Forum Archive Home -> User guides -> How to make a single MKV from a Blu-ray (and also how to shrink it)
How to make a single MKV from a Blu-ray (and also how to shrink it) | ||||
| Baldrick posted 2009 Apr 13 06:28 | ||||
| I will show you the basic steps how to make one single mkv from a Blu-ray Disc video, no quality loss. And also how to shrink it to a MKV, MP4 or AVI.
Tools required: MakeMKV HandBrake (if you want to shrink the movie) AnyDVDHD (may be required for some Blu-rays) Guide In MakeMKV choose the Blu-ray drive (if MakeMKV can't read the Blu-ray Disc then you might need to install AnyDVD HD and run in the background). 
Just choose the main movie, the biggest title, keep one audio track (I usually keep the AC3 DD audio track) 
Save it by click on Make MKV. You need a lot of HDD space, around 10-20GB. This will take around one hour or so. (if MakeMKV can't read the Blu-ray Disc then you might need to install AnyDVD-HD and run in the background) 
You can now play the mkv using for example VLC Media Player, KMPlayer or MPC-HC. Or play using Windows Media player with ffdshow and haali media splitter installed. Shrink it If you want to shrink the video you can easily use HandBrake. In Handbrake load the mkv, Source->Video File. Set output file. Choose the High Profile->Film Preset (or use profiles for PS3, Xbox 360, etc) Set the desired output file size, Under Video->Target size, like 8100MB for a dual layer DVD-R or 4400MB for standard DVD-R. Start CONVERT...wait...wait...wait....sleep....wait...wait. 
Done. Problems MakeMKV might not work with all Blu-ray Discs. Then you can use AnyDVD HD together with TsMuxer to rip out the video to one single MKV, not as simple as MakeMKV though. | ||||
| johnc10 posted 2009 Apr 14 09:03 | ||||
| I've used tsMuxer and then mkvMerge which is basically the long way of doing this guide here.
The problem is, when I did it the long way the picture was going loopy as I showed in another post as well as the audio going out of sync, this way is perfect, everything works spot on and is a helluva lot quicker than RipBot if all you're after is an mkv which is what i'm after as I watch the finished files from my computer onto my 42". The files may be a little larger than what RipBot produce and yes, I know Handbrake can shrink it but my HDD is big enough to cope and after a while i'll just use ConvertXtoDVD and burn them onto DL discs so, thank you for this excellent guide 8) | ||||
| hartski posted 2009 May 09 02:01 | ||||
| Will it be faster to encode without including the audio? If so how much less time on average?
I can use Tsmuxer to mux the audio from the original file and the video from the shrunken file. | ||||
| ulapines posted 2009 May 09 04:15 | ||||
| Audio encoding is a matter of minutes while video takes many hours | ||||
| vhuser005 posted 2009 May 21 17:29 | ||||
| Hours to encode? I have an Intel Q9400 cpu and it took me only 35 minutes to convert a blu-ray to mkv. MakeMKV took a 31gb blu-ray and let me strip out the main movie uncompressed with chapters and multi-channel audio to a mkv file the size of about 10gb. :D
MakeMKV is to blu-ray as DVDShrink was to DVD's. PS...this guide is great. thx! | ||||
| john2000 posted 2009 Jun 06 20:37 | ||||
| Dude you are awesome.
I have tried so may other things before finally trying this. Ive tried so many other tutorials with subpar results. Your timing quotes are about the same on my computer. About an hour to make the .mkv / Havent tried HB yet. Your tutorial actually works. You just made my month. Thanks. | ||||
| Onime no Kyo posted 2009 Jul 18 00:39 | ||||
| Great tutorial, but i have one question. I know that you get almost perfect quality by converting it to a mkv file using makemkv but my question is if you were to use handbrake to shrink it, does the quality diminish at all? Example shrinking a 8gb blue ray mkv to 4gb or a 4 gb dvd mkv rip to around 2gb or less. | ||||
| igeekus posted 2009 Jul 18 22:07 | ||||
| This is a great guide... however I'm having an issue.
I use CloneDrive to mount a Bluray .iso image, then use MakeMKV to do the first pass. Everything is great so far, I can play the file in any number of players. But when I use handbrake (which I love) to shrink it down, the resulting MKV has no audio track (Even though I select AC3 passthrough). Any ideas? | ||||
| kuzutolga posted 2009 Aug 15 12:01 | ||||
| Hi,
I have some .mkv files (h264 - dts - 5.1) but they are too large for regular dvd5 disk. I want to resize it at the same format. I used Handbrake but it doesn't resize audio by using the same audio format dts - 5-1. How can i resize my .mkv files. Also there too many video and audio formats. I want to learn what are the differences between video and audio formats. I couldn't find in the forum. Thank you for the help. | ||||
| Baldrick posted 2009 Aug 15 12:29 | ||||
| kuzutolga: Try uncropmkv. It just shrinks the video part. And for video and audio formats start with wikipedia. | ||||
| kuzutolga posted 2009 Aug 16 05:16 | ||||
| thank you for your help. i am triying | ||||
| kuzutolga posted 2009 Aug 16 05:34 | ||||
| i've tried to make .mkv file smaller by using uncropmkv but it is just crop the movie and resize resulation. For example i have a .mkv file and it comes 12,5gb size. And i want it to be 4,37gb to write it regular dvd disk. But when i try to make it smaller by using handbrake it is not work probably. It make the file smaller but it doesn't use the default audio format as it has.
I need a program which make the .mkv files smaller and use the same audio format (DTS - DTS, AC3 - AC3 etc.). Thank you for your help again. | ||||
| kuzutolga posted 2009 Aug 17 02:55 | ||||
| Baldrick , do you have any solution? | ||||
| multiAVCHD posted 2009 Aug 19 04:08 | ||||
| You need to change the bitrate, so the output will be smaller. uncropMKV defaults to the original bitrate and unless you change it, the output will be almost as big as the input. | ||||
| Clancy_s posted 2009 Oct 15 00:22 | ||||
| I'd like to include 2 audio tracks (default and commentary). I know .mkv can contain multiple audio tracks. Would it work if I selected 2 audio tracks in makeMKV? | ||||
| dbone1 posted 2009 Oct 15 06:49 | ||||
Yes, you can select multiple audio tracks with MakeMKV | ||||
| redwudz posted 2009 Oct 15 14:31 | ||||
| kuzutolga, you might look into RipBot as it may be more suited to your needs. I would recommend a DL DVD disc, but a SL disc should look OK. One guide: http://forum.videohelp.com/topic358185.html But it may take quite a while to complete the process. :( | ||||
| Clancy_s posted 2009 Oct 20 20:00 | ||||
Thanks for the reply - I was trying to decide where to start. I'll give makeMKV a go. :) | ||||
| WPlotkin posted 2009 Oct 26 20:07 | ||||
| If I use MakeMKV to backup my Blu-ray discs and select two audio streams like the 2 Channel Stereo and the DTS Audio stream. How do I select which track the .mkv file uses when playing the file? Can I set a default audio stream?
Here is why I'm asking I have an HTPC connected to three TVs via HDMI cables and an HDMI splitter. Only one of the TVs has a receiver the other TVs only use the builtin stereo speakers, so when I play a Blu-ray disc I go into the setting on PowerDVD 9 and set it to either DTS or 2 channel Stereo depending on the TV. I want to backup my Blu-ray collection and use MyMovies.name to play them which is why I want to convert them to .mkv files(Save HD Space), but I would like to still watch the movies with digital sounds through my receiver when I use that TV to watch a movie. Let me know if what I'm asking is possible. Thanks for the help! | ||||
| dbone1 posted 2009 Oct 27 12:23 | ||||
Here is one tool you can use to switch audio streams: http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/06/advanced-codec-support-inside-medi ... ntrol.html I would recommend using Clown_BD to create .ts files of your BRs instead of MakeMKV because with MakeMKV you cannot get the HD Audio track, only the core. Also, keep in mind that many BR discs do not have an AC3 stereo track, it may appear as they do but many times I have found this to be the directors commentary or some other audio. With Clown_BD you can keep the original HD Audio track as well as create an AC3 track (http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2009/08/19/clown_bd-version-0-65-released/). If you want to keep an as MKV you can still use Clown_BD to demux all the files and create the second AC3 track, then remux into an MKV using MKVMerge | ||||
| WPlotkin posted 2009 Oct 27 13:37 | ||||
| If I use Clown_BD to create the .ts files will they be just as large as the original BR disc? Will I still need to use something like Handbreak to down size the file? I want to keep my BR backups as small as possible without losing much quality preferably around 5-8GB per movie.
I have used RipBot to backup a few of my BR discs and it did a good job, fast, and small file size, but didn't give me all of the audio streams I wanted. I am currently trying MakeMKV I selected both audio streams I wanted and then resized the file with Handbreak, but this takes forever to complete. Will Clown_BD accomplish all of this in a reasonable amount of time? Also, are there any downsides to using .ts rather then .mkv? | ||||
| Baldrick posted 2009 Oct 27 18:31 | ||||
| Clown_BD wont shrink. |
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