Dvd2mkv?

[silver_cpu]

I was wondering if you could use the mkv container format to basically re-create the dvd experience. In other words, all animated menus, subtitles, audio, video, etc, but encoded in x264/aac and in a single mkv file. Is there a way to do this? Thanks!!

[Brother John]

The Matroska specs define menus. I’m not absolutely sure about seamless branching and similar advanced stuff, but that should be possible as well.

However, here end’s the good news. Specs isn’t enough, you also need tools that actually implement those specs – on both the creation and playback side. At that point you’re stuck because those tools don’t exist (yet?).

Sadly, at the moment the only viable option at least for menus seems to be DivX’s “AVI on steroids” container, part of the DivX Ultra certification. Of course that rules out AVC and AAC.

[Dr.Khron]

If single file is that important, you can always make ISOs of your DVD rips... and then just mount the ISOs with Daemon tools, or play them directly with VLC.

[silver_cpu]

If single file is that important, you can always make ISOs of your DVD rips... and then just mount the ISOs with Daemon tools, or play them directly with VLC.

Oh sure, I totally agree. That's what I have been doing up to this point. The problem, unfortunately, is space. I am now coming up on 2 TB of HDD space, and growing rapidly. Granted I only spend about $250/TB (RAID5), but I'd love to halve my storage costs. Unfortunately, it looks like perhaps that isn't much of an option just yet.

On the plus side, even my old black xbox can stream a DVD ISO through XBMC (x264 stutters horribly), so I guess I don't need an HTPC as long as I use it that way. Funny; everyone ribs me about having a row of HDDs in my closet, but I can only imagine how many rows I'll grow to.

Edit:

Also, for the sake of curiosity, would it be possible to create an animated menu with some tool, individual MKVs from each episode (ripped and encoded separately), and merge it all with something like MKVmerge?