burning a very high MPG-2 MP@HL

[unclescoob]

So you yourself don't use dvd or bluray anymore, PDR?

[unclescoob]

Or rather, that often?

[poisondeathray]

yes I still use them - how else would you play a retail BD or DVD? But you're making a filtered version or backup copy

e.g. If I rip a retail blu-ray or clean up an old dvd, there is no reason for me to backup to another BD media or DVD media. I would just play it back on HTPC , or use a media player or streamer. DVD and BD authoring have specific rules and restrictions for authoring & encoding. You don't have as many restrictions with media players and basically none with HTPC . You can even really fix things up, dither & encode in 10bit if you use HTPC. Animated content never looked better - no banding

Maybe if you were making disc a family video for relatives or something, but for personal use, I see no use for optical DVD/BD media anymore (at least for me)

The newest generation BD players can actually play MKV container and some other formats directly (from USB), but are still restricted usually to L4.1 AVC

[unclescoob]

Seems like you get one extreme or the other when it comes to that stuff. Ripping a VOB and cleaning up the footage would require re-encoding. If you re-encode back to DVD specs, you lose quality since you're re-encoding an already lossy format to further lossy format. Considering my source is DVD, it's going to lose quality. It's not like working straight from analog source, where you save it as an AVI, work on it and it only goes through one encoding process.

On the other hand, transcoding from MPG-2 to H.264 give you wonderful results...but you can't do anything with the file because it doesn't meet authoring standards. I rather keep my pristine quality and stream it into a media player. BTW, I have a Nintendo Wii which I've rarely messed around with. Does that count as a decent starter media player? It does have a hard drive.

[poisondeathray]

Seems like you get one extreme or the other when it comes to that stuff. Ripping a VOB and cleaning up the footage would require re-encoding. If you re-encode back to DVD specs, you lose quality since you're re-encoding an already lossy format to further lossy format. Considering my source is DVD, it's going to lose quality. It's not like working straight from analog source, where you save it as an AVI, work on it and it only goes through one encoding process.

On the other hand, transcoding from MPG-2 to H.264 give you wonderful results...but you can't do anything with the file because it doesn't meet authoring standards. I rather keep my pristine quality and stream it into a media player. BTW, I have a Nintendo Wii which I've rarely messed around with. Does that count as a decent starter media player? It does have a hard drive.

No Wii is very limited, it won't do what you want.

h.264 is BD compatible, if you used BD compatible settings (in fact the majority of retail BD releases use h.264 compression) . "BD5" on a DVD5 isn't really BD. There are other rules you have to abide by (bitrate restrictions due to lower transfer rates compared to BD25/BD50 media with a blue laser ,not red laser)

h.264/AVC is a very very large specification, many different profiles, settings . But BD requires you use a limited subset for compatibility reasons

Instead of learning all those rules and settings, you can either use the programs designed for it - they were mentioned earlier (e.g. avchdcoder, multiavchd) , or simply get a media player like asus oplay, wdtv, popcorn hour etc...

[unclescoob]

I encoded to H.264 with Handbrake. I can't remember all settings, but I encoded at 2pass with 9800kbps highest. Is this capable of being stored on blu-ray?

[unclescoob]

Size is less than 2 gigs

[poisondeathray]

I already answered that. You can burn it as a data disc (and it will be playable on a PC)

DVD5 media can fit about 4.37GB worth of data . 2GB < 4.37 GB

If you used BD compatible settings, you can author a SD blu-ray disc (and many players will play it, some might not, depends on model & firmware)

Even if you didn't use BD compatible settings, many BD players these days can play directly , non authored discs, even MKV and MP4 containers as long as its <L4.1 and 4 reference frames or less . But , unless you make a strict authored BD (on BD media), there are no guarantees

[unclescoob]

What I meant was, does Handbrake offer BD compatible settings? I'm just getting to know it and plan on doing further reading.

[poisondeathray]

I don't think Handbrake offers a BD profile

You can read more about the specific BD settings here, but just a warning that there are more than just encoding settings required for BD compliance. (There are many "gotchas")

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533
https://sites.google.com/site/x264bluray/home

[unclescoob]

Ok, thanks for the links and the info. I think ultimately I will settle for a media player.

[Steve(MS)]

My tv inboard player plays MPGs, MP4s,MKVs and even blu-ray files if I rename the M2TS to TS.
My blu-ray player plays AVCHD, DVD, CD, Bluray and MKV data discs.
There is more than one way to skin the cat.

[unclescoob]

Thanks!

What is a good media player that plays overall most things you put in it? What do you guys recommend?

[jman98]

Thanks!

What is a good media player that plays overall most things you put in it? What do you guys recommend?

I have mixed feelings about adding to this. This is a valid question but this thread has gone on long enough already. But anyway... most of us are pretty happy with one of the Western Digital models. Do note that the WD models do not explicitly support Dolby Lossless and DTS-HD. Dolby Lossless has an AC3 compatible core file that can be extracted. It is possible to convert DTS-HD to regular DTS. I've not tried to see if the WD players (I have an old model by the way) can just bitstream HD audio to a receiver and let the receiver decode it.

TVs, Xbox and PS3 are truly terrible choices for media players. Despite what Steve(MS) says, we get posts all the time here from people complaining that their TV won't do DTS or something else.

[unclescoob]

this thread has gone on long enough already

Oh?