How to Convert Blu-ray to MKV without Losing Quality on PC/Mac

For the same reason you want to back up DVDs, the physical Blu-ray discs are also easy to get scratched, broken or lost. When you convert a Blu-ray to digital format, you may want to keep all the content of the Blu-ray if possible. And among the container formats, MKV is the format that will contain all the video, audio, subtitle tracks, chapters, and menus of a Blu-ray without quality loss. Moreover, MKV provides better compatibility than some other formats like ISO image or Blu-ray BDMV folder. If you're looking for ways to convert Blu-ray to MKV and don't want to lose video quality, you've come to the right place. Here are 4 best ways to rip Blu-rays to MKV without quality loss on Windows 11/10 and Mac.

Part 1. Reasons for ripping Blu-ray to MKV

1. Blu-ray to MKV backup can Reserve All Blu-ray Content

If you have ever encoded Blu-ray movies into MP4, AVI, or MPEG format, and been slightly frustrated with the loss of Blu-ray extra elements, then you can switch to MKV as the Blu-ray backup format. MKV is able to contain all detailed chapter information, sub-chapters, titles, multiple audio and video streams, subtitles, attachments and custom metadata.

2. MKV Container Is as Universal as MP4 with High Quality

Since MKV supports any type of video/audio tracks and subtitles inside, and is quite efficient for storage and streaming, it's widely used on video transmitting. Usually, common Blu-ray rippers can help rip a 20-50 GB Blu-ray movie to a digital file in hundreds of MB, but you will get much quality loss. Only some seasoned Blu-ray to MKV backup tools balance well on video file size and Blu-ray ripping speed.

3. Ripping Blu-ray will Remove Blu-ray Copy Protections

Blu-ray disc is equipped with a variety of protections to prevent Blu-ray content from illegal use. The most popular encryption techs include AACS, BD+, ROM-Mark, MKB, region code, etc. Blu-ray rippers can help you free your Blu-ray movies from copy protections and regional settings.

Part 2. How to Convert Blu-ray to MKV without Quality Loss

Method 1: Rip Blu-ray to MKV with DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper

DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper does a very good job in backing up and transcoding Blu-ray and DVD collection, including your copy-protected discs with lightning speed. With it, you can easily convert a full Blu-ray into a lossless MKV file within 5 minutes. The MKV file can store all original subtitle and audio tracks (incl. HD audio) and preserve the chapter structure of the source movie, so you may select your wanted chapters to play with your media players at will. Check more features below.

● Backup & rip Blu-ray to MKV video, M2TS and Blu-ray (BDMV) folder with original quality and super-fast speed;
● Convert Blu-ray to H.264, H.265, MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, FLV, and 350+ output profiles;
● Flexibily select the subtitle/audio tracks, add subtitles, crop, trim, and edit the MKV video;
● Support almost all encryptions on new/old/tough/damaged Blu-ray and DVD discs;
● Adjust resolution, bit rate, codec, etc to produce result files with excellent quality & smaller size.

Free download DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper to rip Blu-ray to MKV without quality loss. You can also rip Blu-ray to MP4 and other digital formats.

After downloading and installing the Blu-ray ripper, just follow the steps below to rip Blu-ray to MKV. Here we take the Windows version for an example. The Mac version shares the same process. A Blu-ray drive is necessary for ripping Blu-ray discs.

Step 1. Open up DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper and add Blu-ray content.

Insert your Blu-ray discs into your BD dirve and then launch DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper. Click "Load disc" button to load the source Blu-ray movie.

Step 2. Choose MKV as Target Format

Click "Format" bar, move mouse cursor to "Multi-track video" category and then select Lossless/encoded Multi-track MKV as the output format.

Tips: DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper transfers video from Blu-ray/DVD to MKV container in two ways, lossless output and encoded output. Both the two ways enable users to preserve wanted audio tracks and subtitles streams in the source movie.

Actually, all audio & subtitles tracks in a source file are checked to be saved in the MKV container by default, if there are some tracks you don't like, you can click Settings button and go to Multi-task Settings window to uncheck and remove them under Audio tab and Subtitle tab.

Step 3. Start Blu-ray to MKV ripping

Click "Browse" button to select a destination folder in the dialog box that opens, and click OK. If you do not have other advanced and personalized settings, just hit "Convert" to beging Blu-ray to MKV ripping with lossless quality. The rip will go from about 150fps to 350fps based on the computer you have (higher configuration, faster speed).

Method 2: Remux Blu-ray to MKV Free with MakeMKV

MakeMKV is the first choice of many users when it comes to extracting MKV from a Blu-ray without quality loss. This tool is specially designed to convert Blu-ray and DVD disc to MKV format. It will preserver all video and audio tracks, chapters information, and all meta information. It works fast because it doesn't transcode video, just extract. Of course the disadvantage is that it will export a super large MKV file.

Now you can download MakeMKV from its official site and learn how to covnert Blu-ray to MKV with MakeMKV.

Step 1. Insert target Blu-ray into your BD drive. Launch MakeMKV and click the Blu-ray to hard drive button to import the Blu-ray.

Step 2. Select the titles, audios, and subtitles you want to preserve.

Step 3. Specify an output folder to store the resulting MKV file.

Step 4. Hit Make MKV button to begin ripping Blu-ray to MKV.

While ripping Blu-ray with MakeMKV, you may encounter errors like Blu-ray failed to open, backup option greyed out for Blu-ray, A/V out of sync, crashes, missing beginning, etc. This is because MakeMKV doesn't support some copy protections. In this case, you can give DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper a try. Among all the Blu-ray rippers, DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper is the strongest one to decrypt Blu-ray.

Method 3: Convert Blu-ray to MKV Free with VLC

Can VLC rip Blu-ray? Yes. The famous media player VLC also offers the ability to convert Blu-rays to MKV and various other formats. However, there are things you need to know when ripping Blu-rays to MKV using VLC. VLC doesn't support Blu-ray with copy protections. Fortunately, you can add some files to change the configuration of VLC media player so that it helps you play and rip some protected Blu-ray discs. This may be a bit complicated and requires users to download additional files to add to VLC directory. The full guide will be introduced in detail to help you convert Blu-ray to MKV with VLC.

Step 1: Go to videolan.org, download, install and run the latest version of VLC for your Windows or Mac system. Please note that you will need to download the VLC Windows 64bit version if it is a 64-bit Windows computer.

Then go to: http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ to download the KEYS DATABASE(KEYDB.cfg) and AACS DYNAMIC LIBRARY(libaacs.dll for Windows or libaacs.dylib for Mac). Then follow the instruction steps of the following screenshot to put them on the right place according to your computer system. Please notice that there are two different files of AACS dynamic library available at a Windows-based computer, and you should download the 32bit file for VLC 32bit, and 64bit file for VLC 64bit.

Step 2: Open VLC and insert your Blu-ray disc into Blu-ray Drive. Click Media on menu bar and a drop-down list appears. Select Convert / Save… to access to Open Media dialogue box. Besides Blu-ray disc, VLC also enables you to import DVD disc, ISO Image or VIDEO_TS folder which stores DVD contents as source for ripping to MKV, MP4, WebM, TS, etc.

Step3: Click Disc tab and check Blu-ray option and browse to import Blu-ray source to VLC. Next, set title (main title in general) and chapter you wish to rip. If you don't know which is the correct title, play the Blu-ray with VLC to find the correct title. Then click Convert / Save button.

Step 4: Click the Convert/Save button and then you'll need to select the output profile. Open the Profile dropdown menu and check if there is an MKV profile. By default, VLC will choose to rip DVDs to "Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4)". If there is no MKV option, click the gear button next to it and under Encapsulation, choose MKV and save it.

Step 5: Choose an output destination folder and then click Start. VLC will then begin ripping Blu-rays to MKV.

Note: You can encounter many errors when you try to rip Blu-ray discs with VLC. This is because not all the commercial Blu-ray discs are supported by VLC media player so that you might encounter the problem from time to time. VLC can only deal with discs which its library has the corresponding AACS keys, yet the AACS and BD+ DRM libraries and keys won't ship with the Blu-ray discs, as their publishers seem to take everyone as a pirate, even you already spend money just for personnel movie enjoyment. And that's why the professional Blu-ray rippers exist on the market.

Method 4: Transcode Unprotected Blu-ray to MKV Free with Handbrake

Handbrake is a popular yet free video/DVD transcoder and it can be used to rip Blu-ray to MKV on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Of course, you're required to make sure that your Blu-ray is not copyright protected, for HandBrake converts neither encrypted physical Blu-ray Disc nor decrypted commercial Blu-ray movies in BDMV file structure.

Therefore, if you have some homemade or burned Blu-ray discs, you can use Handbrake to convert them to MKV or MP4 format. For store-bought commercial Blu-ray discs, you'll probably need a Blu-ray decrypter to remove the copy protection first. Now let's walk you through how to convert Blu-ray to MKV with Handbrake.

Step 1. Download and install HandBrake. Launch it when you finish installation.

Step 2. Insert the non-protected Blu-ray disc to your Blu-ray drive and then click "Open Source" to load the Blu-ray content. The main title will be selected for homemade Blu-rays by default. If not, you can manually select the right title from the Title dropdown box.

Step 3. Click Preset > Matroska, and then choose a MKV format.

Step 4. Hit Start Encode button to begin ripping Blu-ray to MKV. Note: HandBrake will decode the Blu-ray and re-encode the video into MKV in H264, H265, or other codecs, during which quality loss will happen.

Conclusion

The range of abilities of these Blu-ray to MKV converters is fairly broad. On the unsurpassable decryption end you find DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper, which goes beyond all the rivals in our test when loading Blu-rays and DVDs, either old or new.

If you want to keep the full quality when ripping Blu-ray to MKV for free, then MakeMKV is the best choice for you. If you also want to encode protected Blu-ray discs to MP4, MOV, AVI, etc. and looking for other functions, then DumboFab Blu-ray Ripper will be your final best choice.