Difficulties with bluray extracions

[armyofquad]

I've got this weird issue with extracted files from a bluray. I extracted the bluray to several .mkv files, which themselves seem to play without issue in VLC player (probably other players too), but there seems to be some underlying issue causing crashing issues.

Whenever I open my computer and browse to the folder the files are contained in, before I can click on one of them, windows explorer crashes. Although, now it's not doing it, I tried to do it again to get the exact error that comes up when it crashes, but it's a generic error about windows explorer crashing, which closes all windows explorer windows.

It's really odd I can't get it to do it now, it had been doing it so consistently. And I was able to move the folder to another hard drive, and it still did it, so it isn't specific to one location or one copy.

I wanted to specifically work on one of the files, which I would use for a project that will end up on dvd, and was able to copy the single file I wanted using the command prompt, since I couldn't actually browse to the folder it's in and copy it from there without it crashing. That worked fine. And then I used MKVExtractGUI to get an .h264 and .wav file out of the .mkv file. Which, doesn't seem to work with my video editing programs I've been trying out. So I used tsmuxergui to put the .h264 file in a m2ts container.

However, it seems whenever I import this file into my session, the program will crash. I'm not sure if this is related to the issue with the original crashing issue.

The m2ts file will play fine in VLC player. I did use VLC player to convert it to .mp4, which I was able to import into my session, but that file was off, not the same length as the audio, and wouldn't play at the right speed.

I've tried just importing the m2ts file by itself into a session and rendering to dvd quality mpg before it has a chance to crash anything, but the rendering job freezes at 3 percent. I let it sit for a half hour at 3 percent, it was obviously stuck.

I tried converting it to .mp4 in handbrake, handbrake acted as if the job finished immediately, leaving me with an .mp4 file with no data.

There's obviously something wrong with my source, but I don't know what. All the content is obviously there, since the original plays fine in VLC, there's just some bug or error I can't seem to work around or avoid, and I'm at a loss how to fix this or work around this.

[Steve(MS)]

Sounds like your blu-ray is encrypted. Try ripping it with MakeMKV before working with the files.

[armyofquad]

Sorry, I should have specified that I did rip it with MakeMKV. The ripped MKV files do play in VLC without issue, they aren't encrypted, but there's something wrong there that seems to cause windows explorer to crash when browsing to the folder, and causing video editing programs to crash when trying to read the data extracted from the MKV files.

[Bernix]

You can try Avidemux to remux to MP4. Copy audio Copy video and as output format select MP4.
At least you can try it.

Bernix

[KarMa]

Mediainfo of the file(s) in question would be helpful.

One possibility is that the audio stream switches between stereo and surround sound, which can cause problems with programs but VLC can deal with it. But VLC might have a problem re-encoding it. Could be that the first frame or so is stereo but then immediately switches to surround. Mediainfo will only be able to tell you the audio at the beginning of a video file and won't tell you if it changes later on. But playing the file in VLC you can press "Ctrl + J" to look at the current audio stream information, and when/if the audio stream changes VLC will display it in real time.

I would also think that the file could be damaged, but if VLC plays the entire video fine then I guess not.

[Steve(MS)]

Well you didn't provide any info on your workflow, which most of the time we aren't really interested in anyway.
Could be different things but then again, not much info to go on.
Make sure MakeMKV is actually de-encrypting the files when it rips as there is a way for it to rip and leaving the files encrypted.
You can actually rip the files to hard drive in folders without making them mkv.
Could be your blu-ray drive...could be something wrong with your computer.
We don't see a thread like this very often, most of the time it is user mistake(s) that is the problem.

Does your drive rip dvds without the same problem?
MakeMKV will only allow mkv output on dvds...

[armyofquad]

The video does have 2 audio streams, one stereo, one surround. VLC allows one the option to pick which audio stream to listen to, both seem to work. I think it's possible there is some damage, just that it's a damage that VLC is somehow able to handle and play over....maybe some kind of formatting damage or something? I don't know, but there's got to be something wrong with the file that it crashes so many things.

I have extracted from the bluray twice, and had problems both times though.

Is there some sort of repair I can run it through? Or maybe something more simple that I could render the h264 to mpg with? I know mpg isn't ideal for editing, but if I could get a dvd quality mpg of this, since I'm planning on going to dvd, I would be happy with that.

[armyofquad]

Um....hmmm....I thought I used makemkv to extract the bluray, but maybe not. I forget exactly how I got from bluray to mkv then. But, somehow I found a method, probably with googling.

I've ripped many dvds with this drive, never a problem like this before.

Actually, I think I made the mkvs from an iso backup, I rip all my discs to iso for backup purposes. The iso seems to have no issue. I may have gone back to the original disc on my 2nd attempt to get .mkv files that don't crash windows explorer.

[armyofquad]

I've also yet found a way to successfully convert bluray to dvd at all! Even with an extracted example that doesn't crash things, when I bring it into any video editing software, it's all choppy when trying to work with it, and if I just do a simple drop it in, and render to dvd quality mpg, I get an mpg that's way too long, and black.

I need a working procedure to get from bluray to dvd quality mpg. Does anyone have one?

[Steve(MS)]

You have to decrypt commercial blu-rays or you will never be able to work with the files.

[Bernix]

I am noob, but have you try AvstoDVD ?
Hope it will works. I also find on web how to check your files for errors with FFmpeg. ffmpeg.exe -v error -i file.mkv -f null - >error.log 2>&1

Bernix

[armyofquad]

I've pointed out a few times now that my files aren't encrypted. I appreciate your advice, but that is not the issue here. Could you please address the question at hand? Thank you.

[armyofquad]

I appreciate those suggestions, I've run into frame errors when using AvstoDVD in the past, I don't trust it, and would rather not touch that again. It seemed to always cause some kind of odd jump at the start of anything I used it for.

FFmpeg is a bit over my head.

[KarMa]

The video does have 2 audio streams, one stereo, one surround. VLC allows one the option to pick which audio stream to listen to, both seem to work.

Yes but a single stream can switch between stereo and surround.

[armyofquad]

The video does have 2 audio streams, one stereo, one surround. VLC allows one the option to pick which audio stream to listen to, both seem to work.

Yes but a single stream can switch between stereo and surround.

That's not what's going on here.

And how could that even happen?

[Steve(MS)]

I'll try one more time. What program did you use to rip your files to hard drive?
Whatever the program, it has to have the ability to decrypt.
Then not all decrypters do a good job.
If you are using some oddball decrypter, chances are it didn't do a good job.
That is the reason I suggested MakeMKV as it is known to be a good one.
Another one is dvdfab.
I would suggest anydvd but not sure whether the changeover of ownership of that company is up and running smoothly.
Anyway, anydvd does have a trial period so I assume that it will work.

If you are unwilling to use one of the 3 above, you may well have trouble the rest of your life working with BD files.

[armyofquad]

I used MakeMKV. I said this earlier. Someone said that it only makes mkvs with dvd, which caused me to second guess myself. But I think that comment is wrong, as I know I've used it with blurays, so once again, I did use makemkv.

I did manage to get after effects to convert them to avi though, so I'm set now.

[fritzi93]

I think the distinction is that for Blu-Rays MakeMKV will rip to either files (whole disc) or MKV. Whereas with DVDs, it will only rip to MKV.

[EDIT] Someone correct me if wrong. It's been ages since I ripped a DVD.

[armyofquad]

Ah, I must have misunderstood what was being said there. Anyways, I use makemkv all the time, and never had a problem with it, other than these particularly difficult files. But, I managed to find a way to convert them into something I could work with.

[KarMa]

And how could that even happen?

Usually when two programs are joined together with different audio channels. Happens in TV Broadcasts a lot.