DVDFab Passkey as good as AnyDVDHD?

C

Celeryman

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
418
I had a lifetime subscription to AnyDVDHD when slysoft was still around and now of course my key is invalid for updates since the shutdown and reorganization.

Do you guys have experience or recommend the paid DVDFab Passkey as a good replacement? Running right around $50 for a lifetime license right now.
 
I use the free Passkey version as I like to rip blu-rays whole, works fine.
 
yubi0709 said:
DVDFab passkey really is the best alternative of anydvd.
I've been using DVDFab, AnyDVD and Leawo to rip blu-rays. I'd give the slight edge to DVDFab since you select what you want instead of ripping the whole disc like AnyDVD. DVDFab is faster and easier to use than Leawo.
I can't comment on the rest as I haven't had the pleasure of trying them.
Click to expand...
Waitwhat? Leawo's a new one to me, i've been looking around for a good blu-ray player, plus it's free, bonus!
 
yubi0709 said:
DVDFab passkey really is the best alternative of anydvd.
I've been using DVDFab, AnyDVD and Leawo to rip blu-rays. I'd give the slight edge to DVDFab since you select what you want instead of ripping the whole disc like AnyDVD. DVDFab is faster and easier to use than Leawo.
I can't comment on the rest as I haven't had the pleasure of trying them.
Click to expand...

AnyDVD can operate completely in the background. I use Handbrake to rip what I want, I barely EVER actually mess with AnyDVD. I have yet to buy a bluray the day it came out and not be able to rip it. And I have yet to have issues with Cinavia or whatever it's called. The only issues I have had are movies like Hunger Games that create mixed up MPLS's. This is on paid AnyDVD of course.

I know the free stuff is preferred, but I have had no issues with AnyDVD over the last three years, so I give them money to keep it that way.
 
westrock2000 said:
AnyDVD can operate completely in the background. I use Handbrake to rip what I want, I barely EVER actually mess with AnyDVD. I have yet to buy a bluray the day it came out and not be able to rip it. And I have yet to have issues with Cinavia or whatever it's called. The only issues I have had are movies like Hunger Games that create mixed up MPLS's. This is on paid AnyDVD of course.

I know the free stuff is preferred, but I have had no issues with AnyDVD over the last three years, so I give them money to keep it that way.
Click to expand...
Except many of us will NEVER touch AnyDVD again after the crap they pulled off to "close the company" then conveniently launch under a new name while invalidating all of the old lifetime licensing.

Hence, DVDFab and/or DVDFab Passkey.
 
FnordMan said:
Except many of us will NEVER touch AnyDVD again after the crap they pulled off to "close the company" then conveniently launch under a new name while invalidating all of the old lifetime licensing.

Hence, DVDFab and/or DVDFab Passkey.
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I understand your anger.

But the products just too good for me to not have or support.

I did novakiller for a couple years, so I feel like a jerk :)
 
Why anyone uses anything but totally Free MakeMKV + Handbrake is beyond me.. Stop messing around with all the adware garbage and learn to use MakeMKV + Handbrake.

n00bs use all the other garbage.. be better than the n00bs [H]!
 
s10010001 said:
Why anyone uses anything but totally Free MakeMKV + Handbrake is beyond me.. Stop messing around with all the adware garbage and learn to use MakeMKV + Handbrake.

n00bs use all the other garbage.. be better than the n00bs [H]!
Click to expand...

What does paying for MakeMKV get you? You can pay for it.
 
Not sure... I have never paid for it. As far as I know its 100% free... even says so on the site.

I think its some sort of trick to keep people off their backs. As long as you're on the latest version it just works. it has a count down timer I think 30 days.. but a new version come out before then and it resets.
 
s10010001 said:
Why anyone uses anything but totally Free MakeMKV + Handbrake is beyond me.. Stop messing around with all the adware garbage and learn to use MakeMKV + Handbrake.

n00bs use all the other garbage.. be better than the n00bs [H]!
Click to expand...
Another one shows up and shoots their mouth off without reading or thinking.

1: DVDFab passkey operates in the background, it strips encryption off of any disc plopped in the drive while it's running.
2: MakeMKV can't do ISO images, only ripping the movie tracks so no menu at all, that may be important to some folks.
 
Does Passkey allow you to watch Blu-Ray movies with video players like MPC-HC? I'm actually more interested in that than ripping. It's also a cost savings over PowerDVD.
 
Domingo said:
Does Passkey allow you to watch Blu-Ray movies with video players like MPC-HC? I'm actually more interested in that than ripping. It's also a cost savings over PowerDVD.
Click to expand...
Yes, most of the time, it removes any encryption on the fly so anything that can read a m2ts file can work. (technical version: it sticks a filter driver on any optical drives so it can do it's monkeying about) Note one thing: this method won't always work, some movies to funky things and split the movies up amongst MANY files. You'll also lose menu capability.

I haven't ran the latest version as they reneged on their special "lifetime" license they were giving away for free but the previous major version worked fine.
 
FnordMan said:
Another one shows up and shoots their mouth off without reading or thinking.

1: DVDFab passkey operates in the background, it strips encryption off of any disc plopped in the drive while it's running.
2: MakeMKV can't do ISO images, only ripping the movie tracks so no menu at all, that may be important to some folks.
Click to expand...

wow, having a bad day? Without reading or thinking... Well I did read it and I did think about it... What is the point of DVD fab / anydvd that the OP is talking about? Ripping movies and getting them to useable format.

MakeMKV rips the disk, as is, to a mkv file. Large but useable right away. Handbrake compresses it and converts it (best tool around by a long shot, expect some professional tools I'm sure)

All free... so what scenario would this solution not work for that DVDFab does? I see no point to use anything but MakeMKV and handbrake, other than its not friendly to the non-techie.
 
Domingo said:
Does Passkey allow you to watch Blu-Ray movies with video players like MPC-HC? I'm actually more interested in that than ripping. It's also a cost savings over PowerDVD.
Click to expand...
Hmm seems like too much work, if you don't want to rip then just play it in a BD player. They can be had for cheaper than dealing with sketchy software. Keep it simple.

But yes, on most disks that it was it does, makes it unprotected to play. However it's hit and miss if it works.
 
uhhh MakeMKV is free (as long as you grab their free keys from their forum). Not sure why you'd pay especially since you were already burned on a "lifetime" sub.
 
s10010001 said:
wow, having a bad day? Without reading or thinking... Well I did read it and I did think about it... What is the point of DVD fab / anydvd that the OP is talking about? Ripping movies and getting them to useable format.

MakeMKV rips the disk, as is, to a mkv file. Large but useable right away. Handbrake compresses it and converts it (best tool around by a long shot, expect some professional tools I'm sure)

All free... so what scenario would this solution not work for that DVDFab does? I see no point to use anything but MakeMKV and handbrake, other than its not friendly to the non-techie.
Click to expand...
So to help out the non-techies, why not post a decent guide to this process?
 
Well if you're being serious, there are plenty is guides on google. Now decideding what's best for YOU with handbrake setting is a different story lol. 12 hour encodes for that perfect file sucks a year down the road when you decide you did want HD-MA included or wish you compressed a little more to save space. Some of my be encoded are 12gb, down from 30gb.

I'm not trying to be an ass about it, I'm just saying I have been doing this stuff for years and played with just about everything out there and none of that garbage all-in-one software can hold a candle to FREE makeMKV/handbrake if you're willing to put the time into it. No one seems to be able to tell me what this combo "can't" do, and since it's feee I don't see a reason to use anything else's. Hence my suggestions and comments to not bother with anything else.

See post #3
 
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s10010001 said:
Well if you're being serious, there are plenty is guides on google. Now decideding what's best for YOU with handbrake setting is a different story lol. 12 hour encodes for that perfect file sucks a year down the road when you decide you did want HD-MA included or wish you compressed a little more to save space. Some of my be encoded are 12gb, down from 30gb.

I'm not trying to be an ass about it, I'm just saying I have been doing this stuff for years and played with just about everything out there and none of that garbage all-in-one software can hold a candle to FREE makeMKV/handbrake if you're willing to put the time into it. No one seems to be able to tell me what this combo "can't" do, and since it's feee I don't see a reason to use anything else's. Hence my suggestions and comments to not bother with anything else.

See post #3
Click to expand...

Or just rip straight to MakeMKV and keep the full quality file. That's what I do. Sure, it costs more hard drive space but hard drive space is cheaper in my view than what it costs in my time to mess around shrinking files with handbrake.
 
mls1995 said:
Or just rip straight to MakeMKV and keep the full quality file. That's what I do. Sure, it costs more hard drive space but hard drive space is cheaper in my view than what it costs in my time to mess around shrinking files with handbrake.
Click to expand...

Ohh I totally agree! I keep my rips in full as well. However running them thru hand break lets me burn in forced subs, making it a heck of a lot easier for the family to play without enabling sub title options... or when we forget until some side is yelling in Russion lol.

Honestly until I'm looking on my computer you can tell the difference from the disk to my compressed copy.

So my Plex server contains all my encoded copies
 
mls1995 said:
Or just rip straight to MakeMKV and keep the full quality file. That's what I do. Sure, it costs more hard drive space but hard drive space is cheaper in my view than what it costs in my time to mess around shrinking files with handbrake.
Click to expand...
I am contemplating this right now. Handbrake or don't handbrake? I followed this guide and have gotten pretty good results. I tested on The Avengers, and I watched the whole handbraked movie, and couldn't see any difference. I still need to play with the subtitles, as I still can't get the forced ones to show up. For audio, I just select "Auto passthru".
 
Yea generally with handbrake and blue ray rips selecting the "high profile" makes a pretty damm good file as is. I used to dabble in the advance tab, but it was just wasted time and clock cycles when something wasn't right, more often than not. After selecting high profile here is what I edit, most of it is preference some is quality related:

-Quality to R18
-Tune to Film, big difference IMO
-Profile High (already set)
-Pre-set speed to slower (or the slowest I can possibly stand with my QC Haswell)
-Level, I leave it default, plex handles it just fine. However if you have limited on a specific device, set accordingly.
-Subtitles, forced only, burn in (the only reason I HB in the first place)
-Audio, for big epic movies I leave in the MA and a 320kbps DD, one off films I don't care as much about (Romantic comedy) I just do DD.

Encode time is all over the place, especially if someone is watching a movie while I encode. If I k Generally its under 10 hours to complete. Keep my closet warm and dries my jeans faster haha :)




Since our main TV the family watches movies is on has only a Roku Stick (newer fast as hell one) if I need to play a rental disk (Red Box) I just hook up the PS4 real quick. I buy movies they will actually be watched over and over and rent movies that will only be watched one. I certainly don't waste HDD space on a movie that will never be watched again. Hence why I can get away with only a 120SSD/2tbHDD on my plex server. Makes backing up easier too.
 
s10010001 said:
Yea generally with handbrake and blue ray rips selecting the "high profile" makes a pretty damm good file as is. I used to dabble in the advance tab, but it was just wasted time and clock cycles when something wasn't right, more often than not. After selecting high profile here is what I edit, most of it is preference some is quality related:

-Quality to R18
-Tune to Film, big difference IMO
-Profile High (already set)
-Pre-set speed to slower (or the slowest I can possibly stand with my QC Haswell)
-Level, I leave it default, plex handles it just fine. However if you have limited on a specific device, set accordingly.
-Subtitles, forced only, burn in (the only reason I HB in the first place)
-Audio, for big epic movies I leave in the MA and a 320kbps DD, one off films I don't care as much about (Romantic comedy) I just do DD.

Encode time is all over the place, especially if someone is watching a movie while I encode. If I k Generally its under 10 hours to complete. Keep my closet warm and dries my jeans faster haha :)




Since our main TV the family watches movies is on has only a Roku Stick (newer fast as hell one) if I need to play a rental disk (Red Box) I just hook up the PS4 real quick. I buy movies they will actually be watched over and over and rent movies that will only be watched one. I certainly don't waste HDD space on a movie that will never be watched again. Hence why I can get away with only a 120SSD/2tbHDD on my plex server. Makes backing up easier too.
Click to expand...

That's about my settings. Although I left it at R20. Then I saved all of those as my own preset, so I don't forget to do one of them in the future. Like you, for the big, epic movies, I alter as little as possible. For the romantic comedy stuff (which generally have less audio to begin with), I don't need much. Especially since my audio receiver lives on 5 channel stereo about 95% of the time.

My only worry....if I handbrake these....how will they look on a 4k TV? They look exactly the same on my 1080p, but I don't want to have to re-rip them in the future.
 
Since they look pretty much the same Compared on a 1080p display they should look just as good as the original scaled up to 4K....

The quality should be proportional. I compared on my 2880 MacBook display, seems fine.
 
s10010001 said:
Yea generally with handbrake and blue ray rips selecting the "high profile" makes a pretty damm good file as is. I used to dabble in the advance tab, but it was just wasted time and clock cycles when something wasn't right, more often than not. After selecting high profile here is what I edit, most of it is preference some is quality related:

-Quality to R18
-Tune to Film, big difference IMO
-Profile High (already set)
-Pre-set speed to slower (or the slowest I can possibly stand with my QC Haswell)
-Level, I leave it default, plex handles it just fine. However if you have limited on a specific device, set accordingly.
-Subtitles, forced only, burn in (the only reason I HB in the first place)
-Audio, for big epic movies I leave in the MA and a 320kbps DD, one off films I don't care as much about (Romantic comedy) I just do DD.

Encode time is all over the place, especially if someone is watching a movie while I encode. If I k Generally its under 10 hours to complete. Keep my closet warm and dries my jeans faster haha :)




Since our main TV the family watches movies is on has only a Roku Stick (newer fast as hell one) if I need to play a rental disk (Red Box) I just hook up the PS4 real quick. I buy movies they will actually be watched over and over and rent movies that will only be watched one. I certainly don't waste HDD space on a movie that will never be watched again. Hence why I can get away with only a 120SSD/2tbHDD on my plex server. Makes backing up easier too.
Click to expand...

Dolby Digital 320kb/s is Laserdisc days. Any modern receiver should be able to handle the 640kb/s Dolby Digital that handbrake is capable of. 640 is bluray spec Dolby Digital. DVD was something like 480kb/s.
 
s10010001 said:
Well if you're being serious, there are plenty is guides on google. Now decideding what's best for YOU with handbrake setting is a different story lol. 12 hour encodes for that perfect file sucks a year down the road when you decide you did want HD-MA included or wish you compressed a little more to save space. Some of my be encoded are 12gb, down from 30gb.
Click to expand...

QuickSync can get that down to about 45 minutes for a bluray. You must set it constant quality of 18 or better though.
And your CPU will only be at about 5-10% usage so you can do other things.

I'm not picking on you, just adding additional info since we got some newly interested members in here.
 
Yea but quick sync won't have the same quality. At least last time I gave it a go...

As for the audio, that's all preference. I don't do super high end. I have a Onkyo receiver and Polk booksselfs with a kenwood sub. I have zero complaints with 320, handbrake high profile details to 160.
 
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s10010001 said:
Yea but quick sync won't have the same quality. At least last time I gave it a go...

As for the audio, that's all preference. I don't do super high end. I have a Onkyo receiver and Polk booksselfs with a kenwood sub. I have zero complaints with 320, handbrake high profile details to 160.
Click to expand...


It was terrible when everyone was first trying to implement it. Do some comparisons just for your own knowledge. Like I said though, you have to set it to 18 at least. Otherwise you do get some compression artifacts. So the downside is slightly larger file size, but the speed is incredible.

Have someone mix up two videos using both encodings and see if you can tell which is which.

Here's a shot from The BFG, lots of grain in the original in this shot. Can't tell which is superior.



Nup7JRr.jpg


dmG3NI6.jpg
 
Hmm yea honestly I haven't used it since I think sandy bridge. I'll give it a go again. I don't really encode all that often so the time doesn't bother me, I just tell my server to do it. It can take as long as it wants to complete. I only bother encoding if I buy something. Theses days few movies are worth buying IMO, we rent from Redbox a lot, I rip them and play them back in full via plex then deleate them when we're done. Is that wrong? Idk, don't care, we watch it once and I don't keep it before I like to keep my storage slim. (Or just drag the PS4 to out movie room and use the disk if I'm being lazy.) It's a Roku only room.
 
I took some time and played around with it again (On Haswell) and it just wasn't doing it for me. QuickSync with HB was either a much larger file than it needed to be for the quality or the quality was lacking. Maybe I'm doing something Wong.. IDK.

CPU encoding seems to still win. I can't fine any proof on SkyLake that its any better. westrock2000 posted screens shots but without knowing the file size and bitrate its meaningless.
 
So I did some more test with QuickSync. now I don't really know what settings to use with it. QuickSync does not have as many options in handbrake as standard CPU encoding. This was done on a Dual core haswell, not my quad core, that machine was busy. I encoded about 4 mins of a modern animated movies. I did High-profile R18 on both CPU and QS here is what I came up with.

QuickSync - Averaged 48.2fps - finished in ~5 mins - File size was 418mb
CPU/h.264/"slower" setting - Averaged 5.1fps - finished in ~20 mins - File size was 247mb

The CPU looked better by quite a bit and was much smaller. Do your own tests if you want to see it. So, it could be my Haswell CPU, maybe newer chips do better or I need to play with my QS settings. Its my understanding that the quality is directly effected by the CPU gen. However it only really gives me a single quality slider and since my sample was larger and less quality I can only guess sliding it either way will make it huge with better quality of smaller with even less quality...

IDK, im not sold on QuickSync. CPU encoding from Handbrake seems to yield me the best results by a long shot. So good I see little reason to leave the original BD files on my plex server.
 
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