Issue with UK Masters Of Cinema Blu-rays. Maybe others?

[cipher]

I've just started noticing an issue with some UK Master of Cinema discs that contain an extra video "segment" that is usually 1 minute long before the movie starts. This "segment" can include things like colour bars, title cards containing technical info, blank video etc. Similarly, I've noticed that some of these Blu-rays also contain extra video at the end of the film that isn’t part of the feature.

Here's a specific example. On the UK Master Of Cinema Blu-ray The African Queen, the MakeMKV Segment Map property is showing a value of 13 and there is a matching file named 00013.m2ts in the Stream folder. When I play this .m2ts file on my computer the video starts by showing a technical title card for 30 seconds followed by blank video for 30 seconds before the movie begins. Also, the total playing time of the video file is 1:46:16. Now, if I use MakeMKV to remux this title, the resulting MKV incorrectly includes this 1 minute "segment” at the start and the resulting file length is also 1:46:16. Basically, MakeMKV is remuxing the entire M2TS file and not starting at the correct point in the video stream.

However, if I use other software like MKVTOOLNIX or CloneBD to remux this title, they create an MKV file that has a correct length of 1:45:18 and does not include that "segment" at the start. This tells me that there must be something else within the Blu-ray files (maybe the playlist which in this case is 00010.mpls?) that instructs Blu-ray players to start 1 minute into that file so the initial "segment" is skipped. MKVTOOLNIX/CloneBD are clearly taking this into account when generating their MKV's.

If anyone knows what the purpose of this extra video is doing on a Blu-ray and specifically, how the Blu-ray instructs the players to start at the correct timestamp I would be interested to hear about this.

More importantly, I'm hoping this issue can be fixed in a future version of MakeMKV.



Here is that technical title card that is shown for the first 30 seconds.



Here is the Blu-ray loaded in MakeMKV and it is incorrectly showing a video length of 1:46:16



Here is the Blu-ray loaded in CloneBD and it is correctly showing a video length of 1:45:18



Here is the Blu-ray loaded in MKVTOOLNIX and it is correctly showing a video length of 1:45:18

[Grauhaar]

Known problem with MakeMKV. Mike tolds some month ago, that MakMKV ignores the start and end time for the m2ts files in the playlist. This means, the complete m2ts file is always included and not only a part of it.

[cipher]

Grauhaar, do you know what thread this was in? I searched the forum before posting and couldn't find any details on this issue.

[Grauhaar]

No, don't know. But in the thread was a similar description of your problem and the answer from Mike was very short to tell the fact that this is currently not supported by MakeMKV.

[cipher]

Thanks for the info, Grauhaar.

Hopefully, Mike can take care of this issue or at least offer an option to only remux the intended video signal. It doesn't make sense to remux the entire video when parts of it were never meant to be viewed.

[Reiver]

Had a similar issue ripping The Expanse UK S1 and S2 blurays having similar title cards (with the S1 episodes additionally having a wasteful 15 minutes tail of soundless video after the end credits). Mastering error or laziness? Depends how the publisher handle the provided upstream video.

Just used mkvtoolnix to split by chapters to remove first (titlecard) and last (soundless video) chapters as necessary.

[cipher]

Had a similar issue ripping The Expanse UK S1 and S2 blurays having similar title cards (with the S1 episodes additionally having a wasteful 15 minutes tail of soundless video after the end credits). Mastering error or laziness? Depends how the publisher handle the provided upstream video.

Just used mkvtoolnix to split by chapters to remove first (titlecard) and last (soundless video) chapters as necessary.

If both of those video "segments" are not displayed when playing these discs in a Blu-ray player then mkvtoolnix will automatically handle them when you add the index.bdmv file as it correctly parses the playlist file. There is no need to manually handle the trimming using chapters/timestamps etc. For example, if you see my screenshot above, mkvtoolnix is correctly displaying a timestamp of 1:45:18 for "The African Queen" even though the related "M2TS" file has a length of 1:46:16 due to the extra "segments".

It is interesting that you re referencing another UK Blu-ray that has this issue. Although anecdotal, I've only ever seen it on Blu-rays from the Masters Of Cinema line so maybe the production house or software used is similar in both cases.

[cipher]

Just to add for anyone who comes across this in the future, I noticed the same issue on the following Masters Of Cinema discs:

Intolerance (1916)
The African Queen (1951)
Two For The Road (1967)
Paper Moon (1973)
Three Days Of The Condor (1975)

Also, I've now seen the same issue on the UK Arrow Woody Allen Blu-rays.

While not an exhaustive list, it may help others who run into the same issue.

[preserve]

I noticed the same issue on the following Masters Of Cinema discs:

You can add The Blue Lagoon to this list as well

Also, I've now seen the same issue on the UK Arrow Woody Allen Blu-rays.

I've now started a master list thread for this topic... if you can let me know the titles of those releases, I can add to them to the list.

[Ferrett1983]

Really glad to have come across this topic as this is a problem I've been trying to get round in ages. I do hope this can get sorted in the near future. The main distributors that this problem occurs with is Arrow Video and Eureka titles. Nearly every title I have tends to have this problem.