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  1. Hi all,
    EDIT: Just read and saw how much i have written. Ever so sorry but if anyone can spare the time for a quick read id appreciate.

    I am a complete noob to Bluray ripping but not such a noob as I have been into dvd ripping for years.
    Since purchasing my BD drive i have been using anydvd to decrypt the disc and use for storing til i convert.

    The probs I have is I used to use my PS3 to watch my DivX files from dvds which quality is ok. As a PS3 cant play MKV files im stuck and not prepared to convert to MP4 as I want to keep the audio & video uncompressed if its a heavily graphical film. Some films i wont mind being AC3 etc.
    I am looking into a samsung BD6900 as it can stream MKVs off my computer and also read them off a HDD which seems pretty decent for not a lot of money. Anyone look into this and make sure its ok for my needs.

    MakeMKV: I have this and its very tidy and neat, makes a quick uncompressed copy of a MKV file but they are quite big in size.

    I have been trying out DVDfab ripper - I take it that MKV remux profile is the same as what makeMKV does?
    MKV audiocopy profile - The audio setting say audio passthrough - So is this the audio is uncompressed and the movie is compressed? Not sure on the bitrate and movie size settings.

    Then there is M2TS. Once I have decrypted using Anydvd can I literally just copy & paste the film file from the stream folder to play through my PS3 or does this need to be converted?

    DVDfab has a M2TS setting: M2TS passthrough profile setting which when converted is the same size as the original file. Is there any point in doing this, can i not use the file from the decryption.
    Then DVDfab has a M2TS profile which is compressed file output which brings size from 25gb to 8gb.

    Last and final question. MKV/ H264 or M2TS. WHich is the better file to use. Say for PS3 and streaming. And for quality.
    No point in ripping Blu rays and loosing quality, might aswell copy dvds instead if we going to loose the HDness

    If i compress a MKV file to say 10-15gb. Can i uncompress back to Bluray files to burn to blu ray easily so it has its uncompressed audio etc or can this only be done with a audio & vidio passthrough MKV or M2TS file.


    Cheers and very sorry for the long question. Forgive me.
    Last edited by jamesj84; 14th Dec 2011 at 05:09.
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  2. Anyone with some info please
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  3. Member wulf109's Avatar
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    Rip to your HD with Anydvdhd. Once you compress a file you cannot restore it to original. I wouldn't buy a Samsung if they were giving them away. Use BDrebuilder to compress to mp4 or mkv.
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  4. Alrighty then.

    First, let's use commonly understood terms: Ripping means decrypting and copying to hard drive, no more. It may seem a niggling point, but folks here will know what you mean. BTW, DVDFab is a prime offender; they use the term ripping when they should say re-encoding.

    AnyDVDHD is a driver-level decrypter. It runs in the background, removing decryption. That means you can re-encode direct from disc if you like, or rip to hard drive. DVDFabPasskey works similarly, but it doesn't have an option to rip to ISO or files. That just means you do a copy/paste instead, same thing without the explicit option in the program.

    The output of MakeMKV is indeed compressed, if it weren't the files would be gigantic, much more than an order of magnitude bigger. What is does is rip the video/audio untouched to hard drive in an MKV container. The Blu-Ray spec recognizes MPEG-2, VC1, and AVC (H264). See what is Blu-Ray on the left of the page. These are all "lossy" codecs.

    Dunno what a PS3 will or will not play, don't have one. But someone no doubt will be along to advise you.

    Once you've re-encoded to a smaller size with a "lossy" codec, the lost information is gone forever. Doesn't matter if you re-encode to a bigger size after that. In fact, you will then have degraded the quality twice, as each re-encode entails some quality loss. This doesn't mean that if you re-encode to a smaller size you will lose "HD-ness." Many people find that a re-encode to, say BD9 size (~8GB) is a good compromise. Depends on your display, viewing distance, the video itself and how sharp your eye is as to whether you can tell the difference.

    You'll likely get clearer, more concise answers if you confine yourself to one concrete question at a time. And I'd recommend you read the glossary and some guides. You'll need patience to learn how to deal with digital video.

    And welcome to the forum.
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  5. Member wulf109's Avatar
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    One minor point,MakeMKV does not compress. The mkv it makes will be as large as the BR input.
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  6. Originally Posted by wulf109 View Post
    One minor point,MakeMKV does not compress. The mkv it makes will be as large as the BR input.
    I wasn't clear about that; you must have posted while I was editing it.
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  7. Excellent stuff, thanks for getting back so quick.

    Im in the honeymoon period of trying out each bit of software to see what I like. And what gets best and quickest results.

    I use anydvd to rip to my hard drive.

    With regards to re-encoding I have tried handbrake/ ripbot264 and dvdfab.
    hmmmm touchy subject. dvdfab is so much quicker. Even if i use the audio and video passthru option to keep sound and video as the blu ray disc.
    makemkv is rapid also.
    With dvdfab i can re-encode within 30mins.
    with ripbot it can take 3-5 hours.

    What is nero like for encoding and re encoding. Has it got audio and video passthru options.

    Im just looking for a decent quick program thats all.
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  8. I doubt anyone here will say that DVDFab produces results at all comparable in quality to RipBot. Much less Nero.

    RipBot is actually a front-end, it uses the x264 encoder, which compresses with the AVC (H264) codec. So do all the well-regarded freeware programs like BDRB, HandBrake, et. al. You want faster? Adjust the settings.

    I prefer BDRB myself and typically do movie-only, BD25 (single-layer BDR), using the High-Speed BD25 option. On my computer, that takes about an hour, all-up, for the average movie. More or less, including remux and rebuild. You can also specify BD5 or BD9 size, or a custom output size. Blu-Ray output or alternate output to MKV or MP4. (Does the PS3 recognize MP4s?)

    Anyway, others have their own preferences and recommendations. Good luck.
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  9. Yes the PS3 does recognise MP4 but only at a 4gb max size as the USB input only can accept FAT32 file structure. WHich is ok for re encoded dvds, but after many testing i feel I have found and will be using MKV over MP4 for BDs.

    So does BDRB/ ripbot/ handbrake convert BD files to MKV at a better or same as quality to MakeMKV? (I know BDRB & ripbot can compliment MakeMKV to compress the file MakeMKV produces but as a like for like MKV file side by side is what im getting at)

    ANy good recommendations for programs to re-encoding files back to Blu Ray/ AVCHD, i accept i will loose quality if i have compressed the file but how about if the MKV has been encoded using passthrough settings so using same audio & video as the BD in the first place.

    I am finding my feet here slowy but surely. Its having the time to mess about and it is quite enjoyable. I appreciate your comments and thank you.
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  10. Okay, it's still not quite clear.

    MakeMKV does *not* re-encode, it copies audio/video to hard drive in an MKV "container" (and yes it's already compressed). If you want "like for like" you're done, although you can "repackage" to another container easily enough without re-encoding. OTOH, any of the popular program here for this purpose (already mentioned), which use the x264 encoder are going to produce good results if used properly. As good as you can get.

    Now, a single judicious re-encode may produce results indistinguishable from the original. Depending on your display, video resolution/bitrate, blah, blah, a bunch of factors. For example, if your HDTV is 720p, you might as well re-encode to 720p at a lower bitrate if space is a consideration. Or your HDTV is, oh, 32" and your viewing distance is not right up against the screen. Or say your HDTV is under 50", 1080p, normal viewing distance; 1080p BD9 size may be an acceptable compromise between file size and quality.

    My own preference is BD25, burned to BDRs AND many of them stored on my HTPC's hard drive (just added 3 TBs storage space). Three HDTVs, 2 standalone BD players, an HTPC, and gonna add one more HDTV/standalone at the summer house. Having copies is necessary, as you can see.

    If you're worried about quality loss, just get a Blu-Ray burner and be done with it. Most of the time, movie-only with audio re-encoded to AC3 640 kps is gonna fit a BD25 with no re-encoding anyway. For those that do, BD25 is still ample size and I defy anyone to tell the difference (apart from a few pros here like edDV).

    So have a go and decide for yourself. Good luck.
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  11. Thank you.
    Your comments have made it a hell of a lot clearer to understand.
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