Output file is smaller than DVDFab output file?

[Forte224]

Sorry! I keep putting this in the wrong forum. I've deleted my other threads. Anyway:

So, I've been ripping a blu ray with 9 episodes on it of a show. When I rip the individual MKVs with DVDFab (using the Main Movie setting) each file comes out to about 4GB, pretty similar to each episode on the disc, 4.3GB. When I use MakeMKV (with all options selected for each title) it comes out around 3.6GB. Any idea why this is? I'm trying to wrap my head around it and it makes no sense. Thanks.

[Woodstock]

Have you selected a preferred language for MakeMKV? If so, it will ignore audio and subtitles tracks that are not tagged as being in that language.

For example, if you select "English" as the preferred language and rip an anime title, the Japanese audio tracks will not be copied to the MKV file, which will make it smaller.

[Forte224]

Have you selected a preferred language for MakeMKV? If so, it will ignore audio and subtitles tracks that are not tagged as being in that language.

For example, if you select "English" as the preferred language and rip an anime title, the Japanese audio tracks will not be copied to the MKV file, which will make it smaller.

Yes, I definitely have all audio and subtitle tracks selected. And I'm using the latest version of the software, downloaded officially.

[Forte224]

So, one thing I noticed is that if I go into Preferences and set things to Expert mode, I'm able to choose between Default, AAC-Stereo, FLAC, or WDTV. If I choose WDTV, all the audio files are listed as:

"Output format: Copy as is ( Lossless conversion )
Output description: Copy track as is"

After doing this, the resulting file is larger (3.93 GB), but it's still smaller than the disc file (the exact file for the episode on the disc is 4.4GB). So, it's better, but I'm just confused why the other program is able to give me a larger (and I assume) higher quality file.

[Woodstock]

The actual M2TS files have more overhead in them than an MKV file, to allow for bad spots on the disk. So a good copy of the M2TS will be smaller as a MKV file.

I cannot explain why DVDFab would output a BIGGER file; it certainly isn't extracting "better quality", since both it and MakeMKV should be extracting the same data. Neither should be changing the VIDEO stream.

MakeMKV has the option of converting audio streams, as you've discovered. However, unless you NEED to change to FLAC for some reason, don't bother with the FLAC profile. Most players have better support for high definition audio than was available 5 years ago, and fewer players support FLAC.

The WDTV profile will make sure that the subtitle tracks are compressed; some players (notably the Western Digital WDTV) require that.

[Forte224]

Huh, interesting. Well, I guess I'll just turn expert mode off and rip them with default settings. Still strange that it drops the file size a whole GB (I re-checked and the original file is 4.4 while the output MKV is 3.4), but I guess it's fine. Thanks!

[Woodstock]

Expert mode is actually a good thing to have on, because it enables a lot of features, like being able to rename files before they're written to disk.

I built a profile that works for me a bit better than the default and specialized ones. I want ALL audio and subtitle tracks to be ripped, the subtitles to be compressed, and the audio to be left alone.

[Forte224]

Ok, well I'll screw around with it.