Riddle me this - Same video file, different computer, different PQ

[highspeed]

Hi, my name is Matt and this is my inaugural post on videohelp!

I've been lurking on here for a while now. I've been ripping movies from discs for about 7 years now, starting my DVD ripping collection with Handbrake back in 2005. When BD came out, I spent many years perfecting a process that would yield me the best quality results, and only until a couple of months ago did I come up with a great one. I think I've found it.

I've used this process for many other BD discs, but today I ran into an issue. Before I explain, I'll tell you about my process.

1. AnyDVD HD - Used to remove BD protection. I use my laptop to rip the disc image, copy it over to my desktop.
2. ClownBD - Demux only. Used to parse split m2ts files, extract chapters, and subtitles if needed. Otherwise, I skip the demux and go to 5.
3. Convert subtitles to SUP using BDSup2Sub, and then to SRT with Suprip.
4. Merge h264 stream and DTS-HD MA/etc in MKV using MKVtoolnix
5. Recode with XMedia - Video copy, Audio 5.1 AAC 48kHz 448kbps.
6. Copy over to Mac Mini Server which serves up the media in my house
7. Use iSubtitle to fix metadata, add the SRT subtitle file, and chapters.

The process is outstanding! I've got a perfect (minus audio of course) rip of Avatar and many other BD movies on my Mac. I haven't really gotten anything good for VC-1 yet, since the mp4 container requires h264 video. These 30+ GB files don't play so well over Wifi onto my Apple TV, but that's another story.


Now, onto my issue. A couple of days ago, I upgraded my workhorse desktop to Windows 8 Pro x64. Using the same process above, I ripped a four disc collection of Pirates of the Caribbean off their BD discs and over to the Mac as usual. I go to play back my movies, and the quality is gone to crap. Here's what I mean:

Attached is a picture of Dead Man's Chest. I have the exact same file playing on my Windows 8 computer (in the Video app) on the left, and the Mac Mini (in iTunes or Quicktime, same results) on the right. I'm at a complete loss on this one and looking for some help.

The only thing I can think of are these BDs are UK versions (cheaper :P ). I can't think that they are PAL, because Windows 8 handles them fine. But I could be wrong. I didn't see anything interesting in ClownBD or XMedia that raised any flags.

I tried demux+ClownBD/remux+MKVtoolnix and also simply recoding the m2ts directly from the disc image using XMedia.

Also, another interesting thing to note is that the title screens (e.g., the Disney castle) play back perfectly fine. But what I don't understand is that the h264 stream is all coming from the same file! They weren't split into separate m2ts files on the disc. It was all one big h264 file, but as soon as the feature film begins to play, I get these rainbow artifacts all over the scene.

Thank you for reading my essay and thank you for your help!

edit - OK fixed the photo. It was late and I couldn't be bothered last night.

[mike20021969]

Greetings to Australia from the UK

Couldn't resist

[Baldrick]

So you are making/muxing to a mp4 with xmedia recode? I would guess it's something wrong with it...maybe try an older version.

How does it look with VLC on your mac?

[highspeed]

Greetings to Australia from the UK

Couldn't resist

thanks! I was super tired past night when I wrote. When the picture was upside down I was like, eh don't care fix it in the morning go sleep now bye.

So you are making/muxing to a mp4 with xmedia recode? I would guess it's something wrong with it...maybe try an older version.

How does it look with VLC on your mac?

Good points. I actually did use a new version of XMedia at first, but when the results were terrible I rolled back to the older version that worked before. I am mainly using XMedia to convert the audio to a usable format for the Apple TV. The video stream is untouched.


Very good idea about VLC. I'll take a look at that when I get home. I didn't think to try it.


Just to make sure I wasn't high, I ran another movie untouched from BD that I made using the same process and it played back normally in QT.

[jagabo]

That's not "different picture quality". It's gross decoding errors.

[Cornucopia]

Maybe something in your chain needs/uses 32bit code and it isn't matching well with your 64bit Win8 architecture...

Scott

[highspeed]

VLC played it back just fine. Seems to be an anomaly with iTunes/Quicktime. This is a new thing for me, because it plays back everything else just fine. Thanks for all the help so far.

[kunstkleplh]

I also recommend VLC for playing videos, as it comes bundled with its own codecs so you don't need anything else. Unfortunately it's not available for Win8 as far as I know.

LE: like the two Dells. Are those 24's?