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  1. I recently started to back up blue-ray movies (after having disks that won't play anymore, with kids it happens too often). I don't own very many as I'm kind of a dvd hold out. So I read many guides and tried different software. I want a format with the best software compatibility (so it can play over a network on whatever player that computer happens to have). Total media theater is an important one for it to be compatible with as that is what we primarily use at our main entertainment center (where our main htpc and file server for the house is). I figured that mp4 h.264 would be the most compatible as blueray and hd-dvd use it and I had thought it was the most common hd format. Turns out I was wrong and most players I have don't seem to support it (or something is not installed right). So I tried mkv h.264 and to my surprise, it worked fine in all players. Am I missing something with mp4 or is it not commonly supported? I figured that programs that would play blueray would play mp4 but apparently I was wrong? Is mkv h.264 a good format to use for best compatibility and good performance (I don't want the got converting a bunch of movies just to find out it was not a good format to have used).

    If mkv is the best format then here are the issues I have had converting. I haven't had any problems with ripping and the rips play fine. The third program I used was xmedia recode. It works fine but its took 18 hrs for one movie, 20 for the next, and the one I'm doing right now is estimating over 30 hrs. The processor is an amd sempron le-1230. I have 3 gig of memory (32 bit os so no need for more). I realize that its not a blazing fast processor, but is it really that bad? I guess its time for some overclocking. I also have an e6300 (the older 1.8 ghz one) that in theory benchmarks about the same (it's not built into a system right now but is available and works fine). Would I be better off trying avivo and try to get the graphics card to do the processing (if it even can do this conversion)?
    Fyi, I tried handbreak first. It did an mp4 h.264 conversion in 9 hours and thats when I found that mp4 wouldn't play on anything. Not wanting to wait another 9 hours, I just tried one of the small intro video files off a blueray in mkv h.264 in handbrake. I followed a guide, but the results were horrible pixelization with the image completely going out at spots. I'm not really sure if it was a settings problem or a compatibility problem with that movie?
    ripbot just crashed my system.

    does anyone have any general advice based on what I have done so far?

    On a side note, I have 3 TB on the main computer but its all full (I have endless numbers of dvd's on it). It has become an issue since HD takes so much space to rip, process and convert. Many dvd's are still just video_ts rips though some have been compressed down in nero recode still in dvd format but shrank. Others have been converted to nero digital. I have had my concerns about nero digital (I have heard it is not 100% compliant), but they work and everything seems to play them? Is there any reason not to keep using nero digital? Also, I was thinking of converting some of the kids movies to divx (it would have to be ver 4 or 5). If I did this, I could occasionally just copy movies to an sd card and they should be able to play in the kids portable dvd players. Would that be a bad idea? The kids bedroom is not networked yet so they still play disks there. Many are destroyed and the rips on the computer may be the only working copy (and or the nightmares of trying to rip badly scratched disks). As this would be a permanent conversion for some movies (the only copy), would divx be a bad idea?

    Sorry for all the questions. I have gotten as far as I could on my own. I guess I'm just wondering if what I'm doing and/or plan on doing is a good idea?
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  2. Member
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    Feb 2011
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    Hi

    I too had similar problems with Handbrake. Blu-ray conversions (High Settings) would not play on my Blu-ray player. The same was for Media Coder which is based on Handbrake. Didn't matter about the format, both Mp4 and MKV will not play. Played around with all the settings to know avail.

    I now use XMedia Coder. Never have any problems. Yes, it is slow. On a E6600 it take me about 24 hours to encode a movie like "The Fellowship of the Ring"in Full HD. Its worth it as the quality is almost perfect at a movie size of 4 Gig. That's 38 gig to 4 gig. I use the high settings which are similar to Handbrake's.

    Can easily fit the whole Trilogy plus other movies on one B disk.

    I tried a lot of other commercial converters - found them heaps quicker but if you want a very small size movie the quality was crap.

    I'll be upgrading my PC soon to the Intel 2600 Sandy Bridge CPU. I heard it was great for encoding.

    The other thing you can do is buy a media player and use a portable Hard-drive which just plugs in to it's USB port. Pen drives are fine too.

    I bought a Medion Full HD Media Player at Aldi for $80 Australian. I plug in a Seagate 500 gig passport hard drive USB 2 which cost me $80 also. The kids and I can now watch all our movies with out any problems - even handbrake encodes.

    The combination is very portable!

    The Medion is fantastic. Plays just about every format in great quality with perfect voice sync.

    So, sorry can't help you with your speed issue but stick with what your using or you may have to upgrade.
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  3. Try video copy under video tab and encode the audio if it's not mp3 ac3 or aac.
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  4. Thanks for the advice. I got the initial impression that xmedia coder did an incredible job. The first 3 movies I have done look and play excellent. I can always play with other programs but at least I have something working, all be it slow. I will probably stick with it if I don't find something faster that does a good job. It kind of gives me an excuse to get a better processor. My htpc has a good am3 motherboard so there is plenty of room for drop in upgrading. for that matter, I have all the parts to build another am3 system (I have an unused am3 motherboard that was basically free in a bundle and plenty of spare parts).
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  5. There are a few options out there maybe avidemux can index it and convert to other formats but i'm not familar with bluray too much.

    I had an p4 2.93 ghz from 2004 and I thought that was alright speed took about 3hours for a standard conversion and then I got my Core I7 4cores x 2.93ghz 8threads and in 20-30 minutes I got a better quality and lightning fast encode on 2pass ....

    Highly recommended you upgrade your processor asap.
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  6. I have been using MultiAVCHD and it works really well. I was using AVCHDCoder but was getting similar results listed above with the pixelating. I had to give up on that software.
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