Ripping Blu-Ray: What do you use? Taking advantage of CUDA

[MySongRanHills]

I recently got a new laptop and am now going through and ripping my extensive Blu-Ray collection. My question is what should i use? My processor is a Core i7 2720QM. So it is quad core with HT so it would be nice to find something that could push 8 threads. Also for video encoding my video card is a Nvidia 525m so it would be to my advantage to use something that works with CUDA right? I'm aware of handbrake and ripbot and some others just wondering what people are using and what might best fit my setup.
Thanks.

 

[grimster]

There are no h264 encoders that use a GPU to assist. There is, however, a program called DGDecNV to offload the decoding the original Blu-ray stream to the GPU, instead of using CPU cycles. This is also the only sure-fire way to reliably decode all three of the Blu-ray codecs (h264, VC-1, and MPEG-2) from a raw stream.

I use eac3to in a shell to rip my Blu-rays. There are GUIs for it if you can't deal with typing commands. I decode the lossless tracks and encode them to FLAC. I use DGDecNV as a frame server to x264, which is the best codec on earth, and it is highly optimized for multiple threads. I run 18 threads (6 actual cores + 6 virtual cores x 1.5). For encoding, my whole chain is 64-bit, which does make a HUGE difference in speed over 32-bit crap.

If you want simplicity, I have no idea what to recommend. Where are you going to store all these movies?

 

[MySongRanHills]

Wow, you've completely lost me. Guess that's a good thing as it usually means learning is coming .

I thought all Blu-Rays were mpeg4(isn't this the same as H.264?) I thought DVDs were mpeg2 and I have never heard of VC-1.

When you speak of DGDecNV decoding the original Blu-Ray stream your referring to when it is first ripped from disc to HDD, correct? Why is this the only sure-fire way?

I have never heard of x264, is there wide support for it yet? I'm running all 64bit.

I guess I should back track here for a minute and explain my goal. Eventually I'd like to have a 10TB file server hooked to HTPC via 1Gb ethernet to stream Blu-Rays. Right now I have a portable USB3 hdd that can plug into my tv. So it would be nice to play them back on there. I don't need losses codecs but I have a very discerning eye(not so much ear) and would rather have a bigger file size then any noticable loss of quality.

I'm fine with command line as long if it has an advantage to gui and isn't just shits and giggles.

Thank you a lot I feel like I'm on the right track.

 

[grimster]

Both h.264 and VC-1 are under MPEG-4, MPEG-2 was all there was when Blu-ray came out, and the first couple years of releases were all MPEG-2. There have been a lot of re-releases/re-encodes since then with the updated codecs.

When I am referring to DGDecNV decoding, I am referring to the video stream. First you need to rip the Blu-ray to the drive, and eac3to will let you rip it into elementary streams (video, audio, subtitles). Then once that is done, you use a frame-server, such as DGDecNV, and it analyzes the file, and makes an index for whatever reason. That just tells how to decode the raw video stream into an uncompressed image. Then you use an ACTUAL frame-server, AviSynth, to take that decoded video and server it up to an encoder, x264.

Blu-ray drive -> decrypter -> eac3to -> Video Stream -> DGDecNV -> AviSynth -> x264 -> MKVMerge
                                      \                                            /
                                        -------------> Audio Stream ------------->

x264 is simply a program to encode to h.264.

Here are some links:
- eac3to
- DGDecNV (I would pay for it. It's cheap, and the greatest, and only thing for this purpose.)
- AviSynth x64 (get the 4/16/10 version)
- x264 (choose "64bit 8bit-depth")
- MKVToolnix

You won't be able to really encode good files and have your TV play it back. They are VERY strict on standards and formats, to the point where you will go crazy trying to get stuff to work. It's best to just have your laptop play it on your TV, or an HTPC with a nice amount of storage do it. If you really want simplicity, then I would just not even do any of this and get a simple Blu-ray player from an electronics store. Doing this on a laptop is going to be a pain in the ass. Video takes a long time to encode.