best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

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gattotimo
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2023 6:17 am

best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

Post by gattotimo »

Hello everybody, I'm new here even though I'm a long time makemkv user and bought my lifetime license ages ago :). I'm sorry if I'm in the wrong section, please move the thread if needed. Here's the thing: since dvd days I've always backed up my movies in mkv container, but since UHDs came out, with all their additional metadata layers and such (dolby vision, atmos and the likes) I've been more inclined to accompany the single mkv file to a full disc backup, to preserve any metadata which may be lost in mkv repackaging. In order to do so, which is the correct setting to pick in makemkv? Should I check the 'decrypt video files' option or not? This is for pure archival purpose, I do not wish to directly play the backed up disc, I just want it to be preserved in order to perform additional operations (extract the mkv, repackag to a iso and such) at a later date, maybe in a future when a new container come to be. Thanks for your help and sorry if such a question has already been asked (but I couldn't find the answer)
Woodstock
Posts: 10385
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:21 pm

Re: best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

Post by Woodstock »

Why NOT decrypt? Do you think some future decrypting software will be "better" at removing the encryption than the current one?
dcoke22
Posts: 3178
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:25 pm

Re: best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

Post by dcoke22 »

I think decrypting the backup is the best choice.
gattotimo
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2023 6:17 am

Re: best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

Post by gattotimo »

Woodstock wrote:
Fri Oct 13, 2023 12:29 pm
Why NOT decrypt? Do you think some future decrypting software will be "better" at removing the encryption than the current one?
I wouldn’t know man, that’s why I asked in the first place ;). I was thinking the matter was more complex than a simple ‘why not do it since the option is there?’, mostly because I don’t understand why the option to uncheck it is even there if the ‘right’ setting is such a no brainer. I mean, what scenarios would make not decrypting the better option? Are there any?
Ezatoka
Posts: 411
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 6:55 pm

Re: best setting for archival purpose - decrypt or not

Post by Ezatoka »

I once made a poll in another forum. Unfortunately I didn't got too many replies:
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Just keep in mind: MakeMKV doesn't remove much of protections. Region Lock won't be removed (well not much of a problem with VLC for example), neither will BD-J protections, which sometimes cause the message, that you need a new firmware to be able to watch this ISO.

With some tools, one can even make a backup of a CSS protected DVD without removing CSS. But: not much software will be able to read this afterwards. MakeMKV doesn't care, it just bruteforces the CSS key, and so does DVDdecrypter. But VLC won't read such DVD backups.
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