Ripping Blurays for WDTV Suggestions

[thegimp03]

It's just been awhile since I'd used MakeMKV. I prefer to run AnyDVD in the background, scan the disc with BDinfo and then rip it from the correct playlist with TsMuxer. Just gives a nice clean, uncompressed that plays back on pretty much anything as well as leaving a file that is great to run through Ripbot or Handbrake. Works everytime.

Do you rip using AnyDVD? They have options to rip it to an image or files. Which way works best?

 

[smitbret]

Do you rip using AnyDVD? They have options to rip it to an image or files. Which way works best?

I don't use AnyDVD to rip, I just use it for the decryption, but that's only because I already have my system that I'm comfortable with.

I would rip it to files since that will leave you with the most "workable" setup. Some media streamers will read and playback an .iso, but most won't. The only other time that I would rip to .iso was if I was just wanting a 1-to-1 copy and was going to just burn it to a blank BR.

Even if you choose to rip to .iso, you can still unpack it to files, though. If you just wanted an orderly way to store BR backups then it would probably be preferred since you only have one file to deal with.

 

[thegimp03]

I don't use AnyDVD to rip, I just use it for the decryption, but that's only because I already have my system that I'm comfortable with.

I would rip it to files since that will leave you with the most "workable" setup. Some media streamers will read and playback an .iso, but most won't. The only other time that I would rip to .iso was if I was just wanting a 1-to-1 copy and was going to just burn it to a blank BR.

Even if you choose to rip to .iso, you can still unpack it to files, though. If you just wanted an orderly way to store BR backups then it would probably be preferred since you only have one file to deal with.

Thanks for the info., I'm always looking for ideas about the best way to go about doing this. I ripped one of my blurays recently with AnyDVD to files and whereas usually there is one "large" file which is obviously the movie, in this case, there were multiple files all around 20-30 minutes long and all around the same size. I usually use Ripbot to create the .mkv files - but in this case, I'm not sure if I would be able to because Ripbot just wants to be pointed to the largest file usually and I don't believe it allows for multiple files which this case would require...but it's been awhile since I've converted to .mkv. Recently I'm just keeping the folders with the files in them. What do you think is the best way to deal with this?

 

[smitbret]

Thanks for the info., I'm always looking for ideas about the best way to go about doing this. I ripped one of my blurays recently with AnyDVD to files and whereas usually there is one "large" file which is obviously the movie, in this case, there were multiple files all around 20-30 minutes long and all around the same size. I usually use Ripbot to create the .mkv files - but in this case, I'm not sure if I would be able to because Ripbot just wants to be pointed to the largest file usually and I don't believe it allows for multiple files which this case would require...but it's been awhile since I've converted to .mkv. Recently I'm just keeping the folders with the files in them. What do you think is the best way to deal with this?

My playback device is a PS3, so there's two limitations that I have to work around. First, the PS3 doesn't support .mkv files so I prefer an .m2ts file to an .mkv. Secondly, PS3 will not stream VC-1 video tracks, so I have to run them through Ripbot and convert the video to AVC.

If you are just trying to rip the movie, here's what I do and it works 100% of the time.... so far <crosses finger.

1 - AnyDVD HD running in the background

2 - Open the BR in BDinfo and identify the largest playlist, rather than the largest file. A lot of Blu-Rays now divide the movie up into several video files as an added copy protection, but if you look for the largest playlist you'll be good to go.

3 - Open the playlist in TsMuxer and select the video stream and pick the correct audio stream. I don't have the equipment to decode DTS or DTS-HD audio, so I check the Downconvert HD Audio and it will extract the normal DTS track.

4a - Click M2TS Muxing, pick your destination folder and about 30-40 minutes later you'll have an .m2ts file that will play back or import to almost anything.

---------or (because my setup can't decode DTS)----------

4b - Demux the video and DTS streams to a temp folder. Then convert the DTS stream to 640kb 5.1 AC3 with MeGui. Remux the video and new audio stream to an .m2ts file. Done. If I'm gonna run it through Ripbot264 to decrease the size anyway, I'll just skip this step and do Step 4a instead, letting Ripbot take care of the audio conversion.

 

[velillen]

I also use makemkv and handbrake. Maybe it's my network (although I doubt it since I have cat6 cables and gigabit router/switch) but I cant play uncompressed mkv's over the network via my WDTV Live. After 5-10 mins, it starts stuttering and audio/video will lose sync. So I've been using handbrake to compress them down to 12MBps or so

its the wdtv live if anything. I have cat6/gigabit switch/router and have no problem streaming uncompressed across my network. To be fair i use htpc's in the two locations istream to though.

But i do remember my wdtv (the original) having problems playing higher bitrate 1080p movies back even off external hard drives. Thought it was better with the wdtv live but glad i didnt buy one based off you saying it doesnt work well

 

[FFactory0x]

its the wdtv live if anything. I have cat6/gigabit switch/router and have no problem streaming uncompressed across my network. To be fair i use htpc's in the two locations istream to though.

But i do remember my wdtv (the original) having problems playing higher bitrate 1080p movies back even off external hard drives. Thought it was better with the wdtv live but glad i didnt buy one based off you saying it doesnt work well

Could you guys give me an idea of what are the specs of your HTPC. I am looking to build a new one for cheap.

 

[sm625]

15 gigs... yikes. I have been watching rips of a tv series and just recently I realised they are only 105MB per 45 minute episode. They dont look great but they look close to netflix streaming quality.

 

[sdifox]

15 gigs... yikes. I have been watching rips of a tv series and just recently I realised they are only 105MB per 45 minute episode. They dont look great but they look close to netflix streaming quality.

seriously? HDD is dirt cheap. 2TB ext HDD is under a hundred now.

 

[0roo0roo]

Considering how cheap bluray players are these days, a total waste of time.

 

[smitbret]

Considering how cheap bluray players are these days, a total waste of time.

What is?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Considering how cheap bluray players are these days, a total waste of time.

That's true, but many people just want the movie and not have to wait 5 minutes because it has to load warnings about stealing a movie they bought, previews, and ridiculous menu animations. Plus they might not want to have to deal with swapping discs and possibly have a good network media setup.

 

[0roo0roo]

That's true, but many people just want the movie and not have to wait 5 minutes because it has to load warnings about stealing a movie they bought, previews, and ridiculous menu animations. Plus they might not want to have to deal with swapping discs and possibly have a good network media setup.

Yea but with the bluray you get full quality, the time and effort to rip blurays never mind the cost in space and the rest is way more than the time waiting for the menu, it just makes no sense at all, bluray players are under 100 bucks these days.

 

[velillen]

Yea but with the bluray you get full quality,

i get the same full quality with my rips as if the bluray disc was in the player. untouched video and HD audio in an mkv vs a disc is th eonly difference

the time and effort to rip blurays

Takes all of 3 minutes. Put disc in player. Start makemkv. Let it analyze disc (longest part...maybe 1-2 minutes tops) then select desired track and click create. Turn tv off and come back in an hour and its done. Would hardly say its time consuming.

never mind the cost in space and the rest is way more than the time waiting for the menu, it just makes no sense at all, bluray players are under 100 bucks these days.

Definitely a per person sort of deal in my opinion. For someone like my parents who like things simple, dont really and dont really watch many movies, than bluray player all the way. Same even with the movies they get to watch are mostly netflix movies they only watch once (well they have been known to rent the same movie again and watch it without realizing they have seen it already)

Now for someone who wants to watch the movies in multiple rooms and has quite a few blurays (i have ~350 or so movies/tv show discs) it makes a bit more sense. Would be annoying as i go to bed to have to go back to the living room, find the disc, then go put it in the bluray player. vs getting in bed scrolling through list of movies and pressing play.

I always laugh when people mention the cost though. Its really not that expensive and its no different than some people putting subs in their cars or buying a jetski. i find both stupid so why would anyone do either of those? (ok a jetski would be cool). Or heck dont buy a starbucks coffee for a month and you'd have enough saved to do it or in my case work one saturday of overtime and viola media server paid for.

 

[frowertr]

Yea but with the bluray you get full quality, the time and effort to rip blurays never mind the cost in space and the rest is way more than the time waiting for the menu, it just makes no sense at all, bluray players are under 100 bucks these days.

I guess it depends on the person's usage. In my case, I use SageTV with extenders. So I stream content from my SageTV server into three rooms in my home. So I can watch my Blu-rays in any room from just a few click of the remote control.

So ripping for me makes mucho sense. Besides, ripping a blu-ray is simple. Stick it in the drive and let MakeMKV do its thing.

And as far as BD players go, I guess I can't comment on the cheaper players. I got an Oppo for my home theater room. I can only afford one of those bad boys!

 

[abaez]

Yea but with the bluray you get full quality, the time and effort to rip blurays never mind the cost in space and the rest is way more than the time waiting for the menu, it just makes no sense at all, bluray players are under 100 bucks these days.

3tb drives are nearing $100. That's 120 blurays at 25gb each. I guess if you like having to deal with discs and all that it's fine, but I'll take the point my mouse and click method to watch a movie.

 

[smitbret]

Yea but with the bluray you get full quality, the time and effort to rip blurays never mind the cost in space and the rest is way more than the time waiting for the menu, it just makes no sense at all, bluray players are under 100 bucks these days.

This is not the first thread with this theme that he's hijacked.

What OrooOroo doesn't understand is that many of us have several TVs that we'd like to watch our movies on. For instance, my main movie playback device is a PS3, but I also have 4 DirecTV boxes throughout the house that support local streaming. I suppose I could go out and spend $600 on BR players for each of these locations and add another box to each spot, or I could spend $100 on a HDD and 35 minutes ripping the BR to that HDD and save myself the space, trouble and never mind the possibility of damaging the disc. I kind of prefer the idea that the actual BR disc is the backup if I ever need it.

Takes less time to set up the rip and walk away than it does to wait for the menus, warnings and java to load from a Blu-Ray. Some guys just don't get it.

 

[0roo0roo]

I do understand, I've built htpc to play with, and these things are better in theory than practice. Movie takes 2-3 hours, and if it takes a minute to go to the shelf and pop one in for every 2-3 hours, it is no big deal at all. I understand this level of effort for music juke boxes, now there the utility is obvious, for films though, it is mostly doing it just because you can, not because it makes any sense at all.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I do understand, I've built htpc to play with, and these things are better in theory than practice. Movie takes 2-3 hours, and if it takes a minute to go to the shelf and pop one in for every 2-3 hours, it is no big deal at all. I understand this level of effort for music juke boxes, now there the utility is obvious, for films though, it is mostly doing it just because you can, not because it makes any sense at all.

It makes a lot of sense to me. I like to choose my movie from Media Center (with Media Browser) where I have actors, plot, poster, etc. to select from. I don't want to choose Blu-ray or HD-DVD movies separately from the others. Also, since I'm not taking them out and using the disk, they tend to last much longer.

Not everyone thinks the way you do.

 

[corwin]

Could you guys give me an idea of what are the specs of your HTPC. I am looking to build a new one for cheap.

Specs are going to be all over the place and cheap is relative...FWIW mine are below, built a couple years ago but still plenty powerful for about anything

Silverstone GD01B case
Jetway HA06 MB w/ATI HD3200 integrated video
Phenom x4 9600
6gb DDR2 1066
LG BD/DVD-RW drive
Pioneer DVD-RW drive
80gb OS drive
3x1tb RAID 5 array
RocketRAID PCIe 4 port RAID card
Avermedia combo HD tuner card
Wireless N card with Rosewill external high gain antenna
Vista Ultimate retail
Logitech DiNovo bluetooth KB/mouse

 

[smitbret]

I do understand, I've built htpc to play with, and these things are better in theory than practice. Movie takes 2-3 hours, and if it takes a minute to go to the shelf and pop one in for every 2-3 hours, it is no big deal at all. I understand this level of effort for music juke boxes, now there the utility is obvious, for films though, it is mostly doing it just because you can, not because it makes any sense at all.

I take 3 minutes to set up the rip and walk away. 35 minutes later there's a full BR quality .m2ts file on my HDD. If I wanna take another 90 seconds, I'll download the movie poster from Google Images and add it to the same folder. 35 minutes later, Mezzmo automatically adds it to the library, tags the movie poster and streams it on demand to any of my 4 locations at whatever resolution and quality I have specified. Sometime in the next 3 days, I take the BR out of the drive and store it in the garage with the other "backups".

My 6 year old can see the picture and watch whatever movie she wants without getting anyone else involved. Not only that, but Mezzmo allows me to restrict content that I don't want her to access. In fact, she has a little, zippered DVD case in her bedroom that she uses as the catalog. She flips through the DVDs till she sees the one she wants, zippers the DVD case shut, turns the tv on and picks it off the media streamer cuz it's far more convenient and the DVD doesn't get scratched.

You don't have kids, do you?

 

[Chapbass]

My big thing isn't so much the time of getting up to look for a movie or wait for menus, but more the convenience of seeing my entire library from any room in my house. More importantly than that though, is the space. I have roughly 400 or so movies, which is a pretty good amount, definitely not what some people have here, but still, more than 10.

If I want to be able to look through these movies, or more importantly have a guest or my gf look through them, that means they have to be readily available. For example, in my living room (which is where my projector is...i know, not perfect, whatever). I'm pretty short on space at my location, so with this system I can have all of my movies on my hard drives upstairs in my office, and all of the BR's themselves in the garage (or offsite for that matter).

Speaking of offsite, thats nice too in case your building burns down or something. I might have to think about that...