What is MKV and why MakeMKV Is the Best to Save Your DVDs

[@RapidSeedbox]

💻Get your proxy here: www.rapidseedbox.com/proxy#pricing 📚 Related blog post: www.rapidseedbox.com/blog/makemkv-create-mkv-from-dvd-and-blu-ray

[@soundspark]

How do you avoid getting sued?

[@ZanyCat]

KZbin recommended this video to me with only 200 views and I didn't even notice until after the video finished! Very informative and well-made video! You deserve way more views!

[@arduinoguru7233]

456 subscribers

[@RapidSeedbox]

Haha, cheers. The channel has only recently started so every view, subscriber, and feedback is greatly appreciated. But yeah, our blog gets a lot more views. Fingers crossed we'll continue to grow this channel and hopefully bring more helpful content long into the future.

[@jhonwask]

I've been using MakeMKV for over 10 years now and I like it. The files play on all my devices.

[@SilverTester]

At one point, my ps3 was my main media center and it didnt play .mkv video files. 😢

[@CLP_II]

You seem like an expert and I have only today learned that dvds can be saved on a hard drive so we are on completely different sides of the spectrum. I wander if you have time for a question? Now that I have my movie on my pc without the dvd in the drive how do I watch it? I clicked on each of the 5 different things that got saved and none of them could open anything. I only have windows media player, should I get a different program to make this work? Thanks for your time.

[@natpeacock3286]

You know that feeling when it's like there's something that you should do but never get to it until you completely forget. This video is the perfect reminder of what I need to do next. My storage looks like I used to run a video store.

[@RapidSeedbox]

Hehe I actually know exactly what you mean

[@Broken_robot1986]

Imma finally begin backing up my collection. It's overdue.

[@RapidSeedbox]

I know what you mean. The other day I pulled out all of our old DVDs and created a beautiful wall of DVDs against one of the walls in our living room organizing them according to age rating so kids could easily find theirs then my wife saw it and almost had a fit haha.

[@bulldog8934]

Great video

[@robertgaines-tulsa]

MP4 and MKV have nothing to do with video quality. They are just container files. Video quality is done during the encoding process. It's kind of odd, but I've never seen MakeMKV encode anything. It just decrypts your DVD or BD and dumps it on your hard drive. I usually just use HandBrake to rip and encode to be honest. If you have DVD-R video, you should back those up first because they rot. I've also heard older WB DVDs were made poorly. I mostly rip them for the convenience. I also back up the rips because it takes time to reencode the video.

[@katrinabryce]

For Blue Rays, I use MakeMKV to rip them, then Handbrake to encode.

[@RapidSeedbox]

@@katrinabryce I recently did a video on Handbrake too. It's amazing. We were recently working on some educational courses where each 20-minute video section ended up being close to 700MB in size in 1080p. Ran them through Handbrake and the videos still retained the same quality but now have close 50MB each.... an amazing tool just like MakeMKV.

[@RapidSeedbox]

Never heard about the rot problem. DVDs have always been sold as that long-lasting future-proof tech at the time. Good to know though. Cheers

[@joesterling4299]

@@RapidSeedbox The rot is a problem mostly with recordable DVDs (DVD-R or variant), though degradation can happen to any optical disc after a long time.

[@StardustOneReviews]

Disk rot is occuring on almost all Warner HD-DVDs, they played fine back in 2007. But now in 2024 I have lost almost all Warner HD-DVDs, I wished I learned about this earlier.

[@bobdinitto]

I'm not sure I have enough DVDs to make this worth my while but I'm sure many do and could use this helpful product.

[@SniffHeinkel]

I do not store my DVDs in a dark attic. They are proudly on display in my living room on a shelf.

[@goodwood-rc4nx]

way down this rabbit hole being using MKV for a few years and have over 25tb of films and TV stored on a NAS in fact will need to buy a new one as will run out of space soon

[@Kismet13-qd9vm]

do note that sometimes a bluray will have several main video files with commentary built into it or for vision impaired stuff and makmkv will not tell you which is which, sometimes its trial and error to get the main one if you dont want all the fancy extras so you can save some time while ripping.

[@marcse7en]

Came for the video ... stayed for the muscles! 👍😜🤣

[@StardustOneReviews]

MakeMKV can also handle HD-DVDs, using the external Xbox 360 HD-DVD USB 2.0 drive. This is important because of the unfortunate disc rot that occurrs on most Warner titles. I could not rip all titles because of read errors on Universal or Paramount disks, but these titles still worked in the standalone HD-DVD player.

[@sarreqteryx]

while .MKV can contain a DVD's un-reencoded MPEG2 video and AC3 audio streams, there's no real good reason to do that. 4:24 not the way you've described it, no. Matroska (and MP4 or AVI) is a container format, not a video format. if can store whatever video format you want, including MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, h264, h265, h266, AV1, AV2, VP8, VP9, HuffYUV, ProRES, etc. MKV on it's own does not compress anything. also, DVDs and Blu-rays are digital formats, there's nothing analog stored in them. you are not performing ANY analog to digital conversation when going from DVD to MKV, you are only either re-wrapping the MPEG2 video and AC3 audio from an MPEG-TS into an MKV, or reencoding the video and audio to another format and wrapping that in an MKV.

[@ludovician]

At 3:24 the gentleman clearly said MKV does NOT compress like MP4 can. Then he went on to describe mkv fairly accurately as well as it's benefits. Although I didn't see mention of any analog to digital conversion, I can understand calling DVDs and blu-rays analog in the sense that they rely on the reading of physical variances via light.

[@sarreqteryx]

@@ludovician neither MKV or MP4 are compression formats. they are both containers. and he explained that fact piss poorly, making it out that "MKV can store your videos in a less compromised way", when the container has nothing to do with that. you can easily have lossless MP4s and over-compressed MKVs. MKV is better in what else it can contain, like embedded subtitles of various formats, like Advanced SubStation Alpha (.ass) with embedded fonts, chaptering info, and menuing (thought I haven't seen any actually using it). It has nothing to do with how the contained video/audio is compressed.

[@ludovician]

@@sarreqteryx I thought it was actually explained pretty clearly. Mkv is a container that can hold various types of video formats while MP4 contains a compressed video format. Any mention of analog? Are there any statements he made that you think are unclear? I can only find your comment stating MKV compresses.

[@sarreqteryx]

@@ludovician you just wrote what was unclear. MP4 can contain uncompressed formats just as well as MKV can contain overly compressed formats. the containers themselves don't compress anything. the difference being MP4 is limited to fewer video and audio formats than MKV.

[@ludovician]

@@sarreqteryx My apologies, that does tend to happen on the internet. Simple question then, where was "analog" mentioned in the video?

[@johnmiller0000]

Why not just rip the disk and mount it as a virtual DVD-ROM?

[@sbccave4015]

Amen I have been screaming this from rooftops but people look at me sideways.

[@markrodriguez576]

I downloaded but nothing happened . Program wont open i have windows 10

[@UltimatePerfection]

When archiving stuff like that, you need a codec that will give you a good quality while keeping output video small. MPEG2 and AC3 isn't it. There are some really smart codes that give small files while keeping the quality more or less intact, but they don't work with the MKV container.

[@SomeCanine]

MKV is mp4 video with various quality audio streams and numerous subtitle streams. That last one is the key for popularity. A lot of people around the world like to watch English movies but need to see the subtitles for their language. On top of that, you might also want to watch with director commentary going in the background. It's hard to pay attention to both the actors and the director at the same time. Having multiple subtitle streams is AMAZING for a file format and it's one big reason why MKV files took off in popularity around the world.

[@blast_processing6577]

With high-speed internet and cheap SSDs widely available, I'd argue DVDs (and to a lesser degree Blu-rays) shouldn't be backed-up or distributed online as .MKVs, but as .ISO rips containing the _entire_ disc. Maybe we can even get a nice app or Linux distro that lets you browse your digital collection by the box art, similar to browsing a rental store inthe early 2000s, which "plays" the .ISO for a complete viewing experience. Add optional scanline emulation and the ability to view DVD booklet scans before launching the .ISO and you've got the best of *all* worlds.

[@Alexandru-j4z]

You can use VLC for exactly that.

[@MotownBatman]

Well Done Brotha, Attempting to Update my Library and ReDo Old Backups. I used something like anydvd 20 years ago, so I want to make sure everything is done properly. I encode everything as h265 mkv... Im still trying to figure this out. I found my wife's unused MacMini M1 does a Stupid-Good job Transcoding with Apple Hardware New Sub; Detroit, Michigan, US

[@nicoledriscoll1984]

I converted my DVD to MKV, my intention to get it on my iPhone. It fails to transfer through VLC. I didn’t wanna use ITunes since I believe I’d lose saved data because I no longer have my old PC. Any tips appreciated!

[@StardustOneReviews]

Use Handbrake to convert the, there are also other options there, but I have not much experience with the program, it is for free.

[@nicoledriscoll1984]

@@StardustOneReviews I got the files to transfer over eventually after trying a few times, but thank you for the tip!

[@flamewind26]

I use Handbreak to change 4:3 MKV dvd files into 16:9 or 2:21 widescreen which is great but I wish I can get audio commentary versions of movies or bonus material along with the choice of either widescreen or full screen saves such as Monsters Inc or Muppet Christmas Carol.

[@manxdarcqpaw744]

So...rip your discs _uncompressed_ and how is this different than just ripping them and storing them on a large drive with any given program? I'm confused. Is there some GUI that loads up the thing like it's playing in a software player? (then just use that?)

[@theJellyjoker]

Luv me MKV, simple as.

[@CharmCorgi]

Why not use .ts ?

[@FuZZbaLLbee]

But if it supports multiple codecs, then I could see that becoming a problem

[@StracheyWade-i4v]

Robinson Matthew Wilson Ruth Harris Amy

[@douglasbriel6103]

My alphabetical shelves are fine. Don't listen to that zen no property girl.😂

[@j7ndominica051]

Sony doesn't like MKV because it was invented and used for pirated content. Sony is big in the media business. With MakeMKV you can drop the extras and duplicated audio tracks. If you wanted to keep everything, you could just copy the files directly. They are still digital. Corporations have extended the MP4 format to store AC-3. Big corporations love ISO Media Format it and use it for everything. Surround music now is Dolby inside MP4. But there are no GUI tools for a normal computer to compile MP4s. Matroska is now developed almost exclusively by Bunkus, and he decides what goes in.

[@patrickpaganini]

That's a long time to laud a tool that doesn't really have any alternatives. Tell me about your mother!

[@Einfotoday]

iso

[@no_one_of_that_name_here]

Torrent all your media needs

[@theaudiosenseinl]

MakeMKV no longer works after moving to an Apple Mac mini M2. It keeps crashing…

[@bulldog8934]

Get the latest version. Works here

[@britishagent]

BETA? You said it like things can only get “better”? Pronounced as = BEETA Like Alpha, Beta, etc..