Blu-Ray ripping

[cozzy2008]

Hi there

First of all would like to say that im new to the forum and new to the Blu-Ray backup world so please excuse if you have heard the question 20 million times but every time i search i get different answers and i just would like a definitive answer from experienced people.

Last night i watched Prometheus on Blu Ray but have managed to scratch it up quite badly and as there not cheap, wound me up a fair bit. I was looking on the internet and found that backing up my Blu-ray and watching the back ups may be a good idea. My question is would ripping a Blu-ray disk onto a 25GB BD-R lose much quality to that of the original disk? Ive found that the BD-R 25GB are an affordable option as seems like anything bigger is just so expensive.

I hope this has made sense as like i said i am very new to this so just trying to get my head around it myself.

Thank you for your help.

Shaun

[fritzi93]

If you want to keep the best quality possible, you should do a main movie backup to BD25. This eliminates all unneeded audio streams and subtitles (although subtitle streams are nearly negligible). If you are also willing to re-encode large HD audio streams (DTS-MA or TrueHD) to AC3 5.1, you will find that many movies will now fit on a BD25 without re-encoding.

First you must rip (decrypt/copy) the BD to hard drive. You can use a driver-level decrypter that works in the background, like AnyDVDHD or DVDFabPasskey. With either of these, you could directly re-encode without ripping, though that's not advisable. With the regular DVDFab (not driver-level), you must rip to hard drive first. And I advise you not to use any of its other functions, as there are other, better, choices for re-encoding. A decrypter is the only thing you need to pay for, although you can use the free portion of DVDFab (DVDFabHDDecrypter) after the trial and it *should* work for all but the latest movies with new anti-copy protections. It is not updated as quickly as the pay version.

There's a halfway option if you only want main movie. That is to run a driver-level decrypter in the background and extract main movie with Clown_BD. At the same time it can re-encode the main audio stream for you, or extract its core. But the main reason I use it is that it will correctly join the m2ts files. Sometimes, even when a rip is good, a complex disc structure can trip up a Blu-Ray to Blu-Ray encoder. If the result is not small enough, you will still have to re-encode.

Once you have the movie on your hard drive, you can re-encode to BD25 with BDRebuilder. Visit the developer's website (linked on the tool page) to see how to set it up, and follow the directions exactly.

Burn the resulting BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders with ImgBurn only. It will select the correct file system for you. Use the EZ pick mode and select burn files/folders to disc. Copy/paste the above mentioned folders into the compilation window. Burn it.

Now, it may be that you like full disc. Try it if so. You may find the result is indistinguishable from the original on your display. Some members here have well-trained eyes and can tell the difference, but I think even they will admit it's difficult when the target size is BD25. Main movie will be better, of course, since the removal of everything extraneous leaves more bitrate for the video. Similarly for the audio. HD (lossless) audio takes quite a bit of space. If you don't have a top-shelf ($) sound system, you may find AC3 5.1 audio at 640 kbs is indistinguishable from HD audio.

Personally, I like main movie with AC3. Load times are much faster and I despise trailers and menus. If I want to see extras, I view them once and put the original discs away. My surround system is adequate, but I cannot distinguish HD audio from AC3 at max bitrate.

Your choice. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

[cozzy2008]

Oh wow thank you so much didnt expect as good a reply as that. Yeah i wouldnt want anything but the main movie either so that suites me. What you said has made up my mind so blu-ray writer here we come.

Thank you so much

Shaun

[fritzi93]

You're welcome.

I should have made it clear that with Full Disc Mode in BDRB, you can deselect unwanted audio and subtitle streams. The extras will remain however, and they can often be quite large. Before someone says so, yes, you can enable a hidden option in BDRB that allows you to edit the disc, and deselect extras. Probably best if Shaun doesn't try that just yet.

Prometheus is one of those love it/hate it movies. I like it myself, and have viewed it in my home theater in 3D and 2D several times. At any rate, it's stunning visually. The 3D is well-done, and I'm glad they didn't go for a lot of popout gags.

[jman98]

cozzy2008 - In general we don't care (unlike some video web sites) if you ask the "same question" that others have asked. So you're fine. Just don't make multiple threads about the same thing - we don't like that. We also don't like it when we go to the trouble to answer questions and the person who asked isn't paying attention. We've had several new members like that recently.

I just want to warn about something that is unlikely but it can happen with BDRB - sometimes if you deselect unwanted audio streams, BDRB will not shrink the final output enough to fit on a single layer BD-R disc. I do not know what causes this and it doesn't happen most of the time, but it does happen sometimes. So if you deselect an audio file and the final output is still too big, the only fix I know is to put it back in and redo the job.

[fritzi93]

Yes, one more reason to use Clown_BD to extract main movie with one audio and one subtitle stream. I've never had a problem with BDRB if I do that first. If I do a full disc rip and open that with BDRB, occasionally it will fail for obscure reasons. Haven't done it that way for a while though, and it was almost certainly just a BDRB bug. To give another example, BDRB sometimes doesn't like interactive PiP (picture-in-picture) menus. So, feed BDRB a simplified structure and there will be no worries.

Shaun, handling discs with forced subtitles is a bit more complicated. If and when you want to know how to deal with them, post again. Prometheus and most other BDs have none.

Good luck.

[Cornucopia]

Thanks, fritzi93, I didn't know that tip!

Scott

P.s.: 3d blu-rays are much more complicated, so the above suggestions will not work there (if you were wondering, OP).

[fritzi93]

Hey Scott, thanks. You mentioned not long ago you'd be busy with a project; how did it go?

I finally got around to testing DVDFab's 3D BD re-encoding. I posted a thread on it and hoped you'd participate. Anyway, the best I could do is get the menu on the re-encode to load on my 3D standalone, an LG BD670. Then nothing, and same for main movie. Now, either it's my player or Fab's 3D BD encoding is not ready.

Okay, just so I try to keep on topic, there is one more little detail about Clown_BD: Sometimes you can bypass a new BD+ protection with it.

The day the last Harry Potter movie came out, there were posts by people having problems ripping/re-encoding it. I recall they got the sound advice from a member here to wait for their decrypter(s) to be updated, which they duly were in a few days. My wife's copy (pre-ordered from Amazon) arrived next day. I ran Passkey in the background and extracted main movie with no problem. To verify, I tried copying the movie to hard drive first. No go with BDRB, nor could Clown_BD extract main movie from the rip. So the conclusion I came to is that the new protection must have been BD+, not a new AACS MKB (master key block) version. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Not important, but I thought it interesting.

Phil