MKV To Bluray or DVD Disc

[maverickluke]

I apologize if this has been asked before. I have an MKV file which is 9.82GB. It is 1080P and has DTS 6 channel audio. I want to create a disc that I can play in a blu-ray player without quality loss, and to preserve the DTS. Should I burn it to a 25GB blu-ray disc which seems wasteful, or can I shrink it to fit an 8.5GB DL DVD with virtually the same quality? Also, what program do you recommend to do this both for a blank bluray disc and a blank DL DVD. Thanks for your help in advance.

[smrpix]

I'd spend the extra 50 cents and not waste my time re-encoding to something that may or may not work.

[LMotlow]

I apologize if this has been asked before. I have an MKV file which is 9.82GB. It is 1080P and has DTS 6 channel audio. I want to create a disc that I can play in a blu-ray player without quality loss, and to preserve the DTS.

It depends on how the MKV is configured. 1080p is not valid for BluRay, which has very specific standards and parameters. At 1920x1080, only interlaced 29.97 NTSC or 25fps PAL are allowed, or progressive at film speeds 23.976/24 fps .
https://www.videohelp.com/hd#tech
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533

Should I burn it to a 25GB blu-ray disc which seems wasteful, or can I shrink it to fit an 8.5GB DL DVD with virtually the same quality?

Virtually? No way. Maybe "nearly", depending on how carefully you re-encode.

Also, what program do you recommend to do this both for a blank bluray disc and a blank DL DVD. Thanks for your help in advance.

TMPGenc Video Mastering Works, for one. There are very few free encoders that will suffice for BluRay.

For DVD you can try AVS2DVd. DVD will not accept 1080p, and is usually interlaced or telecined. https://www.videohelp.com/dvd#tech

The capacity of a DVD+R DL disc is actually a little less than 8.5GB. Consider space for formatting, indexing, etc., and the fact that the actual "GB" isn't really 1 billion bytes (1GB) but is 1024x1024x1024 bytes = 1073741824 bytes, so the actual capacity is 7.92 GB.

You can burn an mkv to a BluRay disc as "data". Some players will handle it, some won't. We need more information about your source mkv.

[Kerry56]

BD Rebuilder can accept MKV files as input and give you either a Blu-ray/AVCHD format movie that will fit onto a double layer DVD, or you can convert to DVD-video.

If you are going to make DVD-video, you need to set the Mode to Alternate Movie-Only Output-->DVD-9. If going to Blu-ray/AVCHD, you need to go to Settings-->Output Options-->BD9.

To import the MKV, click on File-->Import-->Video Files.

Edit: Keeping the DTS audio would take some extra steps in Setup. You need to put a check mark in the box to NOT convert DTS to AC3. I would also put a check mark in the box to keep HD audio in BD25/Alternate intact. Do not put a check mark in the box to make a strict AVCHD for BD5/9. That should work to keep the DTS audio.

I don't think you'll be able to keep the DTS audio in BD Rebuilder when making a DVD-video however.

[Kerry56]

I should also mention that BD Rebuilder could also convert the MKV to Blu-ray and use the 25gb disc size output. To keep the DTS audio follow the steps in Setup that I've already outlined.

I've stopped using DL DVD's entirely, since Blu-ray media has come down in price, not to mention the fact that the vast majority of stand-alone players will be able to play this Blu-ray movie from a burned BD disc, and that is not a certainty when playing Blu-ray format on a DVD.

[maverickluke]

Here is the MediInfo of the MKV clip:

Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 9.83 GiB
Duration : 2h 14mn
Overall bit rate : 10.5 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2015-01-13 22:05:16
Writing application : mkvmerge v6.2.0 ('Promised Land') built on Apr 28 2013 12:22:01
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 14mn
Bit rate : 8 949 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 808 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.241
Stream size : 8.21 GiB (84%)
Writing library : x264 core 144 r2525 40bb568
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=8949 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Mode : 16
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 2h 14mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.42 GiB (14%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Title : English-Forced
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : Yes

Menu
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00:20:24.682 : en:00:20:24.682
00:26:38.931 : en:00:26:38.931
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[jman98]

It depends on how the MKV is configured. 1080p is not valid for BluRay, which has very specific standards and parameters. At 1920x1080, only interlaced 29.97 NTSC or 25fps PAL are allowed, or progressive at film speeds 23.976/24 fps .
https://www.videohelp.com/hd#tech
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533

1080p IS indeed valid for BluRay. 1920x1080 "progressive at film speeds 23.976/24 fps", to quote your exact words, is 1080p.

Anyway...
The OP's MediaInfo post was helpful. His video is 1920x808 which is not valid for BluRay. It would have to be re-encoded to 1920x1080 output. My suggestion would be to just burn the MKV file as is to a BD disc as a data disc burn because most BluRay players should be able to play the MKV file from disc without any problems.

[maverickluke]

Will do. Thanks.