New Mac user looking for the right software to do what he did on Windows

[vtpeters]

Hi,

I recently switched to Mac, but I'm struggling to find the right software to be able to do what I did on Windows making backup copies of my blu-rays.

The backups are 25 GB movie-only with only the original audio in best possible quality. These movie-only backups include one English and, when available, one Dutch subtitle track. If the original movie contains a forced subtitle track (separate or embedded in the English subtitle track) then add that track as a third separate (forced) subtitle track to the stream.

This is what I do/did on my Windows machine:

1. Copy the blu-ray to the harddisk with DVDFab as movie-only at 100% (=no compression), keeping the best quality English audio track and all English and Dutch subtitles.
2. Extract all subtitles from the movie to *.SUP files with Hd Br Stream Extractor.
3. Inspecting all subtitles with BDSub2Sup to see if some of them contain are in fact are forced subtitles. If the former, I save the embedded forced subtitle stream to a separate *.SUP file.
4. If there are no subtitles present, I try to find one on the internet (various resources). If it's a subtitle from a DVD that has a different framerate I synchronize it using Sutitle Edit.
5. I mux the subtitles in specific order with AVCHDCoder and let the resut be written as a folder instead of an ISD (se next point). The English subtitles (SDH or 'normal') are listed first and the Dutch subtitles are second. If there's a forced English subtitle, that will be the first before the 'normal' of SDH English subtitles and it will be forced to be shown on playback.
6. I copy over the BDMV/META folder because AVCHDCoder doesn't copy that over.
7. I sometimes edit the BDMV/META/DL/dmnt_eng.xml to alter the number of discs or the title.
8. Next I use DVDFab (again), this time to shrink and trancode the movie to fit on a BD-25. I make sure that the forced subtitles (if present) are automatically displayed on playback.
9. I burn the shrunk movie to a blank disk using ImgBurn

I have the trail of the Mac version of DVDFab running, which I'm seriously considering purchasing (as I've done for my Windows machine). Unfortunately they don't offer cross-grades, so I'll have to purchase the Mac version separately although I have a license for the Windows version until later this year. But I've been using DVDFab for years now and I'm very pleased with the results I get.
I know you can burn a blu-ray on Mac without special software right from within the Finder. So I think I don't need software for that.
I have a Mac version of tsMuxerGUI with which I can extract subtitles from the blu-ray video stream. So I think I have the extraction of subtitles covered.
And with BdSub2Sup, which is written in Java, I can already open and inspect the *.SUP files on my Mac.

All I am looking for is a tool with which I can mux back the subtitles to the blu-ray video stream. I've seen the option in tsMuxerGUI but I'm not sure if this piece of software keeps the original chapters in tact instead of inserting chapters every 5 minutes.

A good (if possible free) subtitle editor for Mac like Subtitle Edit would be very helpful. There are several subtitle editors present in the Apple App Store, but I'll have to purchase them to find out if they're useful or not. I'd like to try them out before I buy them.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

[jan5678]

For backing up blurays use makemkv, they have a mac version

[vtpeters]

The point is that I want to burn the movies to a BD-25 disc. Make MKV extracts the movie, but doesn't re-code it to fit on a BD-25 if the main movie is larger than 25 GB. It also doesn't output the copied movie to BD format that cannot be burned to a BD-25 disc and played on a standalone blu-ray player, which makes the tool not useful tool for me.

[netmask56]

https://mac-download.site/en/program/bdtoavchd/

[vtpeters]

The download link on that page at first wanted me to install Flash Player on my Mac before showing the download page. Since Flash player is able to execute malicious code on your computer it's a security risk, so I didn't proceed and tried one of the 'mirror' sites presented there.

Those mirror sites displayed a download button with the text "BDtoAVCHD" directly above it, but clicking the button resulted in the proposed download of a Windows executable of the 7-Zip archiver program.

Fortunately I have my browsers configured to ask confirmation first before downloading files, so I got away OK from this very dubious web site...

[vtpeters]

It seems that tsMuxerGUI for Mac has issues with fonts. When I add an SRT fle to be muxed with the rest of the blu-ray video and audio streams, I get an error that it can't find the font. I tried various fonts but get the error every time.

I've looked and searched the web with the error message and stumbled upon a conversation on Github where others have reported the same error. I'm not sure if there's a solution to this problem or if it is still being researched.

A way around it might be using another tool to convert the SRT subtitles to SUP and use that for muxing. SUP files are essentially a series of image files with alpha channels that are overlayed over the video stream. Using a SUP file for muxing doesn't make the process dependent upon the presence of fonts.

[october262]

Hi,

I recently switched to Mac, but I'm struggling to find the right software to be able to do what I did on Windows making backup copies of my blu-rays.

The backups are 25 GB movie-only with only the original audio in best possible quality. These movie-only backups include one English and, when available, one Dutch subtitle track. If the original movie contains a forced subtitle track (separate or embedded in the English subtitle track) then add that track as a third separate (forced) subtitle track to the stream.

This is what I do/did on my Windows machine:

1. Copy the blu-ray to the harddisk with DVDFab as movie-only at 100% (=no compression), keeping the best quality English audio track and all English and Dutch subtitles.
2. Extract all subtitles from the movie to *.SUP files with Hd Br Stream Extractor.
3. Inspecting all subtitles with BDSub2Sup to see if some of them contain are in fact are forced subtitles. If the former, I save the embedded forced subtitle stream to a separate *.SUP file.
4. If there are no subtitles present, I try to find one on the internet (various resources). If it's a subtitle from a DVD that has a different framerate I synchronize it using Sutitle Edit.
5. I mux the subtitles in specific order with AVCHDCoder and let the resut be written as a folder instead of an ISD (se next point). The English subtitles (SDH or 'normal') are listed first and the Dutch subtitles are second. If there's a forced English subtitle, that will be the first before the 'normal' of SDH English subtitles and it will be forced to be shown on playback.
6. I copy over the BDMV/META folder because AVCHDCoder doesn't copy that over.
7. I sometimes edit the BDMV/META/DL/dmnt_eng.xml to alter the number of discs or the title.
8. Next I use DVDFab (again), this time to shrink and trancode the movie to fit on a BD-25. I make sure that the forced subtitles (if present) are automatically displayed on playback.
9. I burn the shrunk movie to a blank disk using ImgBurn

I have the trail of the Mac version of DVDFab running, which I'm seriously considering purchasing (as I've done for my Windows machine). Unfortunately they don't offer cross-grades, so I'll have to purchase the Mac version separately although I have a license for the Windows version until later this year. But I've been using DVDFab for years now and I'm very pleased with the results I get.
I know you can burn a blu-ray on Mac without special software right from within the Finder. So I think I don't need software for that.
I have a Mac version of tsMuxerGUI with which I can extract subtitles from the blu-ray video stream. So I think I have the extraction of subtitles covered.
And with BdSub2Sup, which is written in Java, I can already open and inspect the *.SUP files on my Mac.

All I am looking for is a tool with which I can mux back the subtitles to the blu-ray video stream. I've seen the option in tsMuxerGUI but I'm not sure if this piece of software keeps the original chapters in tact instead of inserting chapters every 5 minutes.

A good (if possible free) subtitle editor for Mac like Subtitle Edit would be very helpful. There are several subtitle editors present in the Apple App Store, but I'll have to purchase them to find out if they're useful or not. I'd like to try them out before I buy them.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks.

why not keep your dvdfab windows license and run the windows version on your mac via virtual machine - boot camp - wine or
crossover mac - https://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/

[vtpeters]

Hi,

...

why not keep your dvdfab windows license and run the windows version on your mac via virtual machine - boot camp - wine or
crossover mac - https://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/

I have been thinking about that too. But unfortunately not al virtualisation software is free and/or able to run on a the fairly new Apple M1 Pro chipset. Besides, I'd also need an additional Windows license, which would drive up the cost even further.

All I need a tool to do convert SRT to SUP files. After that I think the muxing of the SUP files into the blu-ray video stream can be done with tsMuxerGUI without any issue.
There are several subtitle apps in de App Store, but most of them cost money and from the description I cannot make out whether they are able to convert SRT subs to SUP file format.

The search continues...

[Eric-jan]

Toast Titanium for MAC, does also BluRay, but i must admit, I'm a MAC fanboy but something like DVDlab isn't available on MAC, i loved dvdlab, just drag and drop in the flow diagram, making also an orignal menus

[johns0]

Thread moved to the mac forum where you can get more help.

[Ai Haibara]

but i must admit, I'm a MAC fanboy but something like dvdfab isn't available on MAC

Hm? DVDFab has had Mac versions for a while. The Tools page for DVDFab here at VideoHelp usually has a direct link to the latest version.

I'll admit I've never tried it, though - I only rip discs on my Windows tower downstairs, because it has the largest drives and most free drive space available.

[Eric-jan]

Sorry, i meant dvdLab i corrected this in my post.. When i was a beta tester for Plextor, i used this prog. for my own use to author my dvd's with nice menu's animated menu's is also easy to do.

You should not store your movies on optical discs, store them on a NAS and have a multimedia network player, to play them from the NAS, a media player can be software with nice menu's to search, placed on a NUC (mini computer)

To encode : Shutter Encoder is a great tool !