What 's the best hardware and software for ripping blu-ray movies?

[HartsVideo]

Hi,

I want to start ripping blu-ray movies and convert them to .mkv files. What's the best hardware and software for this?

[Baldrick]

Streaming? Nope, moving you to our Blu-ray section.


MakeMKV. Does both ripping and converting to mkv but no shrinking(15-25GB mkv files). You may also want AnyDVDHD as ripper because MakeMKV does not support the latest Blu-ray releases.

If you also want to shrink you use Ripbot264 and the fastest CPU you can get hold of because converting hd material is slow.

[fritzi93]

Your hardware is adequate. You will, of course, need either a BD-ROM or BD burner.

First you need to decrypt the Blu-ray discs. AnyDVDHD is the only reliable choice at present. But you might get this while it's free:

http://www.winxdvd.com/giveaway/

Make sure you get the registration codes too. It's a bit buggy. You'll have to enter the reg info, it'll freeze, close with Task Manager and restart the program. As discussed on another thread, it worked just fine for me and one other member, while two other members couldn't get it to work for them. But it's free. [shrugs]

For conversion to MKV, RipBot is one possibility, personally I like HDConvertToX, try a few and decide for yourself. Good luck.

[dilligaf]

Hardware wise Im using a Pioneer BDR-205 to rip/burn, a very quiet fuss-free drive

[HartsVideo]

Thanks, everybody, for your replies. You gave me somegood things to start with

. . . and I'll give it a try.

Will my DVDs play on the BD-ROM drive or will I need to keep the CD-ROM drive connected too? Will I be able to use a BD-ROM drive for my Windows disk if I format in the future?

[HartsVideo]

I just checked out the Pioneer BDR-205 and saw that it's an external device, no need to replace my DVD drive.

[ocgw]

I just checked out the Pioneer BDR-205 and saw that it's an external device, no need to replace my DVD drive.

Note: My Pioneer BDR-203 8x BD-RW drive reads and writes @ 36Mb/s, a little faster than usb can sustain, and the 12x BD burners have already hit the market (54Mb/s)

ocgw

peace

[redwudz]

Will my DVDs play on the BD-ROM drive or will I need to keep the CD-ROM drive connected too? Will I be able to use a BD-ROM drive for my Windows disk if I format in the future?

I use my internal BD ROM drives for reading all my discs including BDs, DVDs, CDs and OS install discs. The last may not work as well with a external drive unless you can set your BIOS to boot from it.

[ricoman]

I just checked out the Pioneer BDR-205 and saw that it's an external device, no need to replace my DVD drive.

I have a Pioneer BDR-205, it is an internal drive, I believe the external is the BDR-2205. The pioneer is a great drive. I use AnyDVDHD/BDRebuilder/Imgburn to rip, compress and burn bluray discs. With BDRebuilder you can compress a BD "movie only" to a standard DL disc without any noticeable difference in picture quality. This works very well for me.

[HartsVideo]

I need a BD drive to be able to connect to a SATA port. It's the only port that will be available on my mobo once I remove the DVD-ROM drive. I have USB 2.0 external ports available but I'd rather install the drive internally. I don't have any external SATA ports. All of my internal hdds are SATA but I have them connected using IDE format, not a RAID Array.

[HartsVideo]

Looking around the net, some people said that a special program is needed to watch blu-ray movies on the Pioneer BDR-205? Is that true and if so, what program will play them?

Also, I have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield, Socket 775 LGA processor. I think it's fast enough to convert files to my hdds but a confirmation would be great.

[lacywest]

Interesting stuff here ... thank you

[redwudz]

You need a Blu-ray player program like ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre, or there are a couple of others, all pay programs. I like TMT 3 as it can play BD from my hard drives also. If you use a decrypter like AnyDVDHD you can also play the individual .m2ts files with MPC-HC or VLC or a few others. You definitely need a decrypter program if you plan to backup and convert your BD files and AnyDVDHD is the best one out there at present.

I back up and convert BD>MKV 8GB files. That takes about six hours on my 3.4Ghz quad core, so I just run RipBot overnight.

[ricoman]

Looking around the net, some people said that a special program is needed to watch blu-ray movies on the Pioneer BDR-205? Is that true and if so, what program will play them?

Also, I have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield, Socket 775 LGA processor. I think it's fast enough to convert files to my hdds but a confirmation would be great.

I got PowerDVD9 with my 205 and that plays HD, as long as you have a decent video card. I like Media Play Classic and it's free.
I'm sure your system is fine to process BD, certainly the processor is, the biggest thing is you need at least 50gb or more of HD space.

[ocgw]

Looking around the net, some people said that a special program is needed to watch blu-ray movies on the Pioneer BDR-205? Is that true and if so, what program will play them?

Also, I have an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield, Socket 775 LGA processor. I think it's fast enough to convert files to my hdds but a confirmation would be great.

I got PowerDVD9 with my 205 and that plays HD, as long as you have a decent video card. I like Media Play Classic and it's free.
I'm sure your system is fine to process BD, certainly the processor is, the biggest thing is you need at least 50gb or more of HD space.

I have BD playback smoothly on PC's w/ 8800GTX, 8600GT, 2600XT and HD4650

Some report good playback on HD4350's

ocgw

peace

[ricoman]

I'm sorry, I mis-read the post. I thought you wanted to process (rip) bluray movies with the 205. You don't need 50gb HD space to watch a movie.

[MJA]

did any of you guys try this winxdvd?

[HartsVideo]

I got PowerDVD9 with my 205 and that plays HD, as long as you have a decent video card. I like Media Play Classic and it's free. I'm sure your system is fine to process BD, certainly the processor is, the biggest thing is you need at least 50gb or more of HD space.

I have MediaPlayer Home Cinema and VLC Media Player installed in my pc. I watch a lot of .avi and .mkv files that are stored in my pc with them, but I thought that a special player was needed to watch a blu-ray disk. I haven't bought the blu-ray player/burner yet. I don't have a tv so I watch everything on my pc, including DVDs, and I want to watch blu-ray disks on my pc when I get the BD player/burner.

I have BD playback smoothly on PC's w/ 8800GTX, 8600GT, 2600XT and HD4650

What are 8800GTX, 8600GT, 2600XT and HD4650?

I'm sorry, I mis-read the post. I thought you wanted to process (rip) bluray movies with the 205. You don't need 50gb HD space to watch a movie.

I have 12 1T/2T internal hdds and 4 750G externals so storage space isn't a problem, but you're right, I do want to rip and convert blu-ray movies so that they'll be stored on my hdds. I have about 30 blu-ray hd .mkv movies and they're much nicer to watch than .avi files.

as long as you have a decent video card.

I have an ASUS EAH4650-DI-512MD2 video card. Since I watch a lot of videos on my pc, I tried to get a good one, and I have a Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP monitor. I'm pretty happy with them.

You need a Blu-ray player program like ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre, or there are a couple of others, all pay programs. I like TMT 3 as it can play BD from my hard drives also. If you use a decrypter like AnyDVDHD you can also play the individual .m2ts files with MPC-HC or VLC or a few others. You definitely need a decrypter program if you plan to backup and convert your BD files and AnyDVDHD is the best one out there at present.

I back up and convert BD>MKV 8GB files. That takes about six hours on my 3.4Ghz quad core, so I just run RipBot overnight.

This is really good info, thanks redwudz


This really is a good thread . . . a lot of good info, thanks to everybody who's helping

[fritzi93]

It's likely that Blu-Ray player software will be bundled with your BD drive. PowerDVD came with mine, but I prefer TME, which came with my Hauppauge HD-PVR.

Again, you can stop worrying about your hardware. Your CPU and video card are a good deal more powerful than my HTPC, and I can play BD rips from hard drive with only ~8-12% CPU usage. (See my computer details). Should you want to do conversions and/or re-encodes, that quad is just the thing for the job.

Good luck.

[ocgw]

I got PowerDVD9 with my 205 and that plays HD, as long as you have a decent video card. I like Media Play Classic and it's free. I'm sure your system is fine to process BD, certainly the processor is, the biggest thing is you need at least 50gb or more of HD space.

I have MediaPlayer Home Cinema and VLC Media Player installed in my pc. I watch a lot of .avi and .mkv files that are stored in my pc with them, but I thought that a special player was needed to watch a blu-ray disk. I haven't bought the blu-ray player/burner yet. I don't have a tv so I watch everything on my pc, including DVDs, and I want to watch blu-ray disks on my pc when I get the BD player/burner.

I have BD playback smoothly on PC's w/ 8800GTX, 8600GT, 2600XT and HD4650

What are 8800GTX, 8600GT, 2600XT and HD4650?

I'm sorry, I mis-read the post. I thought you wanted to process (rip) bluray movies with the 205. You don't need 50gb HD space to watch a movie.

I have 12 1T/2T internal hdds and 4 750G externals so storage space isn't a problem, but you're right, I do want to rip and convert blu-ray movies so that they'll be stored on my hdds. I have about 30 blu-ray hd .mkv movies and they're much nicer to watch than .avi files.

as long as you have a decent video card.

I have an ASUS EAH4650-DI-512MD2 video card. Since I watch a lot of videos on my pc, I tried to get a good one, and I have a Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP monitor. I'm pretty happy with them.

You need a Blu-ray player program like ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre, or there are a couple of others, all pay programs. I like TMT 3 as it can play BD from my hard drives also. If you use a decrypter like AnyDVDHD you can also play the individual .m2ts files with MPC-HC or VLC or a few others. You definitely need a decrypter program if you plan to backup and convert your BD files and AnyDVDHD is the best one out there at present.

I back up and convert BD>MKV 8GB files. That takes about six hours on my 3.4Ghz quad core, so I just run RipBot overnight.

This is really good info, thanks redwudz


This really is a good thread . . . a lot of good info, thanks to everybody who's helping

8800GTX and those other #'s are gfx card gpu's

If you have all that HDD space like I have why take the time and trouble to shrink your blu rays, keep them original in iso form and play them w/ PDVD or TMT for flawless playback

I get about 75 blu ray a TB uncompressed after demuxing out the bloat

ocgw

peace

[redwudz]

As I mentioned, you can play parts of the Blu-ray disc if you run a decrypter first, mainly the .m2ts files that hold the actual video. If you want to play the whole BD, then you need a software BD player like TMT and you don't need a decrypter program for just that. But you will need the decrypter program if you want to back up the BDs into any format.

[HartsVideo]

Even though I have a lot of storage space, my hdds are filling up (one has to be RMA'd and one can't be on when another one is on) so I just started to buy 2T hdds to replace the 750Gb's. I'd rather back up the movies from blu-ray disks into viewable files on my hdds than to back them in other ways. This way, the blu-rays will stay pristine and I can very easily watch the movies whenever I want. But I also want to be able to burn them so that I can take them with me when I visit or loan them to friends/family. So it comes out that I want 2 things . . . to rip and convert them in formats that can be viewed on my computer and burned to play on blu-ray players.

Right now, i have .mkv movies that were split into 4 2Gb chunks. I joined them using Total Commander and I then changed the file ext of the joined movie from .mkv to .avi and they play with MediaPlayer Classic Homecinema and VLC Media Player. The original 8Gb .mkv files are my backup.

I understand that I have to rip, convert and shrink the movies that are on blu-ray disks so that they'll be between 4 to 8 Gb when finished, but in what file extension should I originally create them to be 1. stored in my pc to view, and 2. to burn them to be played on BD players?

[ocgw]

Even though I have a lot of storage space, my hdds are filling up (one has to be RMA'd and one can't be on when another one is on) so I just started to buy 2T hdds to replace the 750Gb's. I'd rather back up the movies from blu-ray disks into viewable files on my hdds than to back them in other ways. This way, the blu-rays will stay pristine and I can very easily watch the movies whenever I want. But I also want to be able to burn them so that I can take them with me when I visit or loan them to friends/family. So it comes out that I want 2 things . . . to rip and convert them in formats that can be viewed on my computer and burned to play on blu-ray players.

Right now, i have .mkv movies that were split into 4 2Gb chunks. I joined them using Total Commander and I then changed the file ext of the joined movie from .mkv to .avi and they play with MediaPlayer Classic Homecinema and VLC Media Player. The original 8Gb .mkv files are my backup.

I understand that I have to rip, convert and shrink the movies that are on blu-ray disks so that they'll be between 4 to 8 Gb when finished, but in what file extension should I originally create them to be 1. stored in my pc to view, and 2. to burn them to be played on BD players?

I rip movies w/ TsMuxeR directly from the disc in one step removing unwanted audio tracks, subtitiles and commentary in about 20-25 minutes, convert to iso w/ imgburn in under 5 minutes

I mount the disc images w/ Slysoft Virtual Clone Drive (VCD) (freeware) and play w/ PDVD8 w/ 1-click ease in media center/ MyMovies3

100% quality, average under 18GB, ready to burn to disc w/ no intermediate steps

It could not possibly be any easier or simpler

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic368691.html

imho

ocgw

peace

[fritzi93]

If you want to be reasonably certain that your discs will play on a wide variety of standalones, you'd be wise to burn to BD25 (single-layer Blu-Ray). Many Blu-Rays will fit on a BD25 if you do main movie only, or they will fit with little re-compression. I'll venture to say you won't be able to tell the difference. You may be hard-pressed to tell the difference with BD9 size as well. People who say the same about BD5 are going a bit far, IMO, but a movie under 2 hours, movie-only, can also look quite good. BDRB is a useful program for re-encoding to BD25 and BD5/9.

BD5 and BD9 (Blu-Ray structure on DVD single or dual-layer) will only play on selected AVCHD capable players, some of which are listed here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146339&highlight=standalone+results

I do as ocgw does, store disc images on the HTPC. Mount on a virtual drive and play on PowerDVD, TMT, TME, or whatever player you prefer. It's convenient that way, which is why I don't make many MKVs.

[ocgw]

If you want to be reasonably certain that your discs will play on a wide variety of standalones, you'd be wise to burn to BD25 (single-layer Blu-Ray). Many Blu-Rays will fit on a BD25 if you do main movie only, or they will fit with little re-compression. I'll venture to say you won't be able to tell the difference. You may be hard-pressed to tell the difference with BD9 size as well. People who say the same about BD5 are going a bit far, IMO, but a movie under 2 hours, movie-only, can also look quite good. BDRB is a useful program for re-encoding to BD25 and BD5/9.

BD5 and BD9 (Blu-Ray structure on DVD single or dual-layer) will only play on selected AVCHD capable players, some of which are listed here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146339&highlight=standalone+results

I do as ocgw does, store disc images on the HTPC. Mount on a virtual drive and play on PowerDVD, TMT, TME, or whatever player you prefer. It's convenient that way, which is why I don't make many MKVs.

I concur w/ everything fritzi93 says

additional note: isos play on dedicated playback software w/ hardware acceleration for smoother playback

btw, I have 400 BD+ titles on my HTPC/Gigabit Home Media Server (Mozart) which is still only a fraction of all the blu ray titles, but "in my experience" 90-95% of blu ray titles when demuxed to main movie w/ 1 standard 5.1 sound track (DD or DTS) and no subtites will fit on a BD-25 disc

ocgw

peace

[HartsVideo]

100% quality, average under 18GB, ready to burn to disc w/ no intermediate steps

18Gb for 1 movie is too large. I want to keep it to between 4Gb to 8Gb, maybe some 2+ hrs movies at 10Gb at the very most. I don't have so much room left on my drives (see the attachment) that each movie can be ±18Gb. The HD .mkv movies that I have stored on hdds are no larger than 10Gb for a ±2 hr movie and they look exceptional when I play them on my pc. I also have some that are only 4Gb and they still look very good, especially compared to .avi files.

As far as burning goes, I would like to make the files as large a file as possible that will fit on one disk, with AC3 and 6ch audio but I won't know what the programs mentioned in thread can do until I buy the blu-ray player/burner and start experimenting.

You all gave me some great info and I appreciate it very much. Thaniks to all!

I wish ALL you wonderful people a very happy and healthy New Year!!!


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[ricoman]

[quote="HartsVideo"]

As far as burning goes, I would like to make the files as large a file as possible that will fit on one disk, with AC3 and 6ch audio but I won't know what the programs mentioned in thread can do until I buy the blu-ray player/burner and start experimenting.

BDRebuilder can compress to approx. 7gb with DTS 5.1 audio and fit on a DL disc. If you use a BD25 you can do DTS-HD audio. I've done a few and the DL (BD9) disc come out great. I don't even bother buying BD media now.

[fritzi93]

I also want to be able to burn them so that I can take them with me when I visit or loan them to friends/family. So it comes out that I want 2 things . . . to rip and convert them in formats that can be viewed on my computer and burned to play on blu-ray players.

Just how important is this to you? A BD25 should play on damn near any player, BD 5/9 is hit-and-miss. And, not to belabor the obvious, but to play on a BD standalone, use BD structure, i.e. BDMV folder or disc image.

Happy New Year!

[ocgw]

100% quality, average under 18GB, ready to burn to disc w/ no intermediate steps

18Gb for 1 movie is too large. I want to keep it to between 4Gb to 8Gb, maybe some 2+ hrs movies at 10Gb at the very most. I don't have so much room left on my drives (see the attachment) that each movie can be ±18Gb. The HD .mkv movies that I have stored on hdds are no larger than 10Gb for a ±2 hr movie and they look exceptional when I play them on my pc. I also have some that are only 4Gb and they still look very good, especially compared to .avi files.

As far as burning goes, I would like to make the files as large a file as possible that will fit on one disk, with AC3 and 6ch audio but I won't know what the programs mentioned in thread can do until I buy the blu-ray player/burner and start experimenting.

You all gave me some great info and I appreciate it very much. Thaniks to all!

I wish ALL you wonderful people and very happy and healthy New Year!!!


....\:’\’\:::/’::/’/’
....’\’\::’\:/’:/’/’..___,•’`¯`’•,
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..........||.../...... (^)(^)` ........\
..........||..|............ .............I
..........||...\.......\____/........./
..........||.....’•,_............._,•’
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Happy New Year to you too!!

What do you use for a monitor?

I use a 56" 1080p DLP so compression artifacts have no where to hide in my home theater lol

ps. i only WISH I had as much free space on my HDD as you lol

ocgw

peace

[HartsVideo]

Just how important is this to you? A BD25 should play on damn near any player, BD 5/9 is hit-and-miss. And, not to belabor the obvious, but to play on a BD standalone, use BD structure, i.e. BDMV folder or disc image.

I'm thinking that I can convert the files 2 ways . . . one way to store them on hdds and another way to burn them to disks. I won't burn every BD movie, just when someone wants to see one. I'll know much better once I buy the player/burner. Since BD25 is more apt to play, I'll probably start with them to avoid problems playing them and when I have some experience with the programs and sure about what I'm doing, I can check out the BD9's.

BDRebuilder can compress to approx. 7gb with DTS 5.1 audio and fit on a DL disc. If you use a BD25 you can do DTS-HD audio. I've done a few and the DL (BD9) disc come out great. I don't even bother buying BD media now.

Sounds good

What do you use for a monitor?

I use a 56" 1080p DLP so compression artifacts have no where to hide in my home theater lol

ps. i only WISH I had as much free space on my HDD as you lol

I have a Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP monitor and the HD .mkv movies on my hdds look terrific. Most of the movies are 1080p. It may seem that I have a lot of room. That's what I thought when I bought the 1T hdds and had lots of room but I kept adding and the room started to disappear. within about a year, I'll have to replace all the 750Gb hdds with 2T hdds and the year after that, I'll have to start replacing the 1T hdds with 2T hdds. It's the way it's been going.