Two identical streams for main movie - which to pick?

[wantonsoup]

Mr Peabody and Sherman Blu-Ray.

The main movie shows two times in MakeMKV - 0801.mpls and 0802.mpls are identical. Both have a duration of 1:32:29, both have 28 chapters, both are 24.3 GB (everything checked) and when I make MKVs (unchecking everything except main audio track) both are exactly 17,995,878 bytes.

Why are there two of these on the BD? Which is correct?

[Woodstock]

801 is probably the English version, and 802 will be either French or Spanish. The difference will be in the signs and titles.

[michaelt]

Yup - just like Frozen. It had me baffled until I watched the front end up to the title, but I was not going to watch the whole movie to get to the credits to see if they changed too.

[mouriana]

I have had this problem with a few BDs, including Frozen and, just now, Mockingjay Part 1. I don't remember all the details with Frozen, but for Mockingjay, there were literally HUNDREDS of identical files, all saying they were English, all the same size. I didn't want to look at the properties of each file, let alone WATCH every one to make sure it was the right one. Normally, I would just pick the first one and run with it, but when I did that with Frozen, the resulting movie was flawed -- it had tiny bits (a second here, 2 seconds there) cut from random places in the movie. It was weird. It's like Disney said, "we know people are ripping these movies, but we don't want them to so we're going to punish them! Put a hundred seemingly identical files on the disc and a secret code so only an official blu-ray player can tell which one is the REAL full movie! Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!" So now I'm totally paranoid and confused. First, I don't think it's even possible to fit hundreds of 23.1 GB files on a regular BD. Second, why would they even do that, or make it look like it's doing that? Thirdly, and most importantly, is there any reasonable way to figure out which one is the 'right' file?

Mouri

[Woodstock]

It's a different problem with Mocking Jay... in fact, there are at least 3 separate threads of "which track is right" for MJ going on right now.

The dozens/hundreds of titles is there to confuse matters. And "which track" can vary according to where you obtained the disk.

There are methods to find the right track in these cases, including one that you can do if you have "real" BD playback software on your system, using the Resource Monitor that comes with Windows. You start playing the movie through the BD playback software, and then check the resource monitor to see which file is open on the BD.

[mouriana]

Argh, sneaky!! Lousy mega-millionaire media companies trying to cheat me out of the $30 I spent on their movie!

My BD drive didn't come with 'real' BD playback software. Is there a really good one out there (preferably free, but I'll pay a little to avoid this problem in the future) that I can download or buy?

[mouriana]

That is frustrating and confusing.

I searched for good BD playback software. Downloaded and tried pot player, didn't work on Mockingjay. already had vlc, it wouldn't work either. So I looked at trials for SlySoft AnyDVD HD, but the trial wouldn't update the codecs so it wouldn't work. So then I tried the trial for PowerDVD, but the trial version wouldn't download the codecs either, so it wouldn't work. So, since I was desperate and PowerDVD 14 Ultra was on 'mega sale,' I bought it. Now it will play the movie. BUT...I don't know what you mean when you said 'Resource Manager.' At first I thought you meant Task Manager, so I played around with that, but I couldn't find info for which file was being played. So then I thought maybe you meant device manager, so I played around with that, but I couldn't find info for which file was being played there either. So THEN I thought, 'maybe it's that thing where you right-click on 'My Computer' and go to 'Manage.' Ah-HA! There's resource manager!
Now, I'm playing around with that. I go to the CPU tab, select PowerDVDMovie.exe, CLHelper.exe (that's the Cyberlink player helper, and Cyberlink makes PowerDVD), PowerDVD14Agent.exe, and PowerDVD.exe, sort the Associated Handles by Handle Name, and there is one file associated with the BD drive F:\ -- F:\BDMV\STREAM\00511.m2ts So I go into MakeMKV and look at all the available source file names. 00511.m2ts is not there. Plus, if I completely close PowerDVD and reopen it and open the disk again, Resource Manager now tells me the only associated file on the BD drive is F:\BDMV\STREAM\00503.m2ts! And it seems to change as the movie moves along! So, obviously, I'm misunderstanding something in this process.

Help please?

[Woodstock]

Fastest way to get to the Resource monitor is to start the task manager, go to the Performance tag, and click on the button "Resource Monitor".

The Disk tab of the RM lists the files being actively read/written by the system, if you expand the "Disk Activity" bar. Click on the "File" label to sort by file name, and look for the drive letter of your BD player. It might actually help to sort by the Read column when the movie is playing.

It should show you the m2ts file being played.

[mouriana]

I was like, "why didn't I notice that before?" But then I tried it. According to evil Resource Manager, there is NO disk activity on the F:\ drive while I'm watching the movie through PowerDVD 14. PowerDVD isn't even listed in the processes with disk activity.

Grrr, Hollywood!

[mouriana]

OK, now my husband is into the act of trying to figure this out too. We've done a lot of googling, and so far it looks like the best (and perhaps only) way to figure this out is to pull up ProcMon or Resource Manager and then, with the movie in fast forward in the player, write down each m2ts file as it comes up, in order, then find the mpls file (out of over 500) that has all those m2ts files, in that order.

And I still can't have soft subtitles if I convert the MKV to mp4.

Have I mentioned that Hollywood is evil?

[mouriana]

OK, since I'm now bored ripping the file, I'll detail the continuing saga (in case anyone following needs it).

So, I had ProcMon AND Resource Manager running while I went through the movie on fast forward. At first I was following Resource Manager (following on the CPU tab, since the Disk tab wouldn't register the use of the BD drive). It was a little clearer, because I could just watch the single file, but I had to keep hitting 'refresh' to update which file was being used. So I switched to ProcMon and I was glad I did, because even though it was annoying how it tracked EVERY call (and that was after I filtered, using Process Name is PowerDVDMovie.exe, Path begins with F:, and Path ends with .m2ts) so there was a constant stream of data, that meant it didn't miss anything like I apparently did in Resource Manager hitting refresh. I carefully wrote down every .m2ts file in the order they were used, then when the movie was done I closed PowerDVD and opened MakeMKV. Then I got to have a lot of fun scrolling through almost all the stinking titles and comparing their segment maps with the list of .m2ts files I had written down. Finally, finally, I found it and now I'm ripping that one file. I'm crossing my fingers that it works!

Oh, and in case you're interested: I bought my copy of Mockingjay from Amazon, the disk file name was MOCKINJAY_PT1 (I don't know if the missing G is significant), and the correct mpls was 00553.mpls. I probably could have found this info on one of the other threads, but by this time, a) I was paranoid, and b) I knew I needed to figure out how to do this on my own.

Thanks Woodstock for all your help!

Now to go fix my rip of Frozen. Wheeeeeeee.

[Woodstock]

And I still can't have soft subtitles if I convert the MKV to mp4.

That's a limitation of MP4 format - technically, a STANDARD MP4 file can't have graphics-based subtitles like DVD or BD subtitles, but there is an "almost universal" extension out there to allow the VOB subtitles from DVDs. The PGS format used for BD, no, doesn't work, so burn-in is the only way you can go with them.

There is a way to cheat if you buy BDs that come with DVD versions, though, and the DVD and BD are the same version. Prior to getting a player that supports BD subtitles in MKV files, I would rip both the DVD and BD versions, and use MKVmerge to put the DVD subtitles into the BD MKV file, and convert THAT to MP4.

It was easier to change the players out.

[mouriana]

Woodstock, you are a fount of knowledge. My husband suggested that I make TWO mp4s...one with the subtitles burned in and one without. I am pondering doing that, even though it would be a pain in the tush, because it would still take less hard drive space than keeping everything in MKV format. Either way, I'd have to re-rip the movies I want CC on, so I'd probably at MOST just do the movies with heavy accents, which are hardest for me to understand.

Oh, and Plex reads the PGS in BD MKVs just fine. I just don't like having to take 25-30 GB on my hard drive per movie.

I have 2.5 TB of space, but I use it for almost everything (all my music & movies & pictures), and even though I backup, the more stuff I have on drives, the harder it is to backup and the more paranoid I get of losing it all.

[Smithcraft]

Instead of making MP4s, why not make smaller MKV files which will support all the good stuff that the MP4 container doesn't?

SC

ps - Hollywood is more evil than you can imagine!

[mouriana]

Sorry to long to respond, I got distracted....
Smithcraft: oh! I didn't realize you could make smaller MKV files. What's the best way to do that? Can I do that in MakeMKV or Handbrake? (I'd prefer to do it in MakeMKV...saves a step.)

I dunno, I imagine Hollywood as pretty ding-dang evil (way beyond their penchant for making it hard to use the products we bought from them). Yet I have such trouble completely going cold turkey on movies. <hangs head in shame>