MAKEMKV cannot handle X-Files (2008) PiP contents

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Maratonista
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 20, 2023 4:09 pm

MAKEMKV cannot handle X-Files (2008) PiP contents

Post by Maratonista » Sat Aug 12, 2023 5:08 pm

This is the movie affected:

https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=4229&d2=4230&c=1741

Also check this:

https://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=13930

It's available in 2 cuts. Theatrical: 1h44m, Extended, 1h48m.

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As you can see, among the contents of that disc:

Picture-in-Picture video commentary by writer/director Chris Carter and co-writer Frank Spotnitz
"Behind the Camera" interactive bonus view feature (Profile 1.1)
"Storyboards and Concept Art" interactive bonus view feature (Profile 1.1)
"The X-Files Complete Timeline" interactive bonus view feature

PIP is one of them.

I tried using TSMuxer yesterday, but failed; also, Clown-BD extracted the whole thing (checking 00001.MPLS if I am not mistaken), but subtitles after 2 minutes became out of sync, probably because it was the moment during the movie (while watching with PiP) for it to become silent, after the 1st scene; another thing I noticed is that we have a 1h video from the PiP itself (with the two guys), and that same length for the DTS-Extreme 2.0 audio, and subtitles.

But the idea of the disc is to present this PiP during a 2 hour movie.

So all of it became a mess when trying to use MAKEMKV to extract.

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First of all (I am going to explain what went wrong from the start):

This is what MAKEMKV showed while checking this disc (already in my SSD). In my case, the disc is not from the U.S.:

https://i.postimg.cc/NG1s9WMH/S1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/6p1txKHD/S2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/KvfmQBtc/S3.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/BQ4qxMLw/S4.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/nhLpWr14/S5.jpg

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Can you see any indication there's a DTS-Express 2.0 track there? (Remember this is the commentary track for the PiP).

Or the secondary video stream, which is in 480p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 3.2, and not 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1?

No. The four 20 GB options MAKEMKV show in those POSTIMG screens do not include PiP. AT ALL. Completely ignored.

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Now, oddly MAKEMKV shows plenty of smaller files to be copied as MKVs, which I assumed to be extra features.

Yet, not all of them are. After I used MAKEMKV, I noticed that file-46 was from the movie (first 2 minutes), but it featured the DTS-Express 2.0 track.

Look:

https://i.postimg.cc/Wbw0nW9D/DTS2.jpg

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Then, we go to file-47 with another 2 minutes; file 48 with 20 minutes, file 49 with 1 minute and so on.

If all of them combined make a single movie, then I have to merge all of these:

FILES 46 through 62:

https://i.postimg.cc/RFvWN4BX/MERGE.jpg

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The problem is that even if we could only have the entire 2h movie with the PIP commentary, it was MAKEMKV's job to merge all these parts, not mine. I had to "append" all of them, using MKVTOOLNIX:

https://i.postimg.cc/6q0gtVhM/APPEND.jpg

MKVTOOLNIX also warned me about this:

The codec's private data does not match. Both have the same length (127) but different content. Please make sure that the resulting file plays correctly the whole time. The author of this program will probably not give support for playback issues with the resulting file

13 times.

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The end result has 1h44m (theatrical), and the DTS-Express track is there. All good, right? Well... no.

https://i.postimg.cc/VLbzPvrn/END-RESULT.jpg

This scene from the screenshot is in sync the subtitles and the PIP commentary. But if I check other moments, such as 11m50s, the subtitle is out of sync a few seconds. And in several other moments the same subtitles are that way. Which makes no sense... until you think about it WHY.

The PIP commentary has only 1 hour recorded, probably; same for the PIP video. The disc itself activates both when needed, but when they should not appear, the authoring fill these gaps with SILENCE / NOTHING. But when MAKEMKV ripped in this fashion, everything broke. And how do I know there's silence?

Checking the END RESULT; for example, at 37m52s, the file is silent, but the subtitles are still being displayed:

https://i.postimg.cc/brGXHVc4/SILENT.jpg

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To sum things up, even this idea of appending all these parts... FAILED.

And there's more:

I told earlier this movie has an extended cut. With 4 minutes more. So this, even if it worked, would only cover theatrical.

But checking the ripped MKVs, starting with FILE-63, this should be from the beginning of the movie, right? Since 46 through 62 were that way.

No. FILE-63 is from 2 minutes into the movie. And the next ones should probably be combined with a few of the theatrical cut (46-62), because when a disc is created with 2 cuts, only those which add new content are new, if something is the same for both, seamless branching uses only what needs to.

Also, I checked file-47 (the second from that "END RESULT", and after the first few seconds, the PIP commentary is abruply cut. I am posting file-47 (only 2 minutes long and 371 MB) for you to see for yourself:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13OVVZj ... drive_link

All of this mess means we can't extract this kind of content from the original disc, and we are forced to put the disc (or the ISO) everytime we want to check it. All these programs, MAKEMKV included, are probably useless for ripping such things.

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Clown-BD:

Contrary to MAKEMKV, it was capable of extracting the PIP video, and the DTS-Express track:

https://i.postimg.cc/d156tJXK/CLOWN.jpg

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Check it out: 1 hour of video, and even the subtitles are there:

https://i.postimg.cc/4smBzVRB/EXTRACTED.jpg

After checking BDMV\PLAYLIST\00001.mpls.

Guess what happens after 2 minutes?

Everything is out of sync. That DTS-Express track, and its subtitles. So, the PIP video is also useless to me.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Alp2c ... drive_link

This is a 3 minute video showing how the PIP video gets out of sync. I am posting here to prove my point.

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And that's not all: even AnyDVD-HD was not helping me:

PlayerFab and PowerDVD were not capable of playing the Blu-ray folders in my SSD.

This is what they both showed:

https://i.postimg.cc/jdjx5Tgd/RBC.jpg

Do I need to rip this again? My drive is region A, and has already been set to R-4 (Brazil). So, 4 changes left.

If I create an ISO from the BD folders located in my SSD (UDF only), this is what AnyDVD will report:

Total size: 22253569 sectors (43464 MBytes)
Video Blu-ray label: MYISO
Media is not AACS protected.
Note: automatic detection of region code not possible with this disc.
No AACS, skipping Java fixes.
Bad sector protection not found.

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dcoke22
Posts: 3108
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2020 11:25 pm

Re: MAKEMKV cannot handle X-Files (2008) PiP contents

Post by dcoke22 » Thu Aug 17, 2023 4:49 pm

Picture in Picture tracks are a known limitation.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22292

What I've been doing lately is less than ideal, but seems the least worst. I use MKVToolNix to generate a file of the second video track and the DTS-Express audio track from the .m2ts file (from a MakeMKV decrypted backup). This seems to produce a file that's as long as the main feature with a silent, black screen during the parts between where the PiP would be displayed when playing the disc on a blu-ray player. I then edit the black parts out (I use iMove, but any video editing software would work) and put the resulting file in with the rest of the extras from the disc.

Not ideal, but better than nothing.

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