The best Blu-ray backup method: Blu-ray to M2TS or Blu-ray to MKV?

Pavtube ByteCopy software allows you to either Directly Copy your Blu-ray disc to 100% intact M2TS file, or copy your Blu-rays to MKV container in so-called lossless quality. But which one is the best backup method - Blu-ray to M2TS backup or Blu-ray to MKV backup? This is one of the most concerned questions asked by lots of users. In this article, we intend to give you reasonable analysis and answer to the question.

Blu-ray to M2TS Backup

The Good:
The M2TS format has one huge advantage over the MKV: it is 100% intact. The Pavtube ByteCopy application directly packages M2TS streams in a Blu-ray into the same M2TS container as output preserving all audio info and subtitles info without changing anything. The commonly-used re-encoding or transcoding never happened on the exported M2TS backup files, this insure that there will not be quality loss in the output M2TS video at all. Compared with MKV, the M2TS presents much clearer and sharper image while playback using the same media player.

In the screenshots below, we can see clearly that the fingerprint lines in the M2TS image are much clearer than that in the MKV image, as if the two fingers are out of the screen, directly in front of us.
blu-ray to m2ts backup
M2TS backup of Blu-ray movie “Lord of War”

MKV backup of Blu-ray movie “Lord of War”

The Blu-ray to M2TS backup has much faster speed than the Blu-ray to MKV backup. The Directly Copy feature directly removes copy-protections from commercial Blu-ray disc, and keeps the original M2TS streams as a Blu-ray backup without re-encoding them to a different format, so the full backup process costs much less time than that of the Blu-ray to MKV backup. Basically, it takes only 30 minutes to copy a 27 GB Blu-ray main title to an M2TS video in identical file size.

The Bad:
Because of its 100% intact quality, the M2TS file takes much more space than the converted MKV file with the same contents. Basically, it has the same file size as the original M2TS files on the Blu-ray disc.

The M2TS backup created by Pavtube ByteCopy does not hold movie menu as well as chapter markers in the file, so you can not jump forward or backward by selecting a certain chapter while playing the video with a media player like VLC, WD TV Live or something similar.

When taking M2TS from a Blu-ray, Pavtube ByteCopy does not allow you to remove unwanted audio and subtitles streams.

Blu-ray to MKV Backup

The Good:
It preserves all Meta info such as chapter markers, audio tracks, video contents, subtitles streams in a Blu-ray movie. You are free to skip and select whatever chapters, audio and subtitles tracks you want at will.

When re-encoding a Blu-ray M2TS into an MKV, people usually remove any audio streams and subtitles streams they don’t want. There's no point in keeping a French dub of an American movie if you can't speak French. This can be done in Blu-ray to MKV backup using Pavtube ByteCopy.

When you change the container from M2TS to MKV and get rid of stuff you don't want, you can save a few GBs of space.

The Bad:
It is repacked from M2TS format to MKV format, so there is quality loss more or less, even though sometimes we consider the loss is invisible.

The transcoding process always takes a quite longer time than Directly Copy process.

Verdict

Which one is the best Blu-ray backup method: Blu-ray to M2TS or Blu-ray to MKV? Practically speaking, the biggest consideration is the hardware or software you're using to watch the copied Blu-ray movies on.

If you use software like XBMC, VLC, etc., you should be fine either way.

If you are going to watching the Blu-ray backups using PowerDVD, or another professional Blu-ray player program, you should stick to m2ts.

If you plan on using a stand-alone HD Media Player device like a WD TV Live Plus player, a Popcorn Hour A-200 player, or an Xtreamer Ultra player, you'll probably have better compatibility with the MKV container. Because the Matroska (MKV) is simply a more flexible and compatible format and not all software can play the subtitles straight from an m2ts, nor change audio streams.

If you want to put some of your Blu-ray movies on your server but don’t want complete disc because of storage, you can choose backing up Blu-ray to MKV. If your biggest concern is not the storage space, then consider more in conjunction with the hardware and software you plan on using.

What's Next? Price: $42