DVD to MKV Best option

[efiste2]

Apparently my Sony Bravia TV can passthrough 5.1 Dolby, so Id like to put a DVD with a great 5.1 soundtrack onto the TV's external HDD. The HDD is connected via a USB port and The TV is connected to the AV Amp via Optical.
IF indeed the TV can passthrough a true 5.1 is an MKV file the best option to use, and will it keep the 5.1 soundtrack after conversion.

Also Whats the best conversion program to use so that 5.1 audio stays intact.

[Baldrick]

Have you tried Makemkv? It just rips and muxes the video and audio in a mkv container.

[newpball]

Wait I am confused, you are trying to view a DVD or an MKV file?

I suppose MKV can hold MPEG-2 streams but the question is can your TV play that.

[Kerry56]

Try Baldrick's suggestion first. If your equipment can handle mpeg2 in an mkv container, that's all you will need.

If, on the other hand, the tv needs H264 in an mkv file, use Handbrake or VidCoder to convert to mkv. Either of those have options to let the audio pass through without being changed.

Edit: Most commercial DVD's have encryption, and neither of the converters I mentioned will decrypt anything, so you will need to rip to the hard drive first as an mkv using MakeMKV, or use another decrypter. MakeMKV is free to use for DVD's but only rips that format as mkv files. TDMore Free DVD Copy is another free decryption program, and you can use it to rip the entire DVD to the hard drive before conversion.

[efiste2]

Apologies if I was a little Vague. im trying to put a 5.1 surround sound concert DVD onto the USB hdd connected to my TV. Simply so its accessable whenever I want to watch it.

Thanks for the info, I will do as advised!!!!

[MrRed]

DVDShrink is no longer developed but it is also a free ripper and if you go into the edit/preferences, you can change the target size from dvd-5 to dvd-9 (uncompressed). then just rip the files to your harddrive and use handbrake or whatever program you want to encode to mkv.