How to convert a Blu-ray to a standard DVD using free tools

[Baldrick]

How to rip and convert a Blu-ray main movie to a standard DVD using free software. You will lose the blu-ray menu and extra material but you can keep several audio tracks and subtitles.


Tools
DVDFab HD Decrypter
BDRebuilder (requires ffdshow, avisynth and haali media splitter installed)
Imgburn



Ripping
Rip your Blu-ray to your HDD using DVD HD Decrypter.
Start DVDFAB HD Decrypter and select HD Decrypter Free Edition.


Select the blu-ray drive and set the target. You need a lot of HDD Space, 20-50GB!
Rip your Blu-ray to your HDD using DVD HD Decrypter.




Conversion
Be sure to install the required tools for BDRebuilder first, ffdshow, avisynth and haali media splitter.
Extract all files from bdrebuilder.zip to a folder and run inspect.exe and click inspect, it should say OK on all line if you have installed all the required tools.


Now start BDRB.exe
Select the source folder where you ripped the Blu-ray using DVDFab HD Decrypter.
Select the working folder. Be sure that you have enough HDD Space, around 15-30GB!
Select Mode->Movie Only Backup
Select the audio and subtitle tracks you want to keep. Double click to disable/enable track. Try to avoid to include so many audio and subtitle tracks, they take some space.


Select Mode->Movie Only->Alternate Movie Only Playlist and select DVD-5(4.7GB DVDRs) or DVD-9(8.6GB DVDRs)


Backup!


You can now test play the DVD with VLC Media Player, in VLC choose Media->Open folder and select the VIDEO_TS folder that BDRebuilder created.



Burning
Burn the VIDEO_FOLDER with Imgburn
Select Write Folders/Files to DVD.
Add the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folder.
Burn




Problems
If everything fails then just buy the full version of DVDFab and you can do Blu-ray to DVD directly in it.

[Kerry56]

I've used BD Rebuilder for this process a number of times now. It usually works very well, and the HC encoder does a fine job from blu ray sources. Problems sometimes occur when the original audio is DTS-HD Master Audio, and that is becoming a very common type of audio in blu ray.

As to using DVDFab to do the complete conversion from blu ray to dvd...I wouldn't advise it. I tried it not long ago while I had the full trial for DVDFab and whatever they are using for mpeg2 encoding is simply not producing very good results.

[isisism]

All 3 of my "WIN7 preferred" codecs are "Not Set correctly" but the 3 installed tools show ok.

How do I correct this?

[aedipuss]

All 3 of my "WIN7 preferred" codecs are "Not Set correctly" but the 3 installed tools show ok.

How do I correct this?

read the "readme.txt" all the way through.

[isisism]

All 3 of my "WIN7 preferred" codecs are "Not Set correctly" but the 3 installed tools show ok.

How do I correct this?

read the "readme.txt" all the way through.

Okay, so you have to actually run the program as admin before you "inspect". That fixed it.

Perhaps the guide can be updated to reflect that.

[Hansaplastique]

I use for MakeMKV as an alternative for DVDFab.
After ripping I convert with HandBrake. Works like a charm under Windows and MacOS X (if I understand it right, even for Linux) ... No need for codecs etc. (see also: link)

Does anybody know if there is a MacOS X alternative for BDRebuilder,...? I'd be very interested.
(or other alternative that can convert a MKV to DVD)