Blu-ray from Spain -- convertible in MakeMKV / DCP-o-matic?

[Mike Blakesley]

I have a group wanting to book a private show of the movie True Lies, from '94. Problem is, the only Blu Ray I can find of it is from Spain. It says it's Region A,B, and C. I'm wondering if it will be readable by MakeMKV and will it work to convert it in DCP-o-matic and wind up with an English soundtrack? Here is a description of the soundtrack from Amazon.

Spain released, Blu-Ray/Region A/B/C : it WILL NOT play on regular DVD player. You need Blu-Ray DVD player to view this Blu-Ray DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( DTS 5.1 ), English ( DTS-HD Master Audio ), French ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), German ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), Italian ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), Spanish ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), Spanish ( DTS 5.1 ), Spanish ( DTS-HD Master Audio ), English ( Subtitles ), French ( Subtitles ), German ( Subtitles ), Italian ( Subtitles ), Portuguese ( Subtitles ), Spanish ( Subtitles )

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Benjamin Ruder]

You shouldn't have a problem. That is listed as an all Zone Blu-ray so it would work in your standalone North American Zone A player. No Blu-ray will play in a DVD player. For me MakeMKV hasn't failed yet to extract content from a disc (except if damaged of course).

[Mike Blakesley]

I'm not concerned so much about playing it in a player.... I'm wanting to convert it to a DCP. It has an English soundtrack but I'm just wondering if I'll be able to rip it with makeMKV and then convert it with DCP-o-matic and wind up with playable results.

[Benjamin Ruder]

I don't see why you couldn't.

[Carsten Kurz]

This should work without problems. It's a good idea though to select only the english language audio track in MakeMKV (in this case, the english DTS HD Master audio track) before ripping it.

- Carsten

[Marcel Birgelen]

Like Carsten mentioned, usually no problem at all, as long as you select the right language track. I regularly rip local Blu-Rays from local markets, which often contain soundtracks in different languages. The only thing that sometimes can be different are things like title cards, credits and burned-in subtitles. I've ripped some German Blu-Rays of English features, that had the German title in the title card and credits for example. Some offer different playlists with the "original" title cards, etc., but not all of them do.

[John Thomas]

See this thread regarding identifying the correct language for MakeMKV:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/4211-question-on-making-a-dcp-from-blu-ray

[Allan Young]

Pretty certain that Spanish disc is a bootleg, so don't expect the best quality.

[Leo Enticknap]

I'm not familiar with MakeMKV, but if this disc contains English subtitles that are enabled by default, you may need to ensure that they are not burned into the ripped video image by deselecting something during the conversion process.

I use DVDFab for this sort of thing, and on some foreign-published discs of English language movies, the English language subtitles are activated by default in the authoring. You have to tell DVDFab either to rip the subtitles into a separate file, or ignore them, if you don't want them as open captions in your eventual DCP.

DVDFab will rip BDs of any region code. Not sure about MakeMKV.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The Region Code thing isn't really a ripper thing, it's a firmware thing in your player. Since you're not playing the file, but you're just reading the encrypted content (and decrypting it in the ripper software), the region thing is not an issue.

MakeMKV doesn't burn in any subtitles, as this would require MakeMKV to manipulate the actual video data, this is something MakeMKV currently doesn't do. Some localized releases tend to have burned-in subtitles in the appropriate language for the release, for stuff like characters speaking in a "foreign language", but there may also be title cards that are translated into the language of the actual release. Those are some things to consider when using a foreign language Blu-Ray release as a source for a DCI.