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Converting Blu Rays?

G

gilford

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 15, 2010
67
0
After recently getting a 2010 Mac Mini I am now looking to put all my BD's on my NAS :)

Can anyone give me a simple walk through as to what I need to download, buy and instructions to convert?

I'm presuming an external BD drive, MakeMKV and then Handbrake to compress it down to a reasonable size?

Is there a specific drive I need?

Thanks for the help :)
 
gilford said:
After recently getting a 2010 Mac Mini I am now looking to put all my BD's on my NAS :)

Can anyone give me a simple walk through as to what I need to download, buy and instructions to convert?

I'm presuming an external BD drive, MakeMKV and then Handbrake to compress it down to a reasonable size?

Is there a specific drive I need?

Thanks for the help :)
Click to expand...

Those are the three items I use (actually, I have an internal Blu-Ray drive I use on my W7 machine). But I use MakeMKV to rip the Blu-Ray and then Handbrake to convert. The only problem I have is subtitles, I don't bother with them, you may need another program or added steps if you want subs in your final mp4, but if you don't need them, you're good to go.

I did have to use a beta version of Handbrake though, since there were a couple of random Blu-Rays that the stable release kept crashing on. I downloaded a nightly build and its working like a charm.
 
gilford said:
Can anyone give me a simple walk through as to what I need to download, buy and instructions to convert?
Click to expand...

1. Open disc with Make MKV and let 'er rip!
2. Open the MKV file in Handbrake if you want and make it smaller.
3. Enjoy movie!

I'm presuming an external BD drive, MakeMKV and then Handbrake to compress it down to a reasonable size? Is there a specific drive I need?
Click to expand...

I have an LG Blu-ray burner/HD-DVD reader (SATA) in a Vantec USB2 enclosure. Together they're about $130.
 
I use the first two steps listed above - a Blu-ray writer and MakeMKV. I gave up trying to compress the 18+ Gig files as audio and subtitles always proved to be a pain (especially DTS) so I just left them at full size and simply bought another USB drive to hold them all. With 2TB drives costing under $150, it was a no brainer. Time is money afterall :)

This solution only works if you are running a Mac Mini or the like and will NOT work for AppleTV. With AppleTV, compression is a must and I found an Elgato Turbo.264 HD to be invaluable when converting Blu-ray rips to a 720p format playable on AppleTV. Takes 3 hours as opposed to 10+ hours via Handbrake. Only problem is, it can not handle DTS soundtracks so you must either accept using 2 channel AAC or re-encode the DTS soundtrack to DD using another problem and then re-mux that file into your movie.
 
Cheers for the info :)

I've just got a mid 2010 Mini so no hassle storing the full rip. My main concern is which drive to buy? I dont want to spend hundreds (the UK is pricey for these things) so which external drive would suffice? I have read certain one's dont work on a Mac??
 
I never buy canned drives; I always assemble them in case of a problem (so you can open them up without voiding warranties).

Blu-ray burner (which would require Toast to burn):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136181

Blu-ray ROM (read only):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106325

Enclosure that I have (USB and FW400):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145064

Cheaper enclosure (USB2 only):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145051

You can get a drive and enclosure for less than US$100, but I'm not sure of the availability of these in the UK.
 
Guys, I have a tonne of Bluray discs, some of which I wanna keep as Bluray and some which I wanna encode.

I know that I can rip a Bluray to MKV with the MKV tool and then encode that to mp4 with Hand Brake.

What I wanna confirm is, can I convert in Handbrake, that looks something like the HD files I get when I buy an HD film on itunes? Coz I used the Apple TV preset and the file was like 1-2 gigs and quality was well, SD.

How do I rip to HD level quality in Hand brake? thanks
 
My Handbrake encodes are every bit as good as the ones I download from Apple -- if not better. At normal viewing distance they are every bit as good as the BluRay. My trick is to use the AppleTV preset, add this to the advanced line:

cabac=0:ref=2:me=umh:b-adapt=2:weightb=0:weightp=0:vbv-maxrate=9500:vbv-bufsize=9500
Click to expand...

Change the resolution to 1280 x 720

Anamorphic setting: Custom

Check: Keep aspect ratio
 
tommylotto said:
My Handbrake encodes are every bit as good as the ones I download from Apple -- if not better. At normal viewing distance they are every bit as good as the BluRay. My trick is to use the AppleTV preset, add this to the advanced line:



Change the resolution to 1280 x 720

Anamorphic setting: Custom

Check: Keep aspect ratio
Click to expand...

Thanks, gonna try it when I get home!
 
tommylotto said:
My Handbrake encodes are every bit as good as the ones I download from Apple -- if not better. At normal viewing distance they are every bit as good as the BluRay. My trick is to use the AppleTV preset, add this to the advanced line:



Change the resolution to 1280 x 720

Anamorphic setting: Custom

Check: Keep aspect ratio
Click to expand...

I do this, except set Anamorphic to "None" and let the picture height "float". Is there an advantage to using "Custom"? Or do you use this to force a 1280 x 720 picture on a file that may have a wider aspect ratio?

TIA
 
Kaiser Phoenix said:
Guys, I have a tonne of Bluray discs, some of which I wanna keep as Bluray and some which I wanna encode.

I know that I can rip a Bluray to MKV with the MKV tool and then encode that to mp4 with Hand Brake.

What I wanna confirm is, can I convert in Handbrake, that looks something like the HD files I get when I buy an HD film on itunes? Coz I used the Apple TV preset and the file was like 1-2 gigs and quality was well, SD.

How do I rip to HD level quality in Hand brake? thanks
Click to expand...

See above from tommylotto. If you are, like me, using the GUI version of Handbrake, you make these adjustments on the Picture Settings dialog box.

I took the Apple TV preset, made these setting changes, and saved it a custom preset called "Apple TV HD". That way, I don't have to repeat the setting changes when encoding at HD resolution.
 
Guys, is there a better way to convert Blurays to appletv or itunes playable format?

coz I tried Make MKV, and while it makes the MKV file ok, I cant get it to encode in Hand Brake. Always says video source not recognized or not found. Some MKVs actually work but then the encode stops half way...

Are there any tools out there that is more lets say bullet proof? I have both windows and Mac so I can use any tool, just wanna get some HD content into my mac mini without using MKVs which take over 25 Gigs.

Thank you very mcuh
 
Kaiser Phoenix said:
Guys, is there a better way to convert Blurays to appletv or itunes playable format?

coz I tried Make MKV, and while it makes the MKV file ok, I cant get it to encode in Hand Brake. Always says video source not recognized or not found. Some MKVs actually work but then the encode stops half way...

Are there any tools out there that is more lets say bullet proof? I have both windows and Mac so I can use any tool, just wanna get some HD content into my mac mini without using MKVs which take over 25 Gigs.

Thank you very mcuh
Click to expand...

Are you using the nightly build of Handbrake? It contains a bunch of fixes since .9.4 was released.
 
Kaiser Phoenix said:
Ok thank you very much, will give this a shot.
Click to expand...

As you may have seen from another thread, the "No Valid Source" error comes up infrequently in Handbrake. For me, I'd say it's less than 1 in 10. I've been told (but have yet to try) that running the mkv file through TSMuxer will yield an mt2s that Handbrake will gobble up. It might strip out the subtitles though.

For the most part though, if you're using a Mac (without a Windows installation), you're "stuck" with MakeMKV and Handbrake. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it.
 
I do this, except set Anamorphic to "None" and let the picture height "float". Is there an advantage to using "Custom"? Or do you use this to force a 1280 x 720 picture on a file that may have a wider aspect ratio?

TIA
Click to expand...

I do that to preserve compatibility with AppleTV (1280x720p/24 max), which might not be a concern for you. It maximizes the number of pixels and takes advantage of the anamorphic feature. We have been doing in for years with DVD's. So, it makes sense to do it with HD content too. With widescreen movies you get an effective resolution of something like 1680x720p.
 
tommylotto said:
I do that to preserve compatibility with AppleTV (1280x720p/24 max), which might not be a concern for you. It maximizes the number of pixels and takes advantage of the anamorphic feature. We have been doing in for years with DVD's. So, it makes sense to do it with HD content too. With widescreen movies you get an effective resolution of something like 1680x720p.
Click to expand...

So it cuts of the sides and fills the screen vertically? I watch my HD rips on Apple TV too, but I like to keep the original aspect ratio and full frame width, which is achieved by the "None" option, setting the width to 1280 and letting the height be whatever it needs to be.

Each to his own - just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a wrinkle.
 
With the custom anamorphic setting checked, you encode the entire movie frame at the correct aspect ratio at 1280x720. That is at a 16x9 aspect ratio, but the original aspect ratio, whatever it is, is preserved, because the pixels are not square. They are rectangles, in a ratio necessary to preserve the original aspect ratio of the movie. For a widescreen movie, your actual horizontal resolution with always be 1280, but instead of square pixels you will have rectangular pixels, which your AppleTV or Mac Mini will unpack as 1680 or so. This trick really does not improve horizontal resolution, it is just a trick. However, you do end up with a real improvement in vertical resolution.

If you set horizontal resolution to 1280 and allow the vertical resolution to float, on widescreen movies, that resolution can be as low as 550 pixels. With custom anamorphic, you always get 720.

An anamorphic encode with have 921,600 pixels, whereas a non-anamorphic encode will have about 704,000 pixels. That is a 30% increase in pixels in vertical resolution, and my understanding is that vertical resolution has a bigger impact on perception of visual clarity.

I know that resolution is not everything with respect to encodes, but all this being equal, more pixels are better.
 
Guys, I am currently encoding MKVs ripped with MAKEMKV then just encoding it in HANDBRAKE.

My question is: How do I also get subtitles? Is this possible? I try to click the subtitles option in Handbrake but it doesnt change anything, do I need another step somewhere?

Thanks
 
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