Noob question

[thisrandomguy]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, I'm new to this. If I just rip the main title of the blu-ray to mkv using this tool, will it give me a 1:1 copy of the film? Including the 5.1 (or however many tracks are put on the disc), and in the same quality as what is on the blu-ray? What about subtitles? All I want are the ones that show up in an English movie when they are speaking in another language. Basically I want the same version that plays when I stick the movie into the blu-ray player and play the main English title. I don't care about compressing it, and I've gathered this doesn't do that. And if I'm wrong, what else do I need to do to get the same movie that's on the disc main title. Thanks.

[Woodstock]

Assuming you rip all parts of the main track, yes, it will be exactly as it is on the BD, just packaged in a MKV container.

Now, the default is not going to be to "rip everything". For example, if there are 3 English language tracks in different levels of channels, the usual defaults are to ignore the less-capable tracks, but you can change that.

And, on the subject of subtitles, there are a lot of players out there that can "almost" handle PGS subtitles from a Bluray title, assuming certain conditions are met. MakeMKV has some accommodation to deal with SOME of those restrictions, in the "Western Digital" profile.

Of course, this exactness also means that MakeMKV is a lot more picky about the quality of the disk when it does the rip - unlike a BD player, it isn't going to settle for "mostly right". If a sector of the disk can't be read, MakeMKV will fail that rip.

Which is why my disks go right from the packaging to the BD reader for ripping, then into storage. They aren't allowed into the hands of anyone else, if possible.

[thisrandomguy]

Some excellent info, thanks. Just to help clear it up for me though; with the subtitles, should I select just Subtitles English (forced only) or both it and Subtitles English, in order to get the normal kind that show up in an English movie when they speak another language?

[Woodstock]

Bluray subtitles are .... different. While it is possible to have a full set of subtitles, with some of them marked as "forced" (things like signs) and some are optional, the authors of the BD can royally screw that up.

Theoretically, if you are watching a dubbed show in the dubbed language, the subtitle track would have everything in it, but subtitles marked as "forced" would be displayed where appropriate. It would only be if you chose to listen to the native language sound track that "all" subtitles would be displayed.

For many of the BD disks I rip, though, these "signs only" are a separate subtitle track, same as done on DVDs. You chose the track to display according to whether or not you are listening to the native or dubbed sound track.

And then there are the disks that have one subtitle track - you can't read the signs without putting up ALL subtitles. Nothing is marked as "forced", they're just subtitles.

The "forced only" option on MakeMKV is an attempt to grab just the titles you want, if you aren't ripping anything but your preferred language, but it is only as good as what the BD authors allow for.

Personally, I just rip everything, and deal with it later, when I process the files through Handbrake. This is because some of the players I use "always" default to playing audio track 1 and subtitle track 1. Great of that's "English" and "Signs only", or "Japanese" and "all subtitles", but not so good if it's "Japanese"+"Signs only" or "English"+"all subtitles". Handbrake lets me rearrange things during the conversion to MP4 files (again, player compatibility issues), but you can do the same thing with MKV files using tools like MKVToolnix.