Best Way to make MKV

[DarkTXKnight]

So Ive settled on using WMC7 for my htpc projects, and now Id like to build up the movie collection. I plan to take some popular movies and rip to ISO format for archival, but for the movies I play the most, Id like to go to MKV in order to just get the movie . Right now this will be mostly DVDs but the Blu-Ray will come down the same process. What is the best ( free hopefully) way to get an ISO and then an MKV of a movie? btw, I don't want or care to have subtitles, I just want high quality video to send down to my HTPC and xbox 360s.. help!

 

[velillen]

handbrake is pretty easy to use and lets you use MKV. For blu-ray im not sure if its supported but i've used it plenty for dvd encoding. I tend to just use dvd decryptor and decrypt just the video stream and audio stream i want.

its not the best option if your wanting to crop or go super technical but for just a "quick" convert to mkv and h.264 it works pretty well.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

ive read a little on makemkv as a way to make the mkv from ISO, how does this stack up? so am i conaverting to h.264 and using the mkv conatiner or is the file either h.264 or mkv?

 

[abaez]

MakeMKV is dead simple, but there is no compression. You don't need to convert, it will make an mkv straight from the disc.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

I dont need to use compression on this , its going to be used on a home gigabit network, so it sounds like makemkv is the simplest option. os there any software that would automatically rip movies to mkv via batch?

 

[wetech]

If you're just trying to strip out the movie, use DVDFab. It will create an ISO / VIDEO_TS directory with just the movie.
I use MeGUI to encode my stuff. There's a 1 click encoder (just point it at the movie file and hit encode) and presets for various formats.

 

[CubanlB]

I used the current version of makemkv to rip all of my dvds about 5 or 6 months ago and I have been happy with the results. No compression but it does let you select which audio tracks and subtitles you want to put into the .mkv container. It is very easy to use and I had good success with using 2 dvd drives and ripping 2 movies at a time too two seperate hard drives.

I did have an issue with movies that were recorded with older styles of dolby surround. 4 channel dolby surround (wild audio sync issues with one movie) and 2 channel dolby surround (audio gradually becomes more and more out of sync) but I believe these issues have been fixed in more recent updates. dolby 5.1 was always spot on as was dts as were some of the older mono track dvds I had (Caddyshack!). All these issues were worked around using dvdshrink and then makemkv or just using handbrake.

I have little personal experience ripping blurays with makemkv but a friend of mine had some issues with audio sync, although i believe his problems had more to do with his inexperience setting up an i3 setup for home audio and not having hdmi capable receiver.

Give a couple of different audio and media formats a try with the different ripping options to see which programs you like the best before tackling you whole library. The trial time is well worth it!

EDIT: If you want, I could try ripping some of the movies that i had issues with with the newest makemkv and see if any of the sound issues have been fixed. Just let me know.

also, .mkv is just the video container. You can have h.264 video inside of it from a bluray, or if you are ripping a dvd you will end up with mpeg video inside the .mkv container.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

Alright, so Ive used the free part of DVDFAB in order to rip to an ISO and thats gone well. I have a problem now though with trying to convert to MKV via batch. I tried using the "batchmkv.exe" found on some other media forums but i cant figure out how to pass an option to remove the subtitle track via command line . I also wanted the process to convert every ISO in the folder and it doesnt seem to do more than 1 automatically. Is there something else I can use? I really would like to just have my PC crunch through this .

 

[DrewSG3]

Another Eacto GUI, It's what I use for all my Blu-rays. It's the best option especially if you like your movies with subtitles.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

will eacto gui work on a batch of files?
Also I *hate* subtitles... I have been trying to find a way to play the file without the subs, and it seems this can only be done on an individual file at a time, which would drive me nuts. I have just decided to remove the subtitle track in the first place.

 

[abaez]

You're going to want to keep certain subtitles - forced ones specifically. For example the Naavi scenes in Avatar. Or the German/French parts in Inglorious Basterds. It can get a bit tricky though to find the right subtitle track though.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

abeaz, thats a very good point... is there a reason that it seems that only mkv files are the ones that play active subtitles by default? I know when ive converted earlier movies to MP4 or meg this was never an issue. Why is it that way with MKV's ?

 

[abaez]

I think that's your program playing them by default. I don't think MKV has the option for automatically playing subs? I'm not sure.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

its doing this in VLC and MPC by default. It only seems to happen on MKV files which leads me to beleive this is a normal behavior for that file type.If there was a way to automatically suppress the subtitles Id be alright about it, but I have yet to find it .

 

[DarkTXKnight]

has anyone used makemkv via command line? this sounds like it could be an option, but im not sure if there is a set of switches that can exclude the subtitles track....

 

[DarkTXKnight]

i found a batch file on the handbrake site that might do what i want, but im having issues getting it to work :

( I need to find a way to attach the contents of the batch file - it shows up strange on the forum page)

When I use this, I get an "%%I was unexpected at this time" error. I suspect that this is a syntax issue on my part regarding the loop rather than anything with handbrake, but im just not sure why it's happening. Can anyone help?

This is being used on Windows 7 64bit and latest handbrakecli.exe