Choosing between seemingly identical episode files on DVDs

[HoosierDaddy]

Hi,

I have used MakeMKV in the past to extract movies from my DVDs for our HTPC running emby.

Am trying to do the same for a few miniseries DVDs we have. On the first of 6 DVDs for the first mini-series, not too hard to figure out which files are episodes but there are two files for one of the episodes with the exact same run time and are less than 100kb difference in file size. Both 720x480. Both have the same 3 subtitles (English, Spanish and Portuguese). Both appear identical at exact same times I checked. I see the same situation on the second DVD.

How can i figure which is the right/best one to use? I have 5 or 6 mini-series to process. Would hate to find out later they all have seemingly duplicate episode files and some have some unintended side effects. Are there some other attributes I should check?

And what possible reason could the publishers have if the files are identical?

Thanks

[JERisBRISK]

You can rip both and see if maybe one has chapters and the other doesn't.

Another thing to check is the Source file name and/or Segment map in the Title information section on the right side (after selecting a Title on the left side). Sometimes that's a dead giveaway of which one is 'more correct' (just survey all the episodes and see if a pattern emerges).

Name: ...
Source file name: 00073.m2ts
Duration: 0:42:14
Size: 18.9 GB
Segment count: 1
Segment map: 73

For some series they did such an amazing job at randomizing things (lots of identically sized tracks but with the chapters in random order), I had to scrounge the internet for someone else's post about which titles were the correct ones to rip so I wind up with jumbled episodes. Quite silly.