MKV workflow question

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

I didn’t know how better to ask this, so here goes.

Since the TV Live doesn’t handle blu-ray ISO menus, here is what I want:

  1. Videos that will play from a My Book Live on the TV Live.
  2. Videos that are organized in a separate folder/subfolder(s) structure for each blu-ray disc.
  3. The ability to choose the audio and subtitle tracks contained in each file.
  4. The ability to name each video file and its contained chapters, audios and subtitles.
  5. NO conversion of/alteration to the original audio.
  6. As much compression of the video as is possible while still maintaining a good 1080p result.

What I can do so far:

Referring to the items above,

  1. It seems like MKV files are the way to go to get what I want, and I assume that the My Book Live and TV Live can handle them.
  2. I also assume that the My Book Live and TV Live can handle this item.
  3. I can use MakeMKV to handle this item.
  4. I can use MakeMKV to handle this item.

What I still need to know:

Once I get a group of MKV files through item 4, what is the best way to accomplish items 5 and 6, so that my resulting files have all of the items indicated?  My searching seems to indicate that using Handbrake to compress the videos (also as MKV files) without any audio or subtitle tracks, then using MKVMerge to merge the audio and subtitle tracks from the first MKV file with the compressed video from the second MKV file may be the best workflow, but I just don’t know.  There are so many tools available, after all.

Can anyone help me out with the rest of my workflow?  Thank you.

2

Handbrake can be used to create a modified MKV file where the video is compressed and select audio track(s) are included unchanged.  For example, I wrote a simple Linux shell script to automate making compressed versions of my blu-ray sourced MKV files, and including only a single original audio and subtitle track.  I use the Handbrake CLI version so I can script things.  The  audio-related options are “–audio” to indicate the audio track from the source MKV and then “–aencoder copy” to indicate that the audio track should not be modified.  (This is on Linux!)

1 Like
3

My apologies, I should have indicated that I use Windows 7 64 bit.  Do you know what the options are in the Handbrake UI?  I could never get the audio and subtitles in my resulting MKV file the way I want them (unaltered, and with the names I gave them in MakeMKV).  Thanks.

4

After a lot of nightlies the current version of Handbrake apparently handles PGS subs as well so there’s no need for remuxing. Apparently you can set the stream names for audio but not for subs so you’d have to edit them after encoding with MKVToolnix’s header editor (as well as setting the forced flag where necessary). Handbrake is not the only way to go though, I’m using Staxrip but there’s also Hybrid, MeGUI, Ripbot264, XMediaRecode, etc.

1 Like
5

Ah, didn’t understand about wanting to name all the tracks.  Sounds very time consuming! 

As Techflaws indicates, with Handbrake audio tracks can be named but apparently not subs.

I mention the CLI version because it might be easier for what you are doing.  It is available for Windows 64: 

http://handbrake.fr/downloads2.php

The CLI documentation makes it easy to see what capabilities are available:

  https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide

1 Like
6

Thank you both so much for the information.  It has been extremely helpful.  I’ve also discovered that part of my problem was viewing the result in Windows Media Player, which I never could get to show me everything I wanted.  So I installed the VLC player, and voila, now everything I want I am getting.  If you’re interested, here is the workflow I settled on.

  1. Create decrypted MKVs of the blu-ray disc with MakeMKV.
  2. Determine what I want to keep, and the folder structure I want, by viewing the MKvs with the VLC player.
  3. Compress the MKVs (including chapters, subtitles, and unaltered audios) with Handbrake.
  4. Name all the different elements of the resulting MKVs with the MKVToolNix Header editor.

Thank you both again for the great tips.