M2TS Video Different Between DCP-o-matic & VLC

[ensignrickyto]

I have an interesting problem that I wonder if someone can help me with.

I've transferred an M2TS file from a bluray to my hard drive and have tried loading it into DCP-o-matic to convert into a DCP. When I scan through it in the preview windows though, the video is completely different from what it should be. It appears to be a special feature from the disc or something. The resolution is wrong, the content is wrong, everything is wrong. It plays fine in Windows Media Player and VLC though. Same file, different program. I'm totally confused. Can there be two different pieces of content in the same M2TS file?

Any insight that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[carl]

That is odd. Maybe there are two video streams in the same file. Did DCP-o-matic write a file called ffprobe.log inside your project folder? If so, please put it up here as it may be useful.

[filmteknik]

Was there anything further on this topic? I am experiencing the same thing.

I ripped a BD using MakeMKV. It's not one where the movie is spread across a dozen files. If I open the largest .m2ts file in VLC, that's the movie from beginning to end. But if I load that file alone into DCP-o-Matic, it tells me the content is 720x480 (like a standard def DVD) and playing it within DoM shows video from one of the extras with the audio from the movie.

Somehow the .m2ts file has two video streams. Is there a way to select one? Or do I need to separate out the movie by other means?

I saw something about using VLC to separate them. It sort of worked. I got an .mp4 file with proper picture and track, HD resolution, but it's only 5 GB compared to 32 GB of the .m2ts. That would seem like a huge loss of resolution. This might be the correct solution and I'm just doing it wrong.

I was also looking at something called demux but the output is confusing.

[Carsten]

VLC has a track selection option under 'Video'. I assume you can see two video tracks here? Maybe Carl needs to build a track selection option into DCP-o-matic as well.


Wondering why they do this?

[Kewl]

You can go back to MakeMKV and extract the right video without loss is you select it and extract it to a MKV file.

[filmteknik]

Carsten: Yes. Two video tracks are shown.

Kewl: How do I select the video track within the file in MakeMKV? Typically, I pop in the BD, run the program, click on Backup, tell it where to put the output, and let it run. I see I can do an Open Files but if I go to BD Drive (title) > BDMV > STREAM > it's blank despite setting it to show all video files. That's a dead end. There must be something I'm not seeing.

[Carsten]

MakeMKV only allows you to copy tracks. No stream selection. I have never come across such a multi-video stream MKV on a commercial Bluray. But of course, the MKV spec allows this. Really wondering what's the idea behind this. Maybe some sort of a copy protection, like, only play the low-res version (probably numbered first in the MKV). Yes, one could use an external demultiplexer. Maybe Handbrake could do it as well. I have yet to come across such a disc. Best of course would be if DCP-o-matic would allow to select between multiple video streams. DCP-o-matic does recognise multiple audio streams for different languages and allows to select/mix them. That's the same process, but of cause, multiple streams for different languages does make more sense than multiple video streams.

[Kewl]

Maybe I'm missing something, but here is how I use MakeMKV (part 1):

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[Kewl]

Maybe I'm missing something, but here is how I use MakeMKV (part 2):

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[Carsten]

That's the only way to do it. If the MTS contains two videostreams, they both have to arrive in the MKV. MakeMKV will not manipulate what it's in a track file. Unusual, but, seems to happen.