New feature, compression

[mulox]

I am brand new to makemkv and trying to decide if I should purchase for blu-rays. Been using AnyDVD HD and BD Rebuilder for compressing the iso down to BD-25 format.

Does the makemkv dev team plan to add a compression feature similar to BDR in the near future (ex. this year)?

[Chetwood]

Hopefully not. There are TONS of free tools out there that can do this in all its complexity. No need to bloat MakeMKV with this crap.

[crowfax]

Hopefully not. There are TONS of free tools out there that can do this in all its complexity. No need to bloat MakeMKV with this crap.

+1
QFT

[mulox]

I am not against a 2-step process (no choice today) and as a software engineer myself, I completely understand and respect your position on performance.

However I think the majority of users are not geeks like us, and would prefer a simpler 1-step process, even if it's driven by a master UI and you have 2 or more tools being called to execute underneath that. Case in point... I recall the early days with DVD's... having to use dvd decrypter and dvdshrink and eventually the market evolved to produce all-in-one tools like DVDFab... because the masses simply demanded it. I suspect once the mkv format reaches that same level of popularity, the demand would reach that same level. At that point, the first tool to produce an all-in-one solution would gain the most market share.

So if the goal of the makemkv team is to remain freeware and never charge anything for its development efforts, it probably doesn't make sense to mess with the current design. But if the mission is to become the #1 media tool in the world, and possibly make a few bucks in the process, then they will have no choice but to continue to add useful features such as this.

[ndjamena]

MakeMKV should be included in the same category as X264, it's a tool, it does what it does and does it to the best of it's abilities. And practically it's free. The more features you add to it the more effort will be spent on maintaining those features rather than concentrating on it's core purpose. There IS DVDFab already, I'm sure there are far more programmers working on it then there is working on MakeMKV. If you really want MakeMKV to become DVDFab, you could just buy DVDFab... Is there some reason why you don't? And when all is said and done, once MakeMKV is bloated with all these features that everyone seems to wants it to have, why would it be any better than DVDFab anyway?

[mulox]

Yes I have tried DVDFab and don't like it because it is buggy and bloated. The reason for my comments are because makemkv is not practically free... it is $50 to use it for blu-rays, which is about 30% of my usage. And I am very happy to pay for it... I just think that $50 is way more than should be charged for a single-feature utility/tool. There are full-featured products that cost much less, and we all agree this is definitely not a product. I would be willing to pay $20, but certainly not $50. I would be willing to pay more if they added at least 1 other useful feature, such as compression. Just my 2 cents.

[ndjamena]

I used to think it was too much too, yet eventually I paid almost $80 for my key. MakeMKV is the X264 of DVD/Blu Ray ripping. Currently my combination of MakeMKV, MKVToolNix, AVISynth, eac3to, X264 and other programs is FAR superior to ANYTHING any all in one interface could provide and including sub-par capabilities in MakeMKV would be wasted effort. That effort would be MUCH better spent elsewhere, improving what it does best.

Edit: By the way, 'bloated' and 'buggy' tend to go together, which is exactly my point.

[mulox]

Feature rich programs does not always equal bloatware and bugs. It is possible to produce solid all-in-ones while still achieving high performance and other requirements. It's all in the architecture/design and having good developers.

My issue is that I don't consider myself a videophile like you, and don't have the countless hours to devote learning which of the dozens of tools out there I need to whip out today to perform a certain task.

[ndjamena]

MakeMKV + Handbrake is the simplest way to go.
Imagine adding all the GUI interfaces of Handbrake to MakeMKVs and how it would all fit together, plus add all the bugs as well.

And I'm wondering where you get this 'team of developers' stuff from...

[Chetwood]

I am not against a 2-step process (no choice today) and as a software engineer myself, I completely understand and respect your position on performance. However I think the majority of users are not geeks like us, and would prefer a simpler 1-step process

Since you're the first one to bring this up here, it does not look like the majority to me. And I don't see how it can get any simpler than that: rip to MKV with MakeMKV, load MKV in Handbrake (or Staxrip, or Hybrid, or MeGUI, or Ripbot264 or...) and encode it to your liking. The complexity of the workflow won't be reduced in one GUI for all and it also will not remove the necessity to learn about encoding which is the major factor.

Case in point... I recall the early days with DVD's... having to use dvd decrypter and dvdshrink and eventually the market evolved to produce all-in-one tools like DVDFab...

Actually, that's no case in point cause DVD Shrink always could do what Decrypter did. Both could not deal with newer copy protections but with the regular ones all you needed was DVD Shrink.

[ndjamena]

I think this is just a knee jerk reaction to the price. He took one look at it and went all uppity up. We've all be there and reacted in our own ways but a lot of us got over it, realised the true worth of MakeMKV and purchased it despite the fact that we could get it for legally and for free for the foreseeable future. Hell, he's one of the lucky ones, he's in the magical country where the price is only $50 for a license, I paid almost $80 for mine and it was worth every cent. There's a news program almost every year pointing out that Australians pay more for software than most other countries for no apparent reason, it's just something we have to accept. Be glad you can get MakeMKV so cheaply.

I don't think this is a reasoned discussion and is in fact nothing more than a fit of pique, so I don't see any point in continuing it. Adding more options to the interface will make it more complicated and more confusing, the idea that a 1-step will be LESS confusing and BETTER for new users is completely false. This entire argument is ridiculous.

I am brand new to makemkv and trying to decide if I should purchase for blu-rays.

The answer is yes by the way, I don't think ANYONE who has taken the plunge and forked out the cash for this program has regretted it, regardless of the fact that they could get it for free, just buy the thing and stop expecting it to be something it is not and was never meant to be.