www.makemkv.com

Why does MakeMKV rip some of my blu-rays in H.264 MPEG-4/AVC and some in WMV?
Is there any way of ripping in H.264 MPEG-4/AVC only?

Because it doesn't re-encode anything. You get what's on the Blu-ray.

Romansh wrote:Because it doesn't re-encode anything. You get what's on the Blu-ray.

So what you are saying is that some of my discs are in WMV format?

More specifically, VC-1; but yes, that's what I'm saying.

Incredible, so that means the distributors here are compressing the originals and making us believe that we are getting them same quality as the rest of the world. I think I'll be ordering my discs from overseas from now on. To hell with the local agents.

perfectionist wrote:Incredible, so that means the distributors here are compressing the originals

Well, of course they are compressing the originals. With uncompressed YUV 4:2:0 at 24 fps, you could fit about 11 minutes' worth of content on a disc, not counting menus and audio. So we get compressed video (Blu-ray spec allows for MPEG-2, H.264 or VC-1).

perfectionist wrote:and making us believe that we are getting them same quality as the rest of the world. I think I'll be ordering my discs from overseas from now on. To hell with the local agents.

And you'll be getting VC-1 encoded discs too. About 20% of all BD discs use VC-1 instead of H.264 (or MPEG-2, which is the one codec you should probably be avoiding):

http://www.blu-raystats.com/Stats/Stats.php

Isn't there a lot more to quality than the type of codec? For example, how well it is transferred from film to digital, bit rate, etc. So, if done well, even an MPEG2 transfer could have higher picture quality than a not-so well done H.264. If disc space is not a major concern (such as with a short movie with very few extra features), then it might not really matter which codec is used, correct?

robpdotcom wrote:Isn't there a lot more to quality than the type of codec? For example, how well it is transferred from film to digital, bit rate, etc. So, if done well, even an MPEG2 transfer could have higher picture quality than a not-so well done H.264. If disc space is not a major concern (such as with a short movie with very few extra features), then it might not really matter which codec is used, correct?

Absolutely correct.

How good a movie looks on blu-ray depends on a lot more than just the codec that is used.

robpdotcom wrote:Isn't there a lot more to quality than the type of codec? For example, how well it is transferred from film to digital, bit rate, etc. So, if done well, even an MPEG2 transfer could have higher picture quality than a not-so well done H.264.

Indeed.

FWIW, given the same uncompressed master, H.264 and VC-1 should almost always outperform MPEG-2. Which of H.264 and VC-1 would give betters results may well depend on the encoder implementation, IMO.