Do I have enough to burn Blu-Ray?

[New Bee]

I think my computer is capable but it may take a day or two to burn a Blu-Ray. I should be getting my burner (LG WH10LS30) from New Egg tomorrow. I ordered some Verbatim LTH blanks as well. I've done quite a bit research and discovered that DVDFab has a cure for the PS 3 player for my backed up copies. Here is some info of my marginal computer taken from Belarc Advisor:

Dell Inc. Inspiron 530
Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
2.50 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual-Core
Board: Dell Inc. 0RY007 Bus Clock: 200 megahertz BIOS: Dell Inc. 1.0.18 02/24/2009
640.07 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
409.88 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
3318 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Intel(R) G33/G31 Express Chipset Family [Display adapter]

I haven't upgraded anything in three years since I've never had any problems with this computer.
All I want to do is back up some of my precious Blu-Ray disks and play them on my PS3. If anyone has upgrade opinions please let me know.

Thanks.

[fritzi93]

1) I think you mean a day or two to *encode* a Blu-Ray, not burn. BTW, use ImgBurn only.
2) LTH discs are not well-proven yet and many people find them problematic. Make sure your burner's firmware is up-to-date.
3) Your computer is perfectly adequate for backing up Blu-Rays. You can easily re-encode to BD25 overnight using BDRB at defaults. I'm not so sure about playback, though. You may want to get a video card; unless you're into gaming, a card as cheap as $30 bucks or so would do the job.
4) My experience with making backups for the PS3 is limited to helping friends who own them. Firmware is all-important for getting one to recognize AVCHD, although (alternatively) patching the disc's index file will work. If you mean BD25, there shouldn't be any worries.

Welcome to the forum and good luck.

[New Bee]

Yes I did mean encode. I do use ImgBurn for non Blu-Rays already as I like the simplicity of it. As far as LTH I'm just going on what I've read for something that works with this burner. Maybe in a while I can find others that work.

Thanks for your time and advice fritzi93 it helped a lot.

[New Bee]

fritzi forgot to mention I don't care about watching movies on my computer but would like another video card for GP. Could you recommend one for my setup? Thanks again.

[fritzi93]

I looked up your chipset and you're okay as to hardware, especially since you don't plan on often using your computer for playback. A DXVA capable card would be better if you did plan to do so. For checking your re-encodes prior to burning you should be okay. I'm guessing you'll probably be getting PowerDVD bundled with your burner, most times that's the case. It's okay for that, there are better players, but again it will do the job.

For specific recommendation on video cards, I'll leave that to others here more knowledgeable. Most any recent PCIe card with DXVA (hardware acceleration) is good enough for HD playback. I'm using a Radeon 2400 Pro in my HTPC. Passive cooling (no fan), got it for $25 bucks two years ago, never gets above 60 degrees C. Can't really recommend ATI though, because every six months or so I gotta re-install the damn drivers. Again, for recommendations on a gaming card, I'll have to pass.

Here's my advice on backups:

1) Decrypt and rip to hard drive with DVDFab, if that's what you want to use, but don't re-encode with it. Free tools such as BDRB, RipBot, AVCHDCoder, etc., will all do a better job of it. I use BDRB.
2) If you try BDRB, set it up following strictly the directions on this page:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716

It's important to use specific versions of the helper apps AviSynth, ffdshow and Haali splitter.

3) Use ImgBurn to check for firmware updates for your burner. You may be okay with your LTH discs.

Good luck.

[New Bee]

fritzi - Thanks for checking this out for me it was very helpful.

PowerDVD 9 is included with the burner. I'll be looking into a Radeon of some size to install.

After looking at BDRB I think I will go with that for re-encoding and of course ImgBurn. After reading more about Cinavia and how it currently affects things I'll probably go with a different ripper for now.

Thanks for getting me started and hopefully UPS will be dropping by sometime today with the new burner.

Have a great day.

[fritzi93]

SFAIK, Cinavia is not a serious problem yet, only a few discs have it. And if you have a Blu-Ray player already without it, you're good. I have two Sony Blu-Ray players and will *never* update the firmware, just in case it's possible for a firmware update to enable Cinavia on them.

To my knowledge, at the moment, only DVDFab has a workaround for Cinavia.

The general consensus on Blu-Ray decrypters/rippers is that AnyDVDHD is top of the heap. DVDFab and DVDFabPasskey are good as well. The only (workable) free choice is the free version of DVDFab, aka DVDFabHDDecrypter. Supposedly, updates lag a bit for the free one, and some features are disabled, though it can rip Blu-Rays to hard drive.

You might want to start a new thread on video cards. State your needs and expectations as exactly as you can. There's a wealth of experience here, you'd get good recommendations.

Good luck.

[ricoman]

There is supposedly a simple workaround for playing Cinvavia "infected" backups on a PS3 or player that supports Cinvavia. In your player setup, chose optical audio instead of HDMI, even if you don't have an optical cable hooked up, supposedly it fools or bypasses the detection of Cinavia protection. I haven't tried it, but reports are that it will work.

[New Bee]

Thanks ricoman, I'll give it a go.

[ricoman]

Thanks ricoman, I'll give it a go.

Anyone that tries it, please report back if it works (or if it doesn't). Of course you have to have a burned backup with Cinavia.