Picture-in-Picture Tracks

[mike admin]

Why can't MakeMKV display this second video track and allow me to rip it to a separate .mkv file?

One of the cornerstone concept in MakeMKV remux engine is that the video is always seamless. There could be no gaps, and everything else (audio, subtitles) is always synchronized to the main video track.
This is not the case with secondary video tracks - frames come and go, and video track can have arbitrary holes. To properly get the secondary video as a main track MakeMKV should generate and insert empty frames for any chosen codec. With ffmpeg engine available, this is not impossible, but still hard to do...

[Radiocomms237]

At present, I do a decrypted backup, then I drop the playlist (.mpls) file into MKVmerge, un-check the main video/audio/subs/chapter tracks and mux the file (multiple times if there are multiple PiP tracks).

The result is an .mkv file that is exactly the same length as the main video track but with blank frames between the pop-up windows (assuming it's not a full-length commentary).

So I'm not sure whether MKVmerge is also generating and inserting these "empty frames" (actually, they're transparent frames) but the resulting pop-up windows seem to be spaced along the timeline in (roughly) their original positions, at least the associated audio stills seems to be in-sync?

[Radiocomms237]

A few more to add to the list:

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008) has a PiP Commentary;
1 solitary episode out of the entire series of Sons Of Anarchy (TV Series 2008-2014);
and a grand total of 2 episodes out of all the seasons of Weeds (TV Series 2005-2012).

[dcoke22]

Shrek Forever After (2010) has a PiP track that seems to be the same length as the movie (although I don't know if it is the exact same number of frames).

The audio track and the corresponding subtitle track show up in MakeMKV and sync to the movie. So, even if you don't take the time to extract the PiP track into a separate .mkv file, you can still hear the commentary.

[killergege]

I confirm that some Doctor Who Blu-ray discs have "In-Vision" commentary (I just ripped Series 5 for example), which is pretty much PIP.

Extracting all items just generate the same episode in several MKV files. So it seems to detect that there is something, but I guess it should have the commentary video but only find the "main" one.
Also, there are subtitles for the commentary, but the audio is exacted nowhere (only the same "main" video audio tracks are there on all the duplicates : main audio & audio description).

It would be nice to be able to have at least the audio track, and would be awesome to be able to extract the secondary video/audio as a separate MKV file.

For now, I'll try the backup + multiplex tip suggested above.

[Radiocomms237]

The PiP audio track is usually displayed in MakeMKV but only in the segment (.m2ts) file, not in the playlist (.mpls) itself.

The PiP video track is hidden altogether in both the playlist and segment files (MakeMKV seems to believe that you can only have one video track per file, for some reason).

Even though, when you drop the playlist file from the backup folder into MKVmerge, it shows both the additional PiP video track and the associated audio track.

The audio for these tracks is typically in DDplus or DTS Express, depending on the format used on the disc.

DDplus seems to play natively in most software-based players but DTS Express does not. You will need to extract that track from the MKV file after muxing, convert it (I convert them to AC3 (Dolby) but you could use any codec that's widely recognized), and then mux that converted audio track back into the MKV file, setting it as the new default.

The Doctor Who discs I've seen are a little bit different, technically I wouldn't call them Picture-In-Picture because they instead have a duplicate of each episode with the inset commentary picture already added, whereas most other PiP tracks are a completely separate video track, of much lower resolution, which the set-top player automatically overlays.

[Radiocomms237]

BTW, I stopped listing titles that have PiP tracks here because I figured it was pointless if nothing was going to be done about it.

But I wanted to mention that the TV series "True Detective" has several episodes with PiP commentary, however, when you go to all the trouble of extracting them, the PiP video is just blank, so don't waste your time!

[killergege]

The Doctor Who discs I've seen are a little bit different, technically I wouldn't call them Picture-In-Picture because they instead have a duplicate of each episode with the inset commentary picture already added, whereas most other PiP tracks are a completely separate video track, of much lower resolution, which the set-top player automatically overlays.

I'm not sure about that (for the BRD at least).
Opening the playlist with MKVToolNix I indeed see 2 video tracks, one is 1920x1080 and the other is 720x576 and I can generate a MKV with 2 videos tracks completely different.
But to be honest, the commentary video track is pretty useless, so I'll only use the tool to extract the audio.

Although, when I ripped the DVD of the same episode years ago (not sure with which tool), it did create a MKV with the PIP "hardwritten"

You are right about the commentary audio format, it is DTS Express.

[Radiocomms237]

~ technically I wouldn't call them Picture-In-Picture because they instead have a duplicate of each episode ~

I'm not sure about that (for the BRD at least). ~

Sorry, you are correct. I just checked and the Doctor Who discs I was referring to (with the "hardwritten" PiP commentary) were DVDs, not Blu-rays.

~ But to be honest, the commentary video track is pretty useless ~

Yep, what I've been doing is to create a separate MKV file using a video editing suite to overlay the PiP commentary (making it, as you say, "hardwritten").

Then you can either have that as a duplicate episode tagged "with PiP commentary" or you can mux this new commentary video track into the original file, but that is a little bit messy because you have to choose both the alternate video and the alternate audio tracks separately upon playback.

[deezmaster]

I am interested in trying to get the full "in movie experience" extra feature from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets which includes PiP commentary as well as stills galleries which play on top of the movies.

Could someone give me a rundown on what is the best method to accomplish this on and M1 mac? I am pretty tech savvy and comfortable using cli and virtual machines through parallels so don't hold back! I just don't really know where to get started on this one.

[dcoke22]

You should be able to make a decrypted backup of the disc, open it in MKVToolNix GUI and extract the PiP tracks that MakeMKV doesn't show.

[deezmaster]

You should be able to make a decrypted backup of the disc, open it in MKVToolNix GUI and extract the PiP tracks that MakeMKV doesn't show.

Yes, that makes sense. Thank you! Is it possible for me I then go in and start adding those audio & video tracks back on to the source material at the correct scale and position for archival purposes? Does anyone have suggestions on which tools might be good for that part?

[dcoke22]

The movie Let Me In (2010) has a PiP track.