3 minutes of silence in main track of disc 2 of Visconti's "Ludwig"

[FireMeUp84]

I used MakeMKV v1.65.5 win-x64 to get .mkv files from disc 2 of Visconti's "Ludwig." The second file produced, LUDWIG - Disc 2_t01.mkv, is the second half of the film and is 1:54:54 (according to Windows File Explorer and also VLC) in length. Unfortunately this file lacks audio for the first 3 minutes of playing time. But when I play the BD on my Oppo-205 or on PowerDVD21 on my PC, the sound starts immediately. Hence, the BD seems to be good, and MakeMKV has somehow dropped 3 minutes of audio.

Here is what MakeMKV says about the concerned file on the BD:

Title information
Name: LUDWIG - Disc 2 (English)
Source file name: 00003.mpls
Duration: 1:51:54 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Chapters count: 9
Size: 32.6 GB
Segment count: 6
Segment map: 14,4,6,7,10,14
File name: LUDWIG - Disc 2_t01.mkv

Note above that MakeMKV shows the track to be 1:51:54 in length, that is, 3 minutes less that what File Explorer and VLC says. 3 minutes is of course the amount of time of silence that is the issue.

Here is what MakeMKV shows for the Italian-language audio track of the file (Oppo-205, PowerDVD21 and VLC give Italian-language audio):

Track information
Type: Audio
Name: Mono (English)
Language: Italian
Codec: Linear PCM
Channels: 1
Channel layout: mono
Sample rate: 48000
Bits per sample: 24
Output format: Raw LPCM audio without channel configuration metadata ( Lossless conversion )
Output description: Save as raw LPCM
MKV Flags: Default

I have reproduced this problem several times, on 2 different Win10 Pro x64 machines, using the same LG BP60NB10 (service code NB10, firmware originally 1.02) on each. I have used this drive to successfully read many BDs. Disc 2 of "Ludwig" is the only one that shows the problem I describe.

Here is what MakeMKV says of the drive:

Drive Information
OS device name: \Device\CdRom0
Current profile: BD-ROM
Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST
Product: BD-RE BP60NB10
Revision: 1.01
Serial number: SIKYVK5QC1632
Firmware date: 2119-05-03 15:34
Bus encryption flags: 17
Highest AACS version: 76

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: MT1959
Firmware type: Patched (microcode access re-enabled)
Firmware version: 1.01
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

It seems to me that MakeMKV is exhibiting a bug. Any ideas how I might proceed?

[dcoke22]

Is there a different title in MakeMKV that is the length you expect? I don't have this disc, so I can't speak directly to your situation, but I wonder if MakeMKV has ripped the wrong title.

[AngryVirginian]

I had a similar problem with a US BD release of Wind River. The audio format changed midstream between the logos opening and the live action sequence I believe from PCM to DTS-HD MA and it resulted in a long silence at the beginning of the film. I gave up on trying to fix the MKV to watch through Plex and just ripped to BDMV to be played back on Zidoo.

[FireMeUp84]

Is there a different title in MakeMKV that is the length you expect? I don't have this disc, so I can't speak directly to your situation, but I wonder if MakeMKV has ripped the wrong title.

The title I cited is the only one that is anywhere near the correct length.

[dcoke22]

Do you know how to make a decrypted backup with MakeMKV?

The segment map you posted… Segment map: 14,4,6,7,10,14
has segment 14 in there twice, at the beginning and the end. I wonder if that's just logos and the main content is the 4 segments in the middle, 4, 6, 7 & 10.

When you make a decrypted backup, you'll be able to play those individual segments with a player like VLC or MPV or similar. You'll find the segments as .m2ts files in the BDMV/STREAM folder in the backup MakeMKV makes.

Based on AngryVirginian's comment, I wonder if something similar is happening here?

In theory, the MKVToolNix tools can combine multiple input files into a single .mkv file. So you could take the decrypted .m2ts files from the backup, combine them with mkvmerge and hopefully not have the long silence.

[FireMeUp84]

Working at the segment level yielded a good file (.mkv). Details:

1) Segment 14 (00014.m2ts), reported by File Explorer and by VLC with a length of 3:02, seems to contain nothing. When I played the segment in VLC and also in MPV, each showed black for the 3:02 of the segment and had no sound. I have no idea what purpose this segment served when MakeMKV built "LUDWIG - Disc 2_t01.mkv": There is no 3:02 of black when that file is played. There is, of course, the approximately 3-minute silence seemingly "overlaying" the beginning of the .mkv file.

2) Segment 4 (length 16:00), when played in VLC and in MPV, had no silence.

3) I followed your suggestion to build my own .mkv. I had MakeMKV dump the decrypted segments, and then I employed MKVToolNix GUI to build from segments 4, 6, 7 and 10. (I struggled until I figured out that in MKVToolNix, I had to add the first segment, 4, and then to append (not add) segments 6, 7 and 10.) The resulting .mkv file was 1:51:54 length (note: Not the 1:54:54 of "LUDWIG - Disc 2_t01.mkv" that MakeMKV had assembled). No silence; joy.

[wmcclain]

I just encountered the same issue. Also LPCM audio, 3m of silence overlaying the start of the titles, also from Arrow Video.

This was with the box set of BLOOD BATH, two discs, two titles on each. The segments all look something like:

6,4,6

Where 00006.m2ts is 3 minutes of silence, no reason for its existence. My OPPO player and VLC when playing a complete disc backup both know enough to skip the "6" segment, but MakeMKV rips it and overlays it onto the main (only) audio track.

As suggested here I used mkvmerge to extract the 00004.m2ts segment and all seems well and synced up.

Something about Arrow's workflow is confusing MakeMKV; maybe specifically with LPCM tracks?

[wmcclain]

^ This was with standard Blu-ray. I didn't see this was the UHD forum when I searched for the topic.