Guide: Choosing The Right Playlist For a Main Movie Rip

by Damian on November 17, 2011 · 4 comments

in Guides

Odds are if you rip your Blu-ray collection (the main movie only) using a tool like Clown_BD you have come across at least several movies where there have been multiple playlists for what appear to all be for the main movie. Typically this will occur when there are multiple languages of the same movie included on the disc, or when there are different versions (such as a theatrical and extended version). In some instances it should be fairly obvious what each playlist is. For example, if you have a movie that has the theatrical release and the extended cut you know that the runtime for the extended cut will be the longer of the two. Another easy way to determine the correct playlist would be to look up the actual movie runtime (whether it be from IMDB or other).

However, there are cases where just looking at the playlist it is extremely difficult to determine the correct playlist unless you want to attempt trial and error. Disney Blu-rays seem to be the most notorious for this. Many of these discs that I have encountered typically have three different versions of  the main movie (French, Spanish, and English). The language differences though are not actually the audio track but instead the wording (for example there may be a logo on a door during the movie, and this logo is what changes according to the playlist you choose). So in a case like this, how do you figure out what the correct playlist you want is without ripping each playlist and then watching for those small changes? Well, let’s take a look at one method to sort this out, using my software duo of AnyDVD + Clown_BD:

Files To Download:

Viewing The Playlists:
There are several tools you can use to view the playlists (such as BDInfo, HDBRStreamExtractor, etc…). Since I will be using Clown_BD to actually create my main movie rip I simply rely on it via its use of eac3to to view the playlist. With the disc inserted (and the encryption removed via AnyDVD running in the background), Step 2 of Clown_BD will present all available playlists. As you can see below there are multiple playlists available, with three of them appearing to be the main movie (00801.mpls, 00802.mpls, and 00800.mpls). Right below each playlist is a list of all m2ts files that actually make up the playlist (so for each main movie playlist there are multiple m2ts files). If you look closely at each playlist you will notice that nearly all m2ts files are identical with the exception of a few. These few are the ones we want to focus on as there must be something going on with each one that differentiates each playlist. The first such change is with  the second m2ts file in each playlist (00801.mpls uses 344.m2ts, 00802.mpls uses 357.m2ts, and 00800.mpls uses 320.m2ts)

Now that we know what m2ts files to key in on, navigate to the files via Windows Explorer (Disc -> BDMV -> Stream) and play each m2ts, looking for what the difference could be.

For 344.m2ts I can see that the word “present” is written in French, so this would indicate that the playlist with this m2ts file (00801.mpls) is  the French version of the movie.

For 357.m2ts I can see that the word “present” is written in Spanish, so this would indicate that the playlist with this m2ts file (00802.mpls) is  the Spanish version of the movie.

For 320.m2ts I can see that the word “present” is written in English, so this would indicate that the playlist with this m2ts file (00800.mpls) is  the English version of the movie.

Final Thoughts:

Well, there you have it. Obviously we are not talking rocket science here, but I have seen enough questions from people asking about multiple playlists that I thought it would be good to put together a quick guide on how to handle.

Tagged as: AnyDVD, BDInfo, Blu-ray, Clown_BD, Guides, Multiple playlists, Ripping





Article by

Hi, my name is Damian, and I'm tech gadget addict! Although I always had some interest in technology, it wasn't until I got my EX470 and more importantly found Mediasmartserver.net, that my interest became an addiction. My goal, aside from world domination and to see the Mets/Broncos win another championship, is to set up the perfect digital home where all my media is available at the click of a button. When I am not writing for Mediasmartserver.net you can find me over at my blog at http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com or follow me on twitter


{ 4 comments }

Matthew Sawyer November 17, 2011 at 10:22 am

Very nice guide. This is definitely something I’ve encountered on many discs, and this would be a very easy way of clearing up any confusion in a mere matter of minutes, rather than waiting for separate rips to complete, only to discard all of the undesired ones. And since BD rips take quite some time (compared to a DVD), I’d rather solve the issue in 2 minutes, not 2 hours. :)

Damian November 17, 2011 at 11:12 am

Yeah, don’t know how many times I have gone through this before I just took a minute to understand the process. At least my son hasn’t questioned so far why the opening scene of Toy Story 2 the title is in French lol

Gary J November 17, 2011 at 3:22 pm

Ever try this with Iron Man II?

Damian November 17, 2011 at 3:35 pm

Just popped Iron Man II in. There are two playlists (846.mpls with duration of 2:07 and 847.mpls with duration of 2:04). Looking at the Blu-ray I see there is the theatrical feature and the theatrical feature + SHIELD. So logically the longer MPLS is the one with the special feature, so if you just want the original feature you want 847.mpls. Another check, going onto Amazon.com I see the movie duration listed for Iron Man II Blu-ray is 124 minutes(which happens to be the 2:04 duration listed for 847.mpls).

And one final check, I see the first m2ts change is 802.m2ts in the 846.mpls playlist. I just played this m2ts and about 10 seconds in I can see some sort of shield feature appears on t he screen.

How does that work for you :)

Cheers
Damian

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