What are the differences between Blu-Ray, BDRip and BDRemux?
The Blu Ray Disc format It changed quite a bit the way of consuming multimedia content, despite the fact that it has not been able to replicate the overwhelming success of its predecessor, the DVD. For the first time, a physical format had enough capacity to be able to offer content in high definition and without excessive compression.
When we buy a movie on Blu-Ray, we are paying to see that work hardly any quality loss. If we wanted to extract that content from the disk, we would see that it would take up a lot of space on our hard disk, and that is where the famous BDRip and BDRemux come into play.
What is the BDRip format?
BDRip is what Blu-Ray Rip is usually called. It’s a ripping of a Blu-Ray disc, which has been a copy.
There are many types of BDRip, but as a general rule, they do not have the menus and extras that the original discs usually have. BDRips are usually packaged in MKV or MP4 containers. It is usual that languages and subtitles are also removed in order to lighten the content.
However, the most important part of BDRip is compression. Lossy compression algorithms are often used in BDRip files to decrease the overall size of the content.
What is the BDRemux format?
Once you have more or less in mind what a BDRip is, a BDRemux is practically the same, but without applying lossy compression algorithms.
In BDRemux you won’t have the original menus or part of the extra content either, but the audio and video that we have inside the container —normally, it’s also MKV— will be completely untreated.
So what format suits me?
Everything will depend on your preferences when consuming audiovisual content. With the BDRip format you will have an experience more similar to what you usually see on Netflix or any streaming platform.
Let’s take an example so you can see it graphically. Do you remember that controversial episode of Game of Thrones in which they said that of ‘sicansíos’? Part of the problem with that chapter is that HBO went way overboard with video compression. With the episode being so dark and applying so much compression, the result was a mass of black pixels that completely destroyed the experience for all of us who watched it from the couch.
The compressed video of a BDRip in 1080p does not have as much fluency like that of a BDRemux 1080p. Nor will you have a color gradation as natural as that of the uncompressed file. But everything will depend on our tastes and the type of cinema we are going to see. A cartoon like The Incredibles 2 it can have quite a bit of compression and you may never notice it. However, an action movie like Mad Max: Fury Road It can get on your nerves if you watch it with the wrong codec, as the compression pretty much ruins the experience in scenes where there’s a lot of movement on the screen.
