no errors in the log, "operation successfully completed."

Could it be that some Arrow releases are actually encoded on the disc this way? If so, not a big deal as long as MakeMKV is not doing something weird on me and is ripping the video untouched as it exists on the disc.

[Woodstock]

The "Encoding settings" strings are metadata that are not really needed, so most sources don't bother putting them in.

EVERYTHING you get on an optical disk has been encoded, and the codec used is listed as the "Codec ID". The parameters used during the encode are not needed by the encoder.

[Jack Burton]

EVERYTHING you get on an optical disk has been encoded, and the codec used is listed as the "Codec ID".

Yeah, I realize my word choice was not the best. I understand that all videos are encoded on a Blu-ray disc. I had just never seen a Blu-ray that specifically highlighted the use of x264 as the encoder in the metadata when nearly every Blu-ray I've seen does not. I also found the differences between the Arrow releases curious, in that some did this and some did not, with no correlation of release dates (old and new Arrow releases had both). If all Arrow releases included the encoding settings then that would be one thing.

Sorry, guess it's a non-issue, but I just found it odd.

[Woodstock]

Questions are the basis for obtaining knowledge. The first questions get you to where you know what questions to ask to move forward.