how do you rip your blu-rays?

[gorcorps]

So, how do you rip your blu-rays? I've tried ripping directly from handbrake + anydvd, and now I've tried ripping via makeMKV and then doing any compression from there with handbrake. I think I've got a good profile built that gives me good quality and relatively small file size (2.5-7gigs depending on full 1080p or not).

Is there a better/faster way? My re-encodes are taking ~8 hours which I don't mind overall, but if something can do it faster with the same quality then why not use that?

 

[smitbret]

What CPU are you using?

 

[Rio Rebel]

With XBMC playing blu-ray iso's now, I may not convert them anymore. But when I do, I use handbrake with batch encoder.

 

[JackBurton]

With XBMC playing blu-ray iso's now, I may not convert them anymore. But when I do, I use handbrake with batch encoder.

Yep. Just dump the movie with no encoding. It will be a larger file size, but you'll retain all of the quality.

 

[gorcorps]

What CPU are you using?

i5-2500k

 

[gorcorps]

Yep. Just dump the movie with no encoding. It will be a larger file size, but you'll retain all of the quality.

Eh, hard drive space is still going to be a concern. I'm trying to get all of my physical disks to a digital copy. I have a 2 TB drive but it's also sharing space with ripped TV shows. I also don't want to lose the data, so down the road I may get a dual bay NAS and RAID 2 drives and always have a backup.

 

[sdifox]

Eh, hard drive space is still going to be a concern. I'm trying to get all of my physical disks to a digital copy. I have a 2 TB drive but it's also sharing space with ripped TV shows. I also don't want to lose the data, so down the road I may get a dual bay NAS and RAID 2 drives and always have a backup.

buy more hdds. encoding takes time.

 

[mikerlinks]

So, how do you rip your blu-rays? I've tried ripping directly from handbrake + anydvd, and now I've tried ripping via makeMKV and then doing any compression from there with handbrake. I think I've got a good profile built that gives me good quality and relatively small file size (2.5-7gigs depending on full 1080p or not).

Is there a better/faster way? My re-encodes are taking ~8 hours which I don't mind overall, but if something can do it faster with the same quality then why not use that?

Hi,

I am new here, but I will recommend you a blu ray ripper, BUT I can't post here, sorry

Update: download this powerful Blu-ray ripping software from here http://www.videotoipad3.com/blu-ray-to-ipad/

 

[sdifox]

Hi,

I am new here, but I will recommend you a blu ray ripper, BUT I can't post here, sorry

 

[gorcorps]

Ok, so what program rips blu-ray iso's, and does it rip them so the iso is then non-protected?

 

[Rio Rebel]

I use AnyDVD HD. It rips everything from DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray, and decrypts them all. And at least in my case, I use it for completely legitimate purposes - to put movies that I already own on an HTPC/Media Server.

 

[alyarb]

I'm sure there is a trial for mediaespresso where can experiment with QuickSync quality configs and see if the loss is acceptable to you.

If you are compressing blu rays down to 7 GB, then you are probably more concerned with bitrate than quality. Try QuickSync.

 

[smitbret]

Ok, so what program rips blu-ray iso's, and does it rip them so the iso is then non-protected?

You're getting some good advice, but you need to decide what your goals are. It sounds like you're just looking for some guidance on which path to use.

If you have the space, just ripping the main movie without reencoding will make sure you don't compromise on quality but you're looking at 15GB-35GB per movie. A 2TB HDD will hold about 75 titles.

Blue Ray ISOs are gonna be 40GB+ and I believe that many/most media playback devices aren't going to support them. If you like to keep the menus and extras, this is pretty much the only way to go.

You said that you already had AnyDVDHD, so by just running that in the background, you should be able to use any tool you want to rip and/or encode.

I get the feeling that your goals are similar to mine. I have an AMD Phenom IIx4 955 CPU. Raw CPU speed is by far the most important thing when converting video. Memory, HDD speed, etc., don't really matter much. I would expect your I5-2500k to be about 20% faster than my AMD. I store my movies and shows on a 2TB internal HDD, and I don't have the space, money or interest for a huge NAS or server rack. This is how I set it up.

I rip my BRs with Tsmuxer + AnyDVD:

http://www.dvd-guides.com/guides/blu-ray-rip/256-remux-blu-ray-to-mkv

It takes me about 35-45 minutes to just rip the file to my HDD this way. The resultant file is uncompressed and at BR quality. At that point, you can decide if you wanna compress it or not. I keep my 10 favorite movies (or so) just like this. Everything else gets shrunk. If it's an action flick that will benefit from 1080p and a bigger file size, then I'll drop it to between 6GB and 8GB. If it's just a comedy or slow drama then I reencode at 720p. The difference is there, but 95% of the population wouldn't notice and 99.9% don't care.

I just shrunk The Bourne Ultimatum down to a 6GB 1080p file. It took my PC about 8 1/2 hours to do the job. I will take money that you could not consistently discern the difference between it and the uncompressed original on my calibrated, 50" Samsung plasma from 10 feet away.

Just for fun, I set up a second encode at 720p from the same original and it took about 4 hours 15 minutes to gimme a file just over 2GB and it looks pretty darn good. Good enough that I think I will dump the 1080p and just keep the 720p. I just convert to .mp4 instead of .mkv because it is still slightly more compatible in the real world. Because I use .mp4 I make sure to check Large File Size just to be safe. Here are the settings that I use in Handbrake (Regular:Normal Profile). The only difference between the 1080p and 720p is the resolution:

Video Tab
Video Codec H .264
FPS 23.976
Constant Framerate
Constant Quality 20

Audio Tab
I kept only the English DTS track and created 2 audio tracks
AAC (faac) Dolby Pro Logic II Auto 160kbps 0 0
AAC (faac) 6 Channel Discrete Auto 320kbps 0 0

Advanced Tab
Reference Frames 4
Maximum B-Frames 3
CABAC Checked
8x8 Transform Unchecked
Weighted P-Frames Checked
Pyramidal B-Frames Default (Normal)

No DCT-Decimate No

Adaptive B-Frames Optimal
Adaptive Direct Mode Default (Spatial)
Motion Est Method Uneven Mulit-Hexagon
Subpixel ME & MD 10:QPRD in all frames
Motion Est Range Default (16)

Partition Type: Default
Trellis Always

I don't touch Adaptive Quantization Strength, Psychovisual Rate Distortion, Psychovisual Trellis or the Deblocking

I have saved quite a bit of time by changing:

Subpixel ME & Mode Decision 7
Trellis Default

Trellis really seems to bog down my system. If I use these new settings then I can usually get a 720p reencode done in about 2 hours.

If I ever do a DVD instead of BR, I increase the Rf to 16 and just use the faster settings.

I am by no means a professional and these are just the settings I've chosen through Trial & Error and by scouring the internet. I'm always loooking for new suggestions, too.

 

[mikeymikec]

When you're encoding, use Process Explorer to determine what's getting hit hardest out of CPU/RAM/storage. I would guess that it is the CPU, but it's good to be sure, as it could be RAM for example.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I use makemkv and don't bother with compression. I've got a 3tb drive that's almost full already though. Will be moving up to a readynas as soon as I can afford the drives to go in it.

 

[ethebubbeth]

I use makemkv and don't bother with compression. I've got a 3tb drive that's almost full already though. Will be moving up to a readynas as soon as I can afford the drives to go in it.

That is exactly what I do. I just pick the video and audio stream that I want and remux to an MKV container. It keeps the full quality audio and video and still significantly reduces file size since it removes all the extras. If I want to watch the special features, I either rip them to their own MKV files or just pull out the discs.

 

[Chapbass]

That is exactly what I do. I just pick the video and audio stream that I want and remux to an MKV container. It keeps the full quality audio and video and still significantly reduces file size since it removes all the extras. If I want to watch the special features, I either rip them to their own MKV files or just pull out the discs.

Yep, same. On movies that are either older, crap quality to begin with, or things like comedies or something that I'm not as concerned over the quality, I'll throw them into handbrake overnight so I can save some space.

Anything else, especially movies with solid audio/visual, I'll just keep em as an untouched mkv.

 

[thelastjuju]

Ripbot264.

Not compressing bluray rips to .mkvs is just silly and a terrible waste of space.. no matter how big the hard drive, its just unnecessary.

There are so few people who have the equipment to even notice the full bitrate of both the video and audio of BR quality anyway.

 

[JackBurton]

Ripbot264.

Not compressing bluray rips to .mkvs is just silly and a terrible waste of space.. no matter how big the hard drive, its just unnecessary.

There are so few people who have the equipment to even notice the full bitrate of both the video and audio of BR quality anyway.

I guess I can consider myself as one of the few.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Ripbot264.

Not compressing bluray rips to .mkvs is just silly and a terrible waste of space.. no matter how big the hard drive, its just unnecessary.

There are so few people who have the equipment to even notice the full bitrate of both the video and audio of BR quality anyway.

Can I ask why mkv over mp4? I haven't noticed any difference quality wise.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

You're getting some good advice, but you need to decide what your goals are. It sounds like you're just looking for some guidance on which path to use.

If you have the space, just ripping the main movie without reencoding will make sure you don't compromise on quality but you're looking at 15GB-35GB per movie. A 2TB HDD will hold about 75 titles.

Blue Ray ISOs are gonna be 40GB+ and I believe that many/most media playback devices aren't going to support them. If you like to keep the menus and extras, this is pretty much the only way to go.

You said that you already had AnyDVDHD, so by just running that in the background, you should be able to use any tool you want to rip and/or encode.

I get the feeling that your goals are similar to mine. I have an AMD Phenom IIx4 955 CPU. Raw CPU speed is by far the most important thing when converting video. Memory, HDD speed, etc., don't really matter much. I would expect your I5-2500k to be about 20% faster than my AMD. I store my movies and shows on a 2TB internal HDD, and I don't have the space, money or interest for a huge NAS or server rack. This is how I set it up.

I rip my BRs with Tsmuxer + AnyDVD:

http://www.dvd-guides.com/guides/blu-ray-rip/256-remux-blu-ray-to-mkv

It takes me about 35-45 minutes to just rip the file to my HDD this way. The resultant file is uncompressed and at BR quality. At that point, you can decide if you wanna compress it or not. I keep my 10 favorite movies (or so) just like this. Everything else gets shrunk. If it's an action flick that will benefit from 1080p and a bigger file size, then I'll drop it to between 6GB and 8GB. If it's just a comedy or slow drama then I reencode at 720p. The difference is there, but 95% of the population wouldn't notice and 99.9% don't care.

I just shrunk The Bourne Ultimatum down to a 6GB 1080p file. It took my PC about 8 1/2 hours to do the job. I will take money that you could not consistently discern the difference between it and the uncompressed original on my calibrated, 50" Samsung plasma from 10 feet away.

Just for fun, I set up a second encode at 720p from the same original and it took about 4 hours 15 minutes to gimme a file just over 2GB and it looks pretty darn good. Good enough that I think I will dump the 1080p and just keep the 720p. I just convert to .mp4 instead of .mkv because it is still slightly more compatible in the real world. Because I use .mp4 I make sure to check Large File Size just to be safe. Here are the settings that I use in Handbrake (Regular:Normal Profile). The only difference between the 1080p and 720p is the resolution:

Video Tab
Video Codec H .264
FPS 23.976
Constant Framerate
Constant Quality 20

Audio Tab
I kept only the English DTS track and created 2 audio tracks
AAC (faac) Dolby Pro Logic II Auto 160kbps 0 0
AAC (faac) 6 Channel Discrete Auto 320kbps 0 0

Advanced Tab
Reference Frames 4
Maximum B-Frames 3
CABAC Checked
8x8 Transform Unchecked
Weighted P-Frames Checked
Pyramidal B-Frames Default (Normal)

No DCT-Decimate No

Adaptive B-Frames Optimal
Adaptive Direct Mode Default (Spatial)
Motion Est Method Uneven Mulit-Hexagon
Subpixel ME & MD 10:QPRD in all frames
Motion Est Range Default (16)

Partition Type: Default
Trellis Always

I don't touch Adaptive Quantization Strength, Psychovisual Rate Distortion, Psychovisual Trellis or the Deblocking

I have saved quite a bit of time by changing:

Subpixel ME & Mode Decision 7
Trellis Default

Trellis really seems to bog down my system. If I use these new settings then I can usually get a 720p reencode done in about 2 hours.

If I ever do a DVD instead of BR, I increase the Rf to 16 and just use the faster settings.

I am by no means a professional and these are just the settings I've chosen through Trial & Error and by scouring the internet. I'm always loooking for new suggestions, too.

Why not just rip straight to mp4 off the disc?

 

[gorcorps]

Can I ask why mkv over mp4? I haven't noticed any difference quality wise.

mkv is a more "modular" container for lack of a better term. mkv and mp4 are both containers (NOT formats themselves, the format is generally x264) so will contain the same video quality if you set it that way. The perk of mkv is that it separates the audio, video, subtitle, etc data inside the container. This lets you have almost all of the perks of the actual disc, like changing audio tracks on the fly for commentary or different surround settings, or disabling/enabling subtitles at will with a wider range of subtitle formats to use.

 

[smitbret]

Why not just rip straight to mp4 off the disc?

A few reasons:

1- Habit. When I first started converting I would do them in batches. I'd rip 1, start the conversion and start ripping another.... continuing till I eventually had a batch of 6 or 7 in queue. I still try to do them in batches where possible and just let the PC run for a day or two.

2- Ripping first also gives me a chance to decide later what to do with it; How much compression, if at all, etc.

3- Something bothers me about the idea of my BD-ROM running for 4-8 hours straight. Seems like unneeded wear and tear and it's just plain noisy.

4- If I don't like the conversion, I can just set up a new one from the original rip.

5- If I need my BD-ROM, I can use it.

6- Less chance to screw it up when I take out the crap I don't want. If I rip the wrong audio track, then I find out 30 minutes later when I check it instead of 6 hours later when the conversion's done.

Mostly it just comes down to time management. Sometimes the trickiest part is just getting it off of the disc and I hate the idea that my PC ran 3 hours to convert the BD and then a big scratch prevented it from finishing cuz it couldn't read the disc anymore.

 

[smitbret]

Can I ask why mkv over mp4? I haven't noticed any difference quality wise.

Incidentally, I choose .mp4 over .mkv because it is supported by more devices. That's also why I use the normal profile instead of high, keep my reference frames at 4 and add the 2-channel .aac track as the default audio.

 

[gorcorps]

Just realized that my NAS setup was slowing down my drive. Now it's back as a USB drive and going a tad quicker on the makeMKV rips. Right now I'm trialing my "top quality" setup in handbrake. It'll be my full 1080p, top quality, long encode version for the movies I really like. After it's done I'll see what the file size is and decide if it's worth the time to use it, or just rip with makeMKV and stop there for these movies.

Thanks for the suggestions, and I think I'll stick with a combo of makeMKV and handbrake. With everything else I've tried there was something I didn't care for.