www.makemkv.com

I have a few discs that are giving me some odd results when ripping content.

Patriots Day seems like it will rip fine, but when attempting to play back the MKV file on my Mac (which has been working flawlessly for months), it's all full of macroblocking and judder. If I move the file to my Plex Media Server and let the server transcode it to play it back in my web browser, there's no macro blocking but motion isn't smooth.

I have the three-movie Halloween Trilogy (H20, Resurrection, and Curse of Mike Meyers) and that's giving me the same issue with Curse of Mike Meyers and H20, but Resurrection is fine. I'm using MakeMKVCon 1.10.6 on Linux and everything else on the machine is up to date.

This just started happening in the last two days and has showed up on only some movies, but the problem is persistent (subsequent attempt to rip yield the same results). Other discs are totally fine.

With Patriots Day, I also did a 'backup' to disc and then did the main title rip with MakeMKV on my Mac (also 1.10.6) and the results were identical. My guess here is that the decryption is what went wrong since the backup I created with the Linux host was with the --decrypt flag. I used dd on Linux to make a full ISO of the disc and then passed THAT through the Mac version - no love there at all. Seems that the ISO file must not be accurate or something as I get a Volume Key error of some sort when trying to open it.

Anyone have any ideas?

What are you playing the video back with on the Mac?

It is possible that the video is encoded with a codec that your software doesn't understand well. For example, VC1 is one of the standards for BD video, but there is a variant "VC1 Interlaced" that causes problems with many players.

Because of the high bit rates involved, when Plex is transcoding from whatever the source is to what you can play, it can fall behind, making choppy video.

I'm using Elmedia Player to play the MKV directly. This is what is producing the peculiar situation with the macroblocking. If I watch it back via the web client of Plex, the media server is transcoding the content. This removes the macroblocking but it's very choppy.

Elmedia Player has zero issues with almost every other MKV I throw at it and they're all ripped in the exact same way. So, I'm inclined to think that it's localized to just these few discs. Further, the Halloween movies are all on one disc. One plays absolutely fine and the other two have issues.

It seems very difficult to find out what video codecs Elmedia player supports - they mention file types, but no codecs. Google couldn't find any pages that discussed it, either.

I would still check the file with VLC. VLC is not the world's best player anymore, but it does have a wide compatibility with just about any video codec you will find on DVD or Bluray. If it can't play the MKV file, there is probably a problem with it.

The file does not play back correctly when transcoded by Plex, nor does it play correctly when direct-played by a Plex client (like on a TV). I highly doubt it's a codec.