Why is there no option to preview any given title before you rip it?

[Dunebasher]

Since VLC can use MakeMKV to provide the keys to play BDs, why can't MakeMKV use VLC to play any given title so the user can check if it's what they want before it's ripped?

Users have been asking for a preview functionality for well over a decade now, and it's puzzling why something that seems relatively easy to implement is being deliberately avoided.

Not everybody wants to rip entire discs, sometimes we only want (say) a specific special feature or episode. Having to rip the entire disc just to delete the 90% you don't need is an obvious waste of time, and not even VLC will show you the .mpls or .m2ts data for any given title, so you can't work it out that way.

Is there any specific explanation why preview is being deliberately avoided as a new feature? I'm a paid user, but I'd happily pay again just to get MakeMKV with preview finally implemented.

[jinx100]

dcoke22 gives a solution viewtopic.php?p=133965#p133965 if you are looking for individual episodes in a series. Have you tried that? One of the .m2ts files may be the part you want.

A preview would not be helpful for discerning the correct mpls out of several hundred. It's easier just to search in the BR section for released films or ask about new films.

[Dunebasher]

How do you create a "decrypted backup"? To my mind, that sounds like you have to wait while the entire disc rips. That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid, it's so time-consuming, especially when I know I'm going to be deleting 90% of what's been ripped.

I'm never ripping films, I'm ripping TV series discs, of which there can be many different versions from different territories (so there won't necessarily be a list of titles I can look up online somewhere), and I want specific episodes or specific special features, I never want the whole disc.

That's why I'd like to be able to click on any of the titles in the title list generated by MakeMKV and have VLC play a preview of it from the BD, so that I can then be sure I'm only ripping exactly the title(s) I want and nothing else. Is that really so difficult for the devs to implement?

When I say I would pay for MakeMKV all over again just to have a version with title preview functionality, I absolutely mean it - it would save me huge amounts of time.

But it seems that whenever anybody suggests a preview function, as they have been doing for over 10 years, the replies don't seem to understand why anybody would want it - it's almost as if the idea of only wanting to rip specific titles, and not the entire disc, is some kind of weirdly eccentric thing - and it's never explained why there seems to be so much resistance to what seems like an obvious feature to add.

[jinx100]

Since you cannot view any .m2ts file until it is decrypted, you must decrypt them all. Then you can view and select the one you want. The slow part is just reading the data from the optical drive.

How would any preview function in MakeMKV help? Once the disc is backed-up to your hard drive, you can view the individual .m2ts files with VLC and keep the one(s) you want and discard the rest.

Load your BR disc, under "File" choose "Backup" and tick decrypt when the box opens. The .m2ts files will be in the STREAM folder. Try it!

Note: Originally posted to the wrong topic but it kind of fit so left it.