I think I've had it with BluRay

N

no_control

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
1,429
Somehow TMT and PDVD both seem to be nothing but problematic for me. Not to mention all of my backups are in .iso format.

I'm considering switching over to .mkv for all of BD rips. I see this as a better solution for me. But I'm looking to the [H] community for any flws in my new plans.
Pros:
1. I gain stability as .mkv plays without issues ATM
2. I gain HDD space on the server. This is huge, my BD folder would essential be cut in half.
3. I don't use FLAC or have an HD receiver so AC3 through LCPM in 5.1 is about as good as it gets for me.
4. I don't have to deal with the ridculous screen lag and flashing while MB mounts the .iso then autoplay kicks in to load TMT then has to load the BD then finally I get to watch....previews.
5. I don't have to remember a different set of controls for in movie nav than MC
6. I can finally use the WD Live to watch my HD rips
7. WAF goes waaay up

Cons:
1. I lose menus (not a big deal as if i really want to watch a special feature I can just throw in the disc.
2. I lose FF / REW and chapter skip. I guess I'll still need a mouse
3. May lose some quality in both picture and audio
I'll still have to rip the BD and then convert tripling the time it take to add a title to the server.
4. I'll need to convert close to 90 existing BD ughh...
5. I could have just built a cheap atom system and W7 embedded for an HTPC and save a couple of hundred dollars.
6. I spent $$$ on both Power DVD Ultra and Total Media Theater Platinum. Apparently for no reason.

Still looks like the pros outweigh the cons.

Anyone want to chime in on why I shouldn't do this?
 
Last edited:
TMT= ?
PDVD = PowerDVD?

I doubt an Atom could decode bluray quality MKV rips without hardware acceleration.
BluRay is already H.264, the codec I commonly see used with MKV, so your going to lose quality...

We have a PS3... put BluRay in the drive, plays perfectly.
ISO rips on computer? MKV? AVI? DIVX? can browse to PC across the room and stream via PS3MediaServer.
Streaming Netflicks.
I noticed this morning Microcenter has PS3 in sale paper for $239 this week.

Couldn't be easier, no headache. Plays games too!
 
I am in a similar situation, though I haven't had any problems with playback through TMT3, and I am curious what others think as well. I would keep the higher quality audio tracks, no compression or transcoding, and I have over 100 BDs and 50 HDDVDS I would need to convert from .ISOs.
 
TMT = Total Media Theater Platinum

I've seen Atom/Ion systems play BD MKV without issue. But the Menu nav was a little laggy.

The HTPC I have I also use for OTA, Recorded playback, Hulu, Netflix, Movies, etc...
I have a PS3 and no desire to use it as as my primary source of entertainment. It's a game console same goes with the 360. Plus the PC menu just looks pimp with MB installed.
 
no_control said:
Cons:
1. I lose menus (not a big deal as if i really want to watch a special feature I can just throw in the disc. I have never missed these. In fact, I rather enjoy getting right to the movie. But as you say that is what the disc is for.
2. I lose FF / REW and chapter skip. I guess I'll still need a mouseNot true. My MKVs made from Blu-Ray's can still be skipped by chapter and fast forwarded. My keyboard has these 'Media Buttons'. YMMV
3. May lose some quality in both picture and audio Only if you compress. MKV is a container and as such does not alter the quality of the video/audio unless you specify your program to do so. My program simply takes my BR disc and removes the main movie and high def audio and places them into the MKV container.
I'll still have to rip the BD and then convert tripling the time it take to add a title to the server.
4. I'll need to convert close to 90 existing BD ughh... Can't help you there but I can tell you each BR I convert take about 60 minutes with a 4x machine and dual core AMD cpu.
5. I could have just built a cheap atom system and W7 embedded for an HTPC and save a couple of hundred dollars. I am considering this for the Living Room TV. The Atom alone isn't powerful enough but the Atom + ION can play your BR rips.

Still looks like the pros outweigh the cons. Only if you have your cons correct. Looks to me like there are no cons.

Anyone want to chime in on why I shouldn't do this?
Click to expand...

I love having my BRs in MKV format. But then I knew exactly what I wanted before I started and took the simplest route to get there.
.ISO are great to archive the entire disc for future editing.
MKV is great for watching videos.

I use MakeMKV and it lets you select which High-Def Audio track to rip (TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC3. etc) which video files to rip (Main movie, extras, etc.) and even the subtitles and forced subtitles.

I'm happy with it.
 
Menelmarar said:
TMT= ?
PDVD = PowerDVD?

I doubt an Atom could decode bluray quality MKV rips without hardware acceleration.
BluRay is already H.264, the codec I commonly see used with MKV, so your going to lose quality...

We have a PS3... put BluRay in the drive, plays perfectly.
ISO rips on computer? MKV? AVI? DIVX? can browse to PC across the room and stream via PS3MediaServer.
Streaming Netflicks.
I noticed this morning Microcenter has PS3 in sale paper for $239 this week.

Couldn't be easier, no headache. Plays games too!
Click to expand...


TMT is Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theater and using a PS3, or any other bluray player, and having to choose a movie by everyone gathering around your disc collection isn't as elegant of a solution as scrolling through them with MediaBrowser or something similar.
 
The Gonz said:
I use MakeMKV and it lets you select which High-Def Audio track to rip (TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC3. etc) which video files to rip (Main movie, extras, etc.) and even the subtitles and forced subtitles.
Click to expand...

I was using it until he added the decryption and wanted to charge $50. I already have AnyDVD. He should have kept it free without the decrytion. Hell I'd even pay $10-15 to use it like that. I bought enough useless software.

I use the eac3to method using another eac3to gui. It works really well. even though I really preferred MakeMKV.

I can FF/REW mkvs too but only using a 30 sec skip
 
I started doing this recently. I don't have any blurays to rip yet but I have some mkv blurays to watch. I started out watching movies through my ps3 then I transistion to rebuilding my whs into a htpc / media server with xbmc as the front end. XBMC with iPod touch app makes one hell of a combo.
 
I only store .mkv rips as I really don't have the raw storage space for full iso's... Don't feel bad about building a non atom/ion based htpc -- sure they play 1080p content back fine but mediabrowser isn't exactly the quickest thing in the world for browsing cover art on an atom. I say go for it, you already have the physical discs and don't have a hd receiver. Do a little experiment and see if you can tell the difference visually -- I know I don't sit close enough to my screen to really nit pick the differences. DTS quality still sounds great too.
 
From reading your sig. I am assuming the Server holds the BD and your HTPC just plays the video from there? what Ethernet connection are you using. When i was still using 10/100 the Video would max out the ethernet connection. after i switch everything to 10/100/1G. the connection was using 15-20% and the video playing was smoother, and i was able to do other internet stuff while watching.
 
Only ever had 1080p BD rips in MKV containers and wouldn't have it any other way. The quality of encoding I get keeps the PQ indecipherable from the orignal disk and they are worlds more convenient.
 
criccio said:
Only ever had 1080p BD rips in MKV containers and wouldn't have it any other way. The quality of encoding I get keeps the PQ indecipherable from the orignal disk and they are worlds more convenient.
Click to expand...

Just out of interest what method/profile of encoding do you use? I have been playing around with some (very basic) different x264 profiles for target bitrates, 2 or 1 pass, file size etc, but have some trouble settling on a consistent one for good quality. What kind of bitrates are you getting?

@OP - I went with mkvs for blurays for the same reason that others have suggested, smaller files and easier to play from media browser. In fact i just mix them in with the uncompressed dvds so i can browse everything and it all starts up in either TMT or MPC. Especially good for the wife that - only having to look in one place. However i don't have 90 bds to rip... :eek:
 
I use clownbd and anydvd to rip movie only iso without the ads/protections/etc. Haven't had any issues with it and you can rip directly from disc to the .iso and maintain full quality. Rips take ~1-2hrs prob.
 
Well I ran a little experiment ripping a fat BD disc like Batman Begins 49gb, ripped down to 18gb no compression saving about 30gb in about 25 minutes...nice!

Loaded it up on main HTPC and I can't tell the difference visually or sonically. My gear great is great but I don't think its so bad ass I'm going to be able to tell.

I'm debating if I want to bother with doing the DVD library as well...

To answer various questions above.

Yeah I'm using the HTPC & MSS in my Sig to play and store the media, My kid uses his 360 as and extender but lately I've seen him dicking around with WMC on his rig.

Network is all GigE

no compression or transcoding 9although with the space saved I might keep a second copy for mobile/360/PS3
 
I don't think you necessarily need to recode the video to put it into a MKV container. You should be able to demux the .bdmv, then remux your desired video and audio and subtitle streams into an MKV container. It would be faster and your would maintain the quality (and size) of the original stream. MKV also supports chapters, I don't see why those couldn't be converted as well. You need not lose much of anything in using the MKV container as far as I can see.

Dustin
 
no_control said:
Well I ran a little experiment ripping a fat BD disc like Batman Begins 49gb, ripped down to 18gb no compression saving about 30gb in about 25 minutes...nice!

no compression or transcoding 9although with the space saved I might keep a second copy for mobile/360/PS3
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but... say what?!?!

The content on the Blu-ray is 49GB and when you were done in 25 minutes you ended up with a movie file 18GB in size without using compression? Someone want to clue me in on what's wrong with this picture (no pun intended)... ?

I mean, I know you/I can use x264 and create some really damned fine encodes (I have "The Dark Knight" at about 9GB and nobody so far has been able to see any difference between my x264 rip and the original Blu-ray when played back on a 52" plasma...) but, I'd sure as hell love to know how you went from 49GB to 18GB with no compression. :)

I know the Blu-ray does have a lot of excess garbage on it so, perhaps "Batman Begins" just has too much crap on it and the actual main movie comes out to about 18GB which, if that's the case, is perfectly legit and sounds about right. While Blu-rays are capable of that ~50GB of storage with dual layers, the actual movies - even in 1080 format - don't need all that space, not even Avatar would or does use all that by itself.

Just curious... ;)

And for those that might be curious, you can use MakeMKV and it'll do the same thing: it will "rip" the content - preferably just the main movie - to the hard drive, slap it inside an MKV container, and you'll end up with the exact file that was on the Blu-ray including everything related to the main movie (all the soundtracks, etc) in one nice neat package. Not a bad app, actually, but I still prefer to do an x264 encode of my own even in spite of it taking time to get it done. The files are anywhere from 2 to 5x smaller than the actual Blu-ray main movie content size so, a lot more can fit on a drive.
 
Bahamut said:
I'm sorry but... say what?!?!

The content on the Blu-ray is 49GB and when you were done in 25 minutes you ended up with a movie file 18GB in size without using compression? Someone want to clue me in on what's wrong with this picture (no pun intended)... ?
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing
 
Audio files are a huge piece of Blu-Ray discs....if he picked the 5.1 source instead of the full tilt 7.1 audio...that would give him a shit ton of recovery. I think a lot of people don't understand how much space audio requires.
 
Elledan said:
And costs as much as your house, just about :p
Click to expand...

If they allowed it to stream to other PC's/compliant devices like the old firewire box, it would be fairly cost reasonable if you compare real storage cost versus the price of that device.
 
Bahamut said:
I'm sorry but... say what?!?!

The content on the Blu-ray is 49GB and when you were done in 25 minutes you ended up with a movie file 18GB in size without using compression? Someone want to clue me in on what's wrong with this picture (no pun intended)... ?

I mean, I know you/I can use x264 and create some really damned fine encodes (I have "The Dark Knight" at about 9GB and nobody so far has been able to see any difference between my x264 rip and the original Blu-ray when played back on a 52" plasma...) but, I'd sure as hell love to know how you went from 49GB to 18GB with no compression. :)

I know the Blu-ray does have a lot of excess garbage on it so, perhaps "Batman Begins" just has too much crap on it and the actual main movie comes out to about 18GB which, if that's the case, is perfectly legit and sounds about right. While Blu-rays are capable of that ~50GB of storage with dual layers, the actual movies - even in 1080 format - don't need all that space, not even Avatar would or does use all that by itself.

Just curious... ;)

And for those that might be curious, you can use MakeMKV and it'll do the same thing: it will "rip" the content - preferably just the main movie - to the hard drive, slap it inside an MKV container, and you'll end up with the exact file that was on the Blu-ray including everything related to the main movie (all the soundtracks, etc) in one nice neat package. Not a bad app, actually, but I still prefer to do an x264 encode of my own even in spite of it taking time to get it done. The files are anywhere from 2 to 5x smaller than the actual Blu-ray main movie content size so, a lot more can fit on a drive.
Click to expand...

I guess I'll clarify it for eveyone whos "doubting". :p The folder was 47gb my bad for rounding it up to an even "50", second folder has a crapload of other files, backgrounds, metadata, iphone sized rip. The actual .iso file is 48.358GB since we're be technical. I used the above referenced link to extract the video track and core audio (5.1 DTS). No compression is being used AFAIK, this isn't handbrake or DVDshrink. and the resulting .mkv file is 18.754GB and yeah using my main rig (sig) it only took about 25 minutes. Sorry I wasn't using a stopwatch. ;)

I don't know what voodoo or magic happens during the process. I'm just reporting the facts. I ripped Angels & Demons and it only went warning I'm about to esitmate from a hair over 40gb to a hair under 30gb. Apparently it can vary quite a bit from one movie to the next.

You'll also note I mention MakeMKV. I used to use it now I don't. I also refuse to recommend it. I can't stand this new trend of using the public as contributors of your "project" then turning around and monetizing it. I’m all for trying to make some money but if you going to try to monetize your freeware product at least be reasonable about pricing it. Same goes for MetaData 2.0 that guy can fuck off too. Neither of these programs IMO have the kind of value that I would pay for what they’re asking. /rant.
 
No worries, that just means you "ripped" the main movie alone which is perfectly understandable.

From what I can tell, MakeMKV is still free and has been since it first appeared. I know the rumor mill is that "once out of beta, we will charge a fee for its use" but I've yet to see any such notices or news coming out, and the app has been around for what, almost 2 years now. It still does exactly what it says it does, and there really is no easier way to get content from a physical disc directly to a hard drive that I've yet to find.

I use it as I mentioned: to "rip" the content (main movie) to an MKV on the hard drive which then gets fed into HandBrake (I use Ubuntu x64 and HandBrake x64 for this) for output as a 720p encoded file. 1080 is all nice but, to me I've only seen a handful of movies that truly push the limits of 720p in terms of raw clarity and to my aging eyes they look just damned fine.

Besides, when I'm done I end up with an MKV that looks fantastic, has the soundtracks/extra dialogue if needed (director's comments, etc) and is always under 10GB in size.

To each his own I guess. There's always another way to get a job done...
 
I hear you. I have a lot of storage so even the ripped dvd's at 20gb or so isn't too bad. I didn't mind when they were 40gb either. So I don't see the need to encode it. But you make a complling argument, as I agree on the quality.

As far MakeMKV goes. They may be following Google product release stratagy regarding going Beta for ever, but I prefer to use either free (and the buggy, unsupported nature of it) or pay for a really well put togther piece of work that has real support behind it.
 
Makes sense but... how many apps have been in a near-perpetual beta for years and years? :D
 
i love the MKV container... and it supports chapters... so it will not be long until someone gets a good plugin for chapter support in WMC

i do not even own a Blu-Ray player (other than my PC drive) or software to play a Blu-Ray

I just get them, rip them and play the mkv
 
Yeah, if you're going to be streaming them, make sure you have all 1G network, and SATA of course.
I had a RAID0 with a few IDE drives a while back. I would be able to watch normal videos(750meg) without a problem, but forget any sort of HD movies/TV. I upgraded to a 2T drive, and all the problems went away. :)
I really want to change out my wireless G router for a N one, but I'd probably be back to where I was before I hard wired everything.
Still haven't tried to stream BR yet, but, that's my next test.
 
i can stream a BR rip over my linksys n router to 1 notebook w/o issue...

anymore than that might not work out well
 
High Profile Film, just for a simplistic DVD rip? Isn't that a bit excessive (no pun intended since we're talking about compression, bits, etc...)? I mean, Normal works just fine, looks exactly like the original DVD content and is way faster with that MPEG2 source material which simply isn't going to benefit from such a High Profile encoding.

I decided to do a short test and see what gives, so here's the results. I chose a chapter of "The International" (great flick), chapter 18 specifically for it being a very well lit scene shot at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC. Bright colors, decent amount of action, an all around great scene to test an encoding with. The source is the retail DVD which I own. I used DVDecrypter to rip Chapter 18 alone (with IFO mode) to the hard drive and then used that VOB file fed into HandBrake.

I used the standard 0.9.4 public release of HandBrake (not one of the nightly builds they offer now) so it's fairly standard and can be replicated. The only alteration over the stock settings for each encode was to change the audio to basic stereo output at 160 Kbps - with the High Profile encode it will default to including the AC3 soundtrack which I disabled/deleted and did it straight stereo.

Here's the results:

Normal Profile
Encoding time: 4 minutes 43 seconds
Resulting file size: 43.3 MB

High Profile
Encoding time: 11 minutes 57 seconds
Resulting file size: 44.9 MB

I then played each file in MPC-HC and set the options to display the Statistics; at the end of each clip I noted the bitrates as avg/cur (the current one won't really matter since it's the bitrate of the final frame but the average does since it's the average for the entire clip.

Normal Profile
Average bitrate: 747 Kbps

High Profile
Average bitrate: 787 Kbps

So... to me the files are effectively the same, with the High Profile coming in at a slightly larger file with a slightly higher average bitrate but taking nearly 3x as long to create.

I think they both look pretty much exactly the same as well, but, just in case I'm truly going blind, I uploaded both to MediaFire so someone else can tell me if yes, I am going blind and there is a massive huge difference in image quality. :)

http://www.mediafire.com/?njvm0zozukq - Normal Profile - Stereo sound - 43.3MB MKV

http://www.mediafire.com/?jw2jg3djqm0#2 - High Profile - Stereo sound - 44.9MB MKV

Someone take a look.

Now, the question is: is the High Profile setting for encoding DVD content worth the extra time given on this particular clip it's nearly 3x longer... ok, maybe 2.75x as long but, even so. Not everyone has a massive supercooled monster x264 quad/hex/octa core crunching beast - I'm stuck with a lowly Core 2 Duo T5500 and a gig of RAM but, hey, I get the job done. It just takes a bit longer...

Considering this movie is 1 hour and 58 minutes long, I'd much rather have it encoded (doing some simplistic math here based on the 6:38 clip length and 4:43 encoding time) in about an hour and ten minutes give or take a few than close to 6...

Are regular retail DVDs really worth that much more time given their MPEG2 standard definition quality?
 
rive22 said:
I was thinking the same thing
Click to expand...

Actually I used tsMuxer and removed everything except the main movie, main TrueHD audio track and all subtitles, then used imgBurn and it is only 18gb. Heres a pic:
Batman%20Begins.jpg


Just my 2 cents.:)
 
Bahamut said:
From what I can tell, MakeMKV is still free and has been since it first appeared. I know the rumor mill is that "once out of beta, we will charge a fee for its use" but I've yet to see any such notices or news coming out, and the app has been around for what, almost 2 years now. It still does exactly what it says it does, and there really is no easier way to get content from a physical disc directly to a hard drive that I've yet to find.

snip
Click to expand...

So I just fired up makeMKV today and I got the message that I need to purchase an activation key. Thought it might be an error so I downloaded the program again from makeMKV... still no joy.

Oh well, guess it's back to anydvdHD + clownBD
 
Hmm well I have no problems with Blu-ray iso images and my HTPC.
AnyDVD HD to rip to iso
Virtual CloneDrive to mount iso
Lastest version of TotalMedia Theatre 3 Platinum
Everything works perfectly
So far I have 2 1.5TB drives for blu-ray images and 1 1.5TB drive for DVD images. I have one more sata port on my mobo which will be for another 1.5 or 2TB drive for more blu-ray images.
 
Jester1550 said:
So I just fired up makeMKV today and I got the message that I need to purchase an activation key. Thought it might be an error so I downloaded the program again from makeMKV... still no joy.

Oh well, guess it's back to anydvdHD + clownBD
Click to expand...

Could try uninstalling it then running CCleaner to wipe out traces of the app from the Registry (install dates, keys, etc) and then reinstall and see what happens. I only use MakeMKV for testing on random occasions; I don't leave it installed, just install it for the testing, then get rid of it and reinstall as required at a later time.

But then again, maybe they're finally going to make it pay-for-play. Shame...
 
I just downloaded and installed makemkv on a machine that I have never run makemkv on before. Everything installed fine.

It is probably just an out of date beta version that is giving you problems. During the beta the activation keys are only good for 30 days. When the keys expire, they release a new version with updated keys. Just uninstall your old version and download version 1.5.5 from their main download page..
 
edit...

Found it. They have a reg key online that unlocks until July... just search their forums
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top