Smurfin
Distinguished Member
*EDIT: SD-DVD Ripping Guide to be added shortly*
Hi all
Now that I seem to have my PCH working - almost - properly, I thought it worth while posting a bit of a "how to" guide for ripping Blu-Rays. This information is already out there, but can take some digging to find out the nitty gritty and all the pitfalls, as there seem to be many.
For the purposes of this guide, I'm focusing on how to rip your Blu-Ray collection with the intention of keeping the video and audio in their original formats, i.e. uncompressed.
Be warned that the average rip takes up anywhere between 17-30GB, depending on the length of the movie, assuming you take the 1080p video and one lossless audio track. Also, the timings I've detailed below are based on a Quad Core processor and lots of RAM, so those with slower machines will need to take into account longer remuxing times.
For obvious reasons there is NO mention in this guide of Blu-Ray encryption or how to bypass this. Please don't ask questions about it in this thread or reference it as you'll be ignored, and the mods will delete your post. Thanks!
What programs do I need to back-up my Blu-Ray collection?
You need:
* AnyDVD HD
* BDInfo
* Tsmuxer
* ts4np
* VLC player
A BD-ROM reader (obviously!)
Re: the programs, google is your friend basically! I found ts4np a bit more difficult to find, so if anyone needs help on this drop me a PM.
How do I rip my discs?
Instructions:
* Put the disc in with AnyDVD running in the background
* Open BDInfo and point it to the BluRay drive.
* Once BDInfo has scanned the disc, the whole structure of the disc will appear. In essence you'll see a "playlist" section and then in the box below the relevant streams which form part of the selected playlist.
* In the playlist section look for the biggest file - this is usually the movie. Some discs have SEVERAL playlists which are as long as the movie so there's an element of trial and error (e.g. Rambo has 4 big playlists, what it doesn't tell you initially is that the first playlist isn't just the movie, but includes streams from BDLive with annoying interviews which break up the movie). If there's more than one playlist, go to The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and check the length of the movie, the correct playlist should correspond to the movie running time. In addition, download something like VLC player (a free media player that plays the formats you'll be working with) to check you have the right streams.
* Once you've identified the right playlist, then click on it e.g. 0001.mpls, and look in the "stream" section. You'll see one or more .m2ts files. The easiest movie to deal with is one where the movie is contained within a single .m2ts file. The most difficult is when there are multiple .m2ts files, but we'll come to that!
Now it gets a bit more complicated. Is the disc TrueHD or DTS-MA? (or even both?). If it's a DTS-MA disc, open Tsmuxer and do the following:
DTS-MA Discs (Tsmuxer)
* Now that you've identified which playlist you want to rip, navigate to the relevant playlist file on the disc .e.g 0001.mpls.
* A list of all the elements in the playlist will appear with check boxes. Go down the list and check the boxes to remove everything but the 1080p video file and the lossless audio file.
* Then select the path you want to rip to, and select .ts as the file format (you can rip to .m2ts as well, but it takes up a little more space, and there's no difference in quality).
* Then press "Remux" and hey presto, 20 mins later it's done.
Dolby True-HD (Tsmuxer AND ts4np OR ts4np - see below for what and why)
If the disc you are ripping has a Dolby TrueHD sountrack, it gets a little more involved. TsMuxer screws up True-HD soundtracks, and ts4np screws up DTS-MA soundtracks, so you need to ensure you're using the right program. The complication comes in because ts4np doesn't allow you to rip a playlist, ONLY an individual stream. So this is what you do:
Dolby True-HD soundtrack and a SINGLE .m2ts stream
From BDInfo you'll be able to see if a movie is contained in a single .m2ts file. Most of them are, but not all. Don't be fooled by the opening screens either (i.e. the Pixar or Disney intro) - these will show as separate .m2ts files, but they'll be 7 seconds or whatever. The important thing is whether the main movie is in one stream.
If it is, do the following:
* Open ts4np and navigate to the right stream. If you try to navigate to the playlist it'll return an error, as it can only read one stream rather than a container full of streams.
* Then use the check box to select the elements you want to keep - i.e. 1080p video and lossless audio.
* Select the destination path, put in the file name (when you name it, always suffix it with .ts, for some reason ts4np doesn't do this automatically).
* Press Remux and you're done.
Dolby True-HD sountrack and MULTIPLE .m2ts streams
As you can only remux one stream at a time in ts4np, it's useless for movies which have multiple streams, and you can't use Tsmuxer as it screws the audio. The solution is simple, but takes a little longer:
* Open Tsmuxer and follow the instructions above for DTS-MA discs.
* Once completed, close this and open ts4np.
* Navigate to the newly remuxed .ts file, then simply mux it again in ts4np.
* The True-HD soundtrack should now work fine.
Uncompressed LPCM - (Tsmuxer)
There is a reported bug with Uncompressed Multi-Channel PCM soundtracks which means (I think) that both Tsmuxer and ts4np screw up LPCM audio. In general this will only affect older discs as they mostly come with TrueHD or DTS-MA now, but certainly many early Blu-Rays come with Uncompressed PCM.
The route around this is simple. When selecting elements of streams/playlists that you want to keep, when selecting the LPCM soundtrack, you must ALSO select an AC-3 sountrack. Don't ask me why, but apparently this is the only way to get LPCM to work.
-----------------------
I hope this helps people who are just getting to media streaming, and if anyone knows any different (or if anything above is inaccurate) please let me know.
If there is enough interest, I'll happily post guides for SD DVDs and compressing blu-rays if people want it too
Cheers
Matt
Hi all
Now that I seem to have my PCH working - almost - properly, I thought it worth while posting a bit of a "how to" guide for ripping Blu-Rays. This information is already out there, but can take some digging to find out the nitty gritty and all the pitfalls, as there seem to be many.
For the purposes of this guide, I'm focusing on how to rip your Blu-Ray collection with the intention of keeping the video and audio in their original formats, i.e. uncompressed.
Be warned that the average rip takes up anywhere between 17-30GB, depending on the length of the movie, assuming you take the 1080p video and one lossless audio track. Also, the timings I've detailed below are based on a Quad Core processor and lots of RAM, so those with slower machines will need to take into account longer remuxing times.
For obvious reasons there is NO mention in this guide of Blu-Ray encryption or how to bypass this. Please don't ask questions about it in this thread or reference it as you'll be ignored, and the mods will delete your post. Thanks!
What programs do I need to back-up my Blu-Ray collection?
You need:
* AnyDVD HD
* BDInfo
* Tsmuxer
* ts4np
* VLC player
A BD-ROM reader (obviously!)
Re: the programs, google is your friend basically! I found ts4np a bit more difficult to find, so if anyone needs help on this drop me a PM.
How do I rip my discs?
Instructions:
* Put the disc in with AnyDVD running in the background
* Open BDInfo and point it to the BluRay drive.
* Once BDInfo has scanned the disc, the whole structure of the disc will appear. In essence you'll see a "playlist" section and then in the box below the relevant streams which form part of the selected playlist.
* In the playlist section look for the biggest file - this is usually the movie. Some discs have SEVERAL playlists which are as long as the movie so there's an element of trial and error (e.g. Rambo has 4 big playlists, what it doesn't tell you initially is that the first playlist isn't just the movie, but includes streams from BDLive with annoying interviews which break up the movie). If there's more than one playlist, go to The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and check the length of the movie, the correct playlist should correspond to the movie running time. In addition, download something like VLC player (a free media player that plays the formats you'll be working with) to check you have the right streams.
* Once you've identified the right playlist, then click on it e.g. 0001.mpls, and look in the "stream" section. You'll see one or more .m2ts files. The easiest movie to deal with is one where the movie is contained within a single .m2ts file. The most difficult is when there are multiple .m2ts files, but we'll come to that!
Now it gets a bit more complicated. Is the disc TrueHD or DTS-MA? (or even both?). If it's a DTS-MA disc, open Tsmuxer and do the following:
DTS-MA Discs (Tsmuxer)
* Now that you've identified which playlist you want to rip, navigate to the relevant playlist file on the disc .e.g 0001.mpls.
* A list of all the elements in the playlist will appear with check boxes. Go down the list and check the boxes to remove everything but the 1080p video file and the lossless audio file.
* Then select the path you want to rip to, and select .ts as the file format (you can rip to .m2ts as well, but it takes up a little more space, and there's no difference in quality).
* Then press "Remux" and hey presto, 20 mins later it's done.
Dolby True-HD (Tsmuxer AND ts4np OR ts4np - see below for what and why)
If the disc you are ripping has a Dolby TrueHD sountrack, it gets a little more involved. TsMuxer screws up True-HD soundtracks, and ts4np screws up DTS-MA soundtracks, so you need to ensure you're using the right program. The complication comes in because ts4np doesn't allow you to rip a playlist, ONLY an individual stream. So this is what you do:
Dolby True-HD soundtrack and a SINGLE .m2ts stream
From BDInfo you'll be able to see if a movie is contained in a single .m2ts file. Most of them are, but not all. Don't be fooled by the opening screens either (i.e. the Pixar or Disney intro) - these will show as separate .m2ts files, but they'll be 7 seconds or whatever. The important thing is whether the main movie is in one stream.
If it is, do the following:
* Open ts4np and navigate to the right stream. If you try to navigate to the playlist it'll return an error, as it can only read one stream rather than a container full of streams.
* Then use the check box to select the elements you want to keep - i.e. 1080p video and lossless audio.
* Select the destination path, put in the file name (when you name it, always suffix it with .ts, for some reason ts4np doesn't do this automatically).
* Press Remux and you're done.
Dolby True-HD sountrack and MULTIPLE .m2ts streams
As you can only remux one stream at a time in ts4np, it's useless for movies which have multiple streams, and you can't use Tsmuxer as it screws the audio. The solution is simple, but takes a little longer:
* Open Tsmuxer and follow the instructions above for DTS-MA discs.
* Once completed, close this and open ts4np.
* Navigate to the newly remuxed .ts file, then simply mux it again in ts4np.
* The True-HD soundtrack should now work fine.
Uncompressed LPCM - (Tsmuxer)
There is a reported bug with Uncompressed Multi-Channel PCM soundtracks which means (I think) that both Tsmuxer and ts4np screw up LPCM audio. In general this will only affect older discs as they mostly come with TrueHD or DTS-MA now, but certainly many early Blu-Rays come with Uncompressed PCM.
The route around this is simple. When selecting elements of streams/playlists that you want to keep, when selecting the LPCM soundtrack, you must ALSO select an AC-3 sountrack. Don't ask me why, but apparently this is the only way to get LPCM to work.
-----------------------
I hope this helps people who are just getting to media streaming, and if anyone knows any different (or if anything above is inaccurate) please let me know.
If there is enough interest, I'll happily post guides for SD DVDs and compressing blu-rays if people want it too
Cheers
Matt
Last edited:
