VC-1 to H264?

[VanZan]

I used MakeMkv with two different ambient BluRays:

Christmas Fireplace
and
Hawaii Beaches

I put the generated mkv files on a usb key and attempted to play them with xbmc. The mkv files from the first BluRay, Christmas Fireplace, played fine with no problems whatsoever. However the second BluRay has proved more difficult. The mkv files would play but, and it's difficult to describe, the visuals were all messed up. Things were bending and swirling like a kind of visualisation special effect. I thought about ripping the BluRay again but another mkv from the disc, which was basically a promo for other discs by the same company, worked fine. I'm wondering if it's some kind of security measure as previously I had the DVD of the same product, Hawaii Beaches, and that was a little awkward too. I ended up having to use good old DVDDecrypter for that. So is it something I did wrong or some security measure and can it be circumvented please? Sorry for the long winded post but I like to give as much information as possible. Thank you!

[Noahtuck]

What did you rip the blurays with before using MakeMKV ?

You say you eventually ended up using DVDDecrypter for the dvd but not what you used for the Bluray.

And by saying

I ended up having to use good old DVDDecrypter for that.

makes me wonder if you ripped them all first or just tried loading into MakeMKV from the disc.

[VanZan]

Oh dear! The only program I used was MakeMKV! I did some searching and have downloaded AnyDVD.....

[VanZan]

I simply loaded the Blu Ray, started MakeMkv and had it do its work! It worked fine for the first BluRay....I'm guessing from your tone that I should have used another tool first?

[Noahtuck]

Yeah, MakeMKV only converts files to MKV, it does not remove any kind of copy protection.

The best way would be to rip the disc to your hdd first with anydvd or dvdfab then use MakeMKV.

[VanZan]

Thanks for your help mate. I ripped the BluRay to my HD and now I have a load of m2ts files. The problem is they can't be loaded into MakeMKV. Maybe I should have ripped to an image with AnyDVD, mounted it with Daemon Tools and then used MakeMkv on that? If so then I just wasted a half hour!

[VanZan]

As I said I ripped it with AnyDVD. I used TSMuxer and MkvMerge to create a mkv. Same result: Extreme distortion. I tried to load the mkv into Handbrake and got an error saying it was either copy protected, badly mastered or in a format it couldn't handle. I don't know what else to try. I have MakeMkv, DVDFab and AnyDVD all on my laptop and I'm still baffled.

[VanZan]

Think I found the problem....VC-1.

[Steve(MS)]

How big is the blu-ray you are having trouble with?
You did rip it to your hard drive using anydvd?
Do you know whether it has multiple titles?

Likely you will need one of the x264 encoder programs that deal with blu-rays.

[Balthazar2k4]

Yeah, MakeMKV only converts files to MKV, it does not remove any kind of copy protection.

The best way would be to rip the disc to your hdd first with anydvd or dvdfab then use MakeMKV.

Seeing as I have used MakeMKV to remove copy protection (with and without AnyDVD HD), you might want to take a look at their webpage. It clearly states:

Reads Blu-ray discs protected with latest versions of AACS and BD+

So, yes, MakeMKV can rip BDs without using anything else.

[VanZan]

It's definitely not a problem with MakeMKV but with the awful Microsoft proprietary codec called VC-1. Any good tools to transcode to H264 please? Thanks!

[Balthazar2k4]

It's definitely not a problem with MakeMKV but with the awful Microsoft proprietary codec called VC-1. Any good tools to transcode to H264 please? Thanks!

My preferred tool is RipBot264, but VidCoder (uses Handbrake engine) is super easy too.

[VanZan]

Thanks mate. "Super easy" is a watchword for me. You say VidCoder uses Handbrake's engine....the mkv files created by MakeMkv (and AnyDVD/HDFab) were rejected by Handbrake. Don't know if that means it won't work....

[Balthazar2k4]

Thanks mate. "Super easy" is a watchword for me. You say VidCoder uses Handbrake's engine....the mkv files created by MakeMkv (and AnyDVD/HDFab) were rejected by Handbrake. Don't know if that means it won't work....

No problem. Try RipBot264 is VidCoder fails. It is pretty easy to use as well. Best of luck!

[VanZan]

VidCoder did fail. Is there a specific guide for transcoding interlaced VC-1 mkv files to H264? I see in the "Properties" area of RipBot264 there is a De-Interlace option but I have no idea of the difference between "BFF" and "TFF".

[jman98]

EVERYBODY has problems with interlaced VC-1. Even the genius guy who wrote BDRB can't get it working consistently to re-encode it in his program to H.264 output.

I don't know a way to determine which one of TFF or BFF your video is using. Just pick one and encode. Take the H.264 output and look at motion, like when someone is walking. If it looks all shaky and wrong (it's hard to describe, but it will be very obvious to you that something is wrong) then pick the other one and re-encode.

[VanZan]

Thanks for the reply. I cut a small chunk with mkvmerge and transcoded it with RipBot264 and the output file plays fine in XBMC and VLC. I selected "TFF". It's an ambient BluRay of beaches, palm trees etc so it's a little hard to check movement! The motion of the waves and clouds seems normal if that makes sense.

[Balthazar2k4]

Thanks for the reply. I cut a small chunk with mkvmerge and transcoded it with RipBot264 and the output file plays fine in XBMC and VLC. I selected "TFF". It's an ambient BluRay of beaches, palm trees etc so it's a little hard to check movement! The motion of the waves and clouds seems normal if that makes sense.

Yes, interlaced VC-1 is notorious for transcoding. For RipBot, the most important aspect to watch is that FFDshow is set to WMV9 for the VC-1 filter. Other than, I believe TFF works most of the time. You can always pose the question to Atak over at Doom9. He wrote the program.

[hogger129]

Yeah, MakeMKV only converts files to MKV, it does not remove any kind of copy protection.

The best way would be to rip the disc to your hdd first with anydvd or dvdfab then use MakeMKV.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I never had trouble creating an .mkv straight from a Blu Ray or DVD disc using MakeMKV.

However, MakeMKV doesn't let you limit the file size, which is where I can see a benefit in it.