Use eac3to (to rip/demux) with AnyDVD HD in the background. Eac3to is fantabulous, it; -rips the main movie only (Use AnyDVD's ripper for the whole disc) -fixes gaps/overlaps on seamless branching titles, -converts audio if needed -removes dialogue normalization on AC3 and TrueHD tracks, -and even muxes the video stream to mkv for re-encoding. -detects mpls information (audio/subtitle/chapters and other track information) -plus a tonne of other great stuff. It's a command based application or there are a couple of GUIs available too. I can work with the whole BD sructure as well directly from your PC's HDD.
ntblood Take Odin's suggestion after you've got a couple re-encodes under your belts. In the long run it is always better to go for more options, and speaking of options. For those of you who are users of DVD Rebuilder, jdobbs is very close to releasing a Blu-Ray version to beta.
When I select the source file where do I look and which do I add? Do I just add one file and the whole DVD is loaded in or do I have to add each chapter or something? Another person suggested I use tsmuxer after ripping with AnyDVD. I'm curious about eac3to versus ripping with AnyDVD HD and then using tsmuxer?
In a Blu Ray movie you look for the single largest file in the folder containing the ripped movie. It will be quite large in size so you will have no problem finding it.
Once you've ripped your file to your hard drive (AnyDVD is really all that you need) then download a copy of Ripbot264 and it will re-encode your video for you. Just follow the link and download. http://www.mediafire.com/?2o2mdzguy2x
That sounds good Sophocles. When I download and try to run the RipBot264 application and it just shows a window with three items that say "no installed". I don't see the program itself (?). I was giving tsmuxer a try and am in that process now but I want to see which works best for me (simple is good). Funny that I look inside the Ripbot tools folder and I see tsmuxer as well as eac3to. (not crucial now but is there a way to preserve the menu?)
ripbot Is not a single application but a conglomerate of applications and Ripbot is the control center for them. You will need to download and update other applications that Ripbot will prod you for. Once that's done you will have to load the movie file (the large single file) and then wait for it to mux it. This really is the easiest method that I know of and with a little effort you will easily be able to figure it out.
Ok, I got RipBot up and running. I loaded in the main movie. I selected output that said something about blu-ray and it looks like it's recoding it as an mp4. Then result was a 3.5GB mp4 file. I want to burn to a blu-ray disk so I am in the wrong thread here. Is this recoding like this with RipBot a necessary step? It seems like it's for burning to a DVD as it recodes a much smaller file. Also, it's not a major priority for me but can the menu be saved? If that is fairly complicated than I'm good without it but if simple I'd keep it.
There are some settings that you need to take care of. Once you've muxed the disc and are ready to begin processing the file in the bottom be certain that you've checked Blu-Ray disc. Where it says mode choose 2 pass, and then to the bottom right choose lock size. This gives you the option to go for a single layer or dual layer disc. Look at the screen shots.
Just to add to your excellent help on RipBot Sophocoles... For Blu-ray compliancy Max Buffer Size can be 30,000Kbs and Max Bitrate can be 40,000Kbs for Video. Also, for a 1080p encode 4 Reference Frames is ok. As the resolution decreases this can go up. For example, a 720p encode can use up to 9 Reference Frames without exceeding the decoded picture buffer for Blu-ray compliancy.
Ryu This is quite true and is recommended for those using HTPC units for playback (I'm one,) but home BD players have difficulty playing single and dual layer discs beyond 2X to 3X which could cause issues with very high bitrate re-encodes. The lower buffer and bitrate size compensates for that difference in playback speed without effecting visual quality. By lowering buffer size and bitrate we increase home unit compatibility. Most BD movies are encoded with a much higher bitrate than is required to achieve results. If one is recording to BD media then of course this is not an issue. There are some who think that a buffer size and bitrate of 15000 Kbs and they could be right but 17,500 works for me and it just happened to be in my screenshot. Not having tried every home unit available there might be some that will do well with high bitrates.
Sophocles, Thank you for the help & screenshots. I have several questions but I should be set after this I hope. As far as "locking size", is that GB per hour/video or for the total file size? I've read that with CQ the file will turn out a little bigger, ~5%. CRF 22 is the default (apparently the lower the CRF# the better the quality so I wonder if the max quality, 18, is overdoing it and if at 22 there is already no loss in quality and 18 is just making a bigger file. I'm going to be playing back hopefully bd-r on a PS3. If I recode two files separately (a feature & one smaller "extra") can I put them both on on bd-r and they'll play one to the next like DVD-R's I make with DVD-Shrink? I guess there's no way to save the menu (?). So if I'm understanding correctly, tsmuxer is just for stripping unwanted audio files and the like off and this RipBot step is necessary to get a file that I can burn which is readable by a console blu-ray player? I can't just burn an m2ts file to a bd-r and play it in a PS3 right? Under profile I only have "4.0 Blu-ray Console" available where you have 4.1, why is that? Unless I'm mistaken I think you have a different version of Ripbot for two reasons: I can't find a "Codec Settings" screen but there is an "Encoder Settings" screen found by clicking "...profile" which looks the same as yours, and on that screen which is nearly identical to yours I have a check box at the top for "deblocking strength" and am missing some check boxes you have down below. My default buffer size and max bitrate is 20,000. There under "subpixel refinement" you have your set to "6 - RDO", I don't have that exact choice and the default is "7 RD on all frames" (leave it? I'm guess that's Ok. Alternatively, I do have the "6 RD on IP frames" choice. You have "B pyramid" checked and my default is unchecked. Is that just a result of my source file or should I have that checked too? It's strange that the third selection of "save as" which is blu-ray isn't labeled on the RipBot interface. RipBot could be a little easier on the eyes to read the progress at the bottom. I have to strain to read it. But it's free so, thank you to the programmers.
Sophocles, very good point. I have found some stand alone BD players are fine with these BD-5/BD-9 discs, while others are not. Actually there is someone having stutter trouble in another thread. I will recommend lowering buffer and max bitrate and see if this helps.
wtf, I did a blu-ray Ripbot at CQ CFG 18 and the result was a 6.5GB file recode from a 21 GB original. There is no way the quality is comparable. I don't get it. -N
I'm looking to make a blu-ray disk of the feature movie that is the same quality as the originals. Ripped with AnyDVD HD. CFG is higher quality the lower the #, I used 18 which is the lowest possible. 2-pass from what I understand is used for compressing which I'm not looking to do. I understand that recoding with CQ is supposed to make the resultant file a little bigger than the original. Clearly that didn't happen. My 20GB file recoded to 6.5GB. So that makes me think that my recoded file is much lower quality than the original I would think. --------- Read this on a forum: Use one pass quality based encoding (at the bottom of the drop down list). Set the CRF to 18. Lower values will give a larger file, higher values a smaller file of lower quality. Set the max bitrate to 40000. I've tested this and the PS3 has no problems playing back the file. The PS3 display actually showed a peak bitrate of 51Mb/s and didn't stutter. B-Pyramid can be enabled, tsMuxer detects that it is present and produces a stream which the PS3 plays fine. Cheers, Beastie.
I see the output when selecting "blu-ray" is still an M2TS file, the same type as the original. So can't you just burn the original file to a BD-R disk and skip recoding all together?
ntblood Before you trash the movie check it visually for quality. I generally compress most 2 hour or less movies to a single layer disc which is a little more than 4 Gigabytes in 1080P and they look great. If you don't want to burn it to test it then use imgburn to convert it to ISO and then mount it with an application such Daemon tools and play it back on your PC. Experiment a bit, you just might be surprised.
I think you might be misunderstanding some terminology a little. Any form of re-encoding the video is recompressing. H264 is a lossy codec, meaning that some information is thrown out in order to compress the file size. The original Blu-ray was compressed as will your recode be. If you were to have an uncompressed 1080p video, you would have something that would be hundreds of gigabytes. If you would like to retain as much quality as possible, then a two pass encode with optimal/slow x264 settings would be required. I personally wouldn't use a single layer DVD for a 1080p encode as Sophocles does. For me, that uses too much compression and I am not satisfied with the quality. However, we are all different and you will need to experiment and decide for yourself. I usually use a DVD-9 (double layer) for a 1080p encode and a DVD-5 (single layer) for a 720p encode. If the movie is 3 hours+, then I may use two DVD-9's for 1080p. Yes, of course you can do that. You can use tsMuxeR to re-mux the main movie with a single audio track etc. so that it can fit on a BD-25. Maybe you should reiterate what it is you would like to achieve so that Sophocles or myself can help you more accurately.
