Question about removing content with MKVToolNix

[Needurknowledge]

Hello guys,

I probably got a really stupid question but I ask anyways since I'm kind of paranoid about video quality:

After I did mkv rips of my blu rays I use MKVToolNix GUI to remove certain unwanted audiotracks and subtitels.
I want to ask if this remove progress with MKVToolNix will in any form decrease the video quality in the new "fixed" mkv file or is it exakt the same like the unfixed version before?

s far as i know MKVToolNix will just copy all the stuff from the mkv file minus the audio/subtitels which I didn't choose to copy over, right?

I just getting into this and want to do it right the first time.

Since I'm already here I got another question if you don't mind:

Many of my blu rays come with double/triple english subtitels, but there is no case where I actually need more then one subtitel for the main movie, or?
I also always copy the "forced" ones over.

My goal for my rips is just the main movie with the main english&german subtitels and 5.1 and stereo audio for these two languages.


Thanks alot

[Woodstock]

Mkvtoolnix does no recoding, so there is no degradation of quality.

The majority of subtitles are done as two tracks per language - one contains "all" subtitles, the other contains just "forced" subtitles, i.e., signs and such, plus foreign languages NOT dubbed. Some add a commentary track or two.

It is VERY rare to encounter a disk where the subtitle track contains flagged-as-forced subtitles mixed in with the others. I've only seen it on Avatar. So there are very few titles where the "forced only" track option of MakeMKV is useful. That's not to say stop trying it - you might find one where MakeMKV doesn't say "empty forced subtitle track removed".

[Needurknowledge]

Hello Woodstock and thank you very much for the reply.

Can I ask you if it is advised to choose all subtitles (eng/ger) options when I make my rips?

Today I ripped my copy of Evil Dead 2, it had 3x german subtitles. One was for the main movie which I need, second was subtitles for the commentary audio which I will remove and the third one seems complete empty which is odd. (Maybe this is the one for signs and stuff, while skipped through my rip I didn't noticed anything).

I just want very clean rips with full quality and everything I really don't need removed.


Thanks

[Woodstock]

I cannot advise you on what YOU should do, but I can tell you want I do. I rip EVERYTHING - all audio tracks, all subtitle tracks. I then use VLC to watch part of the show, switching between tracks, to figure out what I want to keep.

Quite often, you will encounter titles where the main audio is only stereo, but there is a 5.1 commentary or descriptive audio track, which are useless when you want to watch the movie for the movie. You will find audio tracks that are not named properly - Japanese audio in an "English" track, or English in a "Chinese" track.

For me, I have found the "all subtitles" track marked as Default on dubbed titles. It makes it difficult to trust any "automatic" selections.

But not many people have the same mix of sources I do - 95% of what I rip is anime, with the occasional non-Japanese movie.

I also use handbrake for the post-rip processing, rather than mkvtoolnix - I will give up some video quality for a 70% or more reduction in stored video size. Others aren't willing to do that...