HTPC / PVR / BD MKV's

I

Ideon

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I am rebuilding my current HTPC to something a little more powerful / updated. (I'll be posting a build log when all the parts arrive and I have some free time to build it)

But I want to ask some questions before I purchase some key parts of it. I am looking to build a HTPC with a Ceton Infinitv4 as back end with XBMC running as my front end. I also want to put a BD player in the HTPC to start ripping my BD collection. I am going to be using a I3 2120 CPU and I am wondering if that will be able to handle the work load of ripping a BD while recording TV in the back ground or should I possibly place the BD player in my main rig (see sig) to take some of the workload off from it? Everything will be stored on the file server, TV shows, BD mkv's, music ect.



I also have questions on Make MKV. I’ll be new to ripping blue rays and I’d like to make them high quality rips. I’ve read on other threads about another program I think it was called hand break? Or using multiple programs in conjunction to do this? Any advice for someone new at this would be great and thanks in advance!
 
Ideon said:
I also have questions on Make MKV. I’ll be new to ripping blue rays and I’d like to make them high quality rips. I’ve read on other threads about another program I think it was called hand break? Or using multiple programs in conjunction to do this? Any advice for someone new at this would be great and thanks in advance!
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It's Handbrake not Handbreak. Personally I use Ripbot for Blu ray to MKV's in conjunction with AnyDVD.
Another suggestion is MakeMKV

Handbrake is free, but AnyDVD HD and MakeMKV for Bluray use are paid applications. MakeMKV for CD or DVD use is still currently free.

An example tutorial.



A googled Handbrake tutorial regarding BluRay ripping
And another Googled tutorial

Using the i3 will work, it'll consume some time, but works for ripping just fine. A more powerful processor will cut down the time of course.
 
You should be fine ripping and PVRing, might want to get a fast HD though to avoid problems.

MakeMKV spits out uncompressed Blurays, these are usually 19-40 GB in size. You use Handbrake to compress them to save on space, usually you can get excellent copies compressed to around 8-10GB
 
Thanks for in input. So i would be better off putting the blue ray player in my main rig to cut some time off from it?

And i can use Make MKV to rip them then compress them down with Handbrake. That sounds easy enough. I'm at work or else I would dive into the tutorials but I'll leave that for at home. I don't mind buying software as long as it's not over priced.
 
The only reason to use Handbrake is to decrease file size while decreasing quality. I use MakeMKV but I don't touch my files after that. Using MakeMKV, you end up with 100% quality that you'd get watching the blu-ray. It just depends on whether or not you want to pony up the money to buy enough hard drives to hold full quality blu-ray rips.

MakeMKV is so simple to use, I love it.
 
mls1995 said:
The only reason to use Handbrake is to decrease file size while decreasing quality. I use MakeMKV but I don't touch my files after that. Using MakeMKV, you end up with 100% quality that you'd get watching the blu-ray. It just depends on whether or not you want to pony up the money to buy enough hard drives to hold full quality blu-ray rips.

MakeMKV is so simple to use, I love it.
Click to expand...

Interesting. maybe i will look into larger file storage to hold larger MKV's. If i can have really nice quality rips I'd rather pay the extra money for that in hard drives honestly.
 
InfiniTV needs WMC7 as a front end to record/watch copy protected shows, unless all of your shows don't have DRM. Are you planning on using this to view live tv? Last i checked you needed WMC7 for live tv viewing with a cable card.
 
I don't know much about the Infinitv, but if it is as p0lish said.
Then I recommend the hdhomerun prime. It is networked so you could even make an itx sized htpc if you wanted, because you don't need any adding cards.
The hdhomerun prime is very easy to use with anything Linux, but I only have used myth front and backend. It is easy with the os in general though, and it is even easier with windows.
 
InfiniTV and the HDHR Prime work on the exact same principles regarding WMC and DRM. InfiniTV can be networked as well.

I believe there is CC support in XBMC as long as the show isn't copy-once (which IMO is only half a solution). It will all depend on if your cable provider copy-protects its shows - and I'd bank on more and more providers moving to this (my already does for everything).

Personally, I'd stick to WMC exclusively for all your DVR/TV needs until another (fully) viable solution develops that isn't depedant on your channels being copy-freely...
 
I use MakeMKV, it's a great program. Then I use Handbrake to reduce file size and (still working it out) crop movies so there's no goddam widescreen.

Handbrake is less good than MakeMKV, it's kind of confusing, but it does give you a hell of a lot of options.
 
I'm still waiting on my BD player to arrive (lame fed-ex shipping) and a few other parts just yet to build my new HTPC. If WMC is going to run Infitni TV better then XBMC 12 RC3 then sure I'll just use that. I should of mentioned that my cable provider is Comcast (my options are limited and they all suck TBH)
 
I'm going to threadjack, sort of, since it's on the same topic.

For the past 5+ years in the HTPC scene I've been doing BDMV and VIDEO_TS rips into my growing media server (currently at 16TB). Well it's full again and I've been throwing drives at it like nobody's business because I'm too wary about compressing beautiful Blu-ray movies into MKV files or making low quality DVD even lower quality.

I think it's time to begin a conversion project, so I downloaded MakeMKV and Handbrake to compare. Both seem easy to use. When selecting High Profile on Handbrake and selecting Burned In on subtitles (which incidentally didn't work), it took over 10 hours to convert Restrepo into MKV. But using MakeMKV only took minutes, and the subtitles DID work.

Any reason why Handbrake was taking 10 hours and why subtitles didn't work when selecting Burned In? I think MakeMKV made the subtitle Forced instead of Burned In. I'd try that on Handbrake but I don't want to wait another 10 hours to find out if it works or not.

Using MakeMKV, Restrepo BDMV was reduced to 13GB from 28GB and the quality was fantastic. I couldn't tell much difference at all.

Edit: I've also tried using DVDFab which I've been using for the last 5 years for direct rips (great piece of software - no DRM circumvention needed, works almost every time), but for some reason it keeps failing mp4 and mkv conversion from the BDMV folder. Too bad. It's really easy to use and familiar to me.
 
MakeMKV performs no compression or re-encoding of the source material that I'm aware of (full bit-rate rip to MKV). Handbrake does, which explains why it takes 10 hours.
 
MakeMKV is a ripper while Handbrake is an encoder. They are different tools. In the case that anyone re-encodes chances are it's going to be in H.264. Handbrake is nothing more than a frontend for this process.

Unless you've got some amazing eyesight (and some people do) the chances of noticing the difference is going to be slim. For some people, myself included, the space savings is just too great and the quality is so close that it's worth it.

In terms of the time it takes to re-encode it can be substantial. For reference I had a Core i7 overclocked modestly (3.4 - 3.6 GHz) and it took about 3.5 - 4 hours depending on the movie to re-encode 1080 content. That machine was later upgraded to a Opteron 2P system and now I'm down to about an 1 and a half give or take (Constant Quality HP RF:17). I'll probably upgrade this thing again. If I can get it down to 20 or 30 minutes for a full length movie at the same settings I'll be pretty happy.
 
thanks for the write-up kac77. I'll give Handbrake another shot with RF:17. Been tinkering with it using kids cartoons DVD because it only takes a few minutes. I think I figured out Handbrake.

The reason I couldn't get subtitles to work was because I "add" them, then check the box "burn in" or "forced". I didn't realize you were supposed to check the box BEFORE you hit "add".
 
I just use MakeMKV and XBMC. I like having full quality sound and picture. MakeMKV takes most blu-rays down to 18-25 gigs. All with out lossing any quality. Not worth it to me to go through compressing every movie just to make it look worse and take 2-3 hours per movie. I'll just buy more hard drives. Granted I watch movies on a 50 inch and 120 inch mostly.
 
thegrinch said:
InfiniTV and the HDHR Prime work on the exact same principles regarding WMC and DRM. InfiniTV can be networked as well.

I believe there is CC support in XBMC as long as the show isn't copy-once (which IMO is only half a solution). It will all depend on if your cable provider copy-protects its shows - and I'd bank on more and more providers moving to this (my already does for everything).

Personally, I'd stick to WMC exclusively for all your DVR/TV needs until another (fully) viable solution develops that isn't depedant on your channels being copy-freely...
Click to expand...

Seconded. I have a Ceton InfiniTV4 PCIE and if you are not running WM7 and have HDCP between the computer and the screen it will not work.

Unless your screen doesnt support HDCP then you will need an adapter from Monoprice ;) I had to do this.
 
The Lurker said:
Seconded. I have a Ceton InfiniTV4 PCIE and if you are not running WM7 and have HDCP between the computer and the screen it will not work.

Unless your screen doesnt support HDCP then you will need an adapter from Monoprice ;) I had to do this.
Click to expand...

My current HTPC setup is HTPC > Receiver > TV Via HDMI I use a ATI 5450 which supports HDCP is this the same thing?


Also WM7 is Windows Media Center on Win 7? too many acronyms out there sorry!
 
When tinkering with encoder settings you can specify a start and stop timestamp in handbrake so you only encode say a minute of the movie. Do a bunch of encodes for that same 1 minute clip and compare to see what RF you find acceptable.
 
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