Encoding Blu-Ray

[seekermeister]

Is there a particular format or wrapper that retains the BD definition of a video, better than other's? I know that this is true with regular DVD, but have no idea about BD.

 

[Guntmeister]

My personal opinion is mpeg4 either in an mp4 or mkv wrapper is superior to divx or xvid. I have seen full movies in near perfect quality with a very small file size (@2gb)

 

[Ponmayilal]

^your 2GB file at what resolution?

 

[Shark007]

1. load a decryption tool to strip off the copy protection. (dvdfab decrypter is free)
2. browse the BD to the STREAM folder and copy the largest M2TS file to your harddrive.
3. using the current releases of the Shark007 Win7codecs, at the time of posting v271 for 32bit and v275 for 64bit, select the SUGGESTED settings checkbox and then on the MPG~MP4 TAB, select the blu-ray splitter

With these instructions, WMP, Media Center, or any other directshow player will playback the BD file, untouched, in all its glory.

 

[Guntmeister]

^your 2GB file at what resolution?

1280x720

 

[Ponmayilal]

Thank you Shark 007. That was the point I was going to make and my intention in asking Guntmeister the resolution. While it is still HD, it is not the same what seekermeister wanted - the BD HD that is 1920x1080. One cannot have the cake and eat it too. If one wants to enjoy HD in BD, it is best then to do no conversion or encoding.

I simply take the main movie, the DTS-HD audio track and the english subtitle , convert it to ISO, mount it with a virtual drive and play it in full original glory. I use mikinho's mount image.( A BD software player is necessary)

If one does not have a software BD player, make an mkv file keeping those video and audio in its original format and with Shark007 codecs in place, play them.

Apart from DVD Fab to make the iso or mkv file(just remux), I would suggest MakeMKV to make .... you know what.. With two or three clicks one can transcode a BD into one single mkv file selecting whatever titles, audio tracks and subtitles one wants to keep.

Download Makemkv from MakeMKV - Download It is still in beta stage during which the BD functionality will remain free.( I have a lifetime licence for Makemkv.) Enjoy.

 

[seekermeister]

Thank you Shark 007. That was the point I was going to make and my intention in asking Guntmeister the resolution. While it is still HD, it is not the same what seekermeister wanted - the BD HD that is 1920x1080. One cannot have the cake and eat it too. If one wants to enjoy HD in BD, it is best then to do no conversion or encoding.

I simply take the main movie, the DTS-HD audio track and the english subtitle , convert it to ISO, mount it with a virtual drive and play it in full original glory. I use mikinho's mount image.( A BD software player is necessary)

If one does not have a software BD player, make an mkv file keeping those video and audio in its original format and with Shark007 codecs in place, play them.

Apart from DVD Fab to make the iso or mkv file(just remux), I would suggest MakeMKV to make .... you know what.. With two or three clicks one can transcode a BD into one single mkv file selecting whatever titles, audio tracks and subtitles one wants to keep.

Download Makemkv from MakeMKV - Download It is still in beta stage during which the BD functionality will remain free.( I have a lifetime licence for Makemkv.) Enjoy.

I'm probably going to just use DVDFab, since I already have it, and am trying to figure the best way to use it. Since I currently only have one BD disk, it doesn't matter too much, but I'm not fond of the idea of using an ISO, because of the file size involved.

I imagine that I would not be able to put nearly as many ISO on a HD, as I can with MKV-H264 that I'm using for regular DVDs. I've already filled one 1TB HD, and have many, many more disks to encode, and don't want to have to buy a lot more HDs to do the job.

From what I have gleaned from this thread so far, it sounds as though MPG-MP4 is the format to use, so I shall experiment with it.

As a side note, I got curious how DVDFab would work on XP x64, so I rebooted and have encoded several disks. Even though it appears that the load that it places on the CPU and GPU are the same, the fps are double that of W7 x64, so I guess that will have to be my encoding platform, unless I can figure how to improve it on W7.

 

[Ponmayilal]

OK. The DVDFab bluray ripper MP4 profile will only give you aac multichannel audio. Unless you have an aac compatible AV receiver, it will be converted to PCM Stereo only. So you will lose on the sound.

I would suggest that you stick with mkv.H264.audiocopy profile that will preserve the original soundtrack DTS HD/DTS MA/AC3 5.1 or whatever as in the BD.

By default the video resolution will be 1920x816 ( I let it be) but if you are particular you can add custom 1920x1080.

I choose a fixed file size of 3900MB so that I can convert it to my PS3 using mkv2vob later. If you choose only one subtitle, then edit the profile to "direct render". That will dispense with the idx file and sub file. (While I stick to ISOs for my W7MC, I go through this rigmarole for my FAT32 Slim PS3).

And if all goes well and you liked it then............. remember me in your will.

 

[seekermeister]

And if all goes well and you liked it then............. remember me in your will.

Will that be on disk or hard drive?

 

[Wishmaster]

For Bluray you have a couple choices.

Option 1, Lossless:
1) Decrypt the Disc to your drive.
2) Extract the RAW Video Audio Streams (For this I use MeGUIs HDStream Extractor)
3) then use the MKV Muxer to remux the Video/Audio into a MKV conatiner.

If you do not care about file size, this will be a 100% 1:1 lossless copy.
You can even recode the audio to something like the Core AC3 640, or even 448 if you so choose and keep the video untouched.



Option 2, Recode:
I prefer the H264 codec for video and AC3 for Audio. You can also use DTS if you wish.

Again, I think MeGUI is the best tool for this job. Its excellent for HD video.

If you recode, the choice between MP4 and MKV is really a personal prefernce. But keep in mind a couple things.

1. MP4 container can not exceed 4GB in size (try to keep it at 3.99 or lower)
2. MP4 + AC3 may not playback audio in all players. Sharks Codec back will resolve this issue. (If your using MeGUI youll have his codecs anyway )
3. There is no limit to file size with MKV.

I usually downsize alot of HD videos to 1280x720, using a bit rate of at least 5000-5400.
I also use AC3 audio at 448 or 640kbps.
If the total is less than 4GB I use a MP4 conatiner, if over 4GB, MKV.


Also, I would highly recommend sticking with HD resolutions. 1280x720 or 1920x1080.
Cropping balck bars and resizing to anything other, defeats the entire purpose as it is no longer a true HD resolution.



I know many may disagree, but as far as DVD FAB, Ive tried and didn't like it all.
The quality was really bad, IMHO.

I made a brief tutorial of using MeGUI if you want to give it a try & are unfamiliar with it.

 

[seekermeister]

I usually downsize alot of HD videos to 1280x720

I don't understand this, because with DVDFab the resolution options seem to be determined by the DVD being ran. Yes, there are options to select from, but the best I remember, the largest was 848x???, and the default is always 720x???. None of which equal screen resolution. When the video is played, it does fill my 1920x1080 screen, so where would downsizing come into play?

EDIT: I just woke up and realized that you are talking about HD, rather than regular DVD, which I was thinking of. I have no idea of what the resolution options are for BD or HD output with DVDFab.

I know many may disagree, but as far as DVD FAB, Ive tried and didn't like it all.
The quality was really bad, IMHO.

I don't know if I would agree. Not that I have much experience in comparing the output of other programs to it, but only comparing DVDFab's output to that of playing the DVD directly. Are you saying that some programs improve on what can be played directly from the DVD?

I made a brief tutorial of using MeGUI if you want to give it a try & are unfamiliar with it.

Depending on just how brief it is, because as you may perceive, I'm not currently all that unhappy with DVDFab. I'm wondering if your perception of the program was using it on W7, because I have found that it runs far, far better on XP x64.

 

[Wishmaster]

If you are happy with the results of DVD Fab, certainly stick with it. We all have different preferences & opinion, I was merley sharing mine.


Im not sure I understand the resolution question.
Any Video played at full screen will fill an entire 1080 monitor.

Even if it encoded the Video at 720x400. But the higher resolution the Source is, the better the Image quailty will be when played back full screen.

By downsizing, I mean taking a BD disc, (which is a native 1920x1080 resolution) and recoding it into a MP4 or MKV file at a resolution of 1280x720.

For example, even though both will fill a 1080P screen when played back at full screen, the 1280x720 Resolution will look far better than something encoded at say 720x400.

It will also be extremly difficult to tell the difference between the original 1080P BluRay, and an encoded 720P version (if the encoder is setup right and high enough bitrate).




Yes, I use Megui under Win7 x64.

**EDIT** ... Ah yes, I was refering to HD video encoding. Sorry If I misunderstood.

 

[seekermeister]

Wishmaster,

Yes, I use Megui under Windows 7 x64.

Not that it really matters, but I was asking if your experience with DVDFab was on W7, not Megui. I don't know about end results, but DVDFab is much more stable and faster on XP x64, than W7. I thought that somehow that speed and stability might also produce better results.

 

[Ponmayilal]

And if all goes well and you liked it then...........QUOTE]
Will that be on disk or hard drive?

You will be outputting the converted file to the hard disk.

 

[Techymike]

Seekermeister, you have a PM.