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Ripping DVDs and BDs to ATV2; Questions

J

jnick

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 22, 2008
107
8
NY
I used to use WMC with My Movies as a front end for all of my HTPC needs (with lossless DVD and BD rips). While it worked and looked nice, it was a tedious process that would get temperamental whenever it felt like. Since I got ATV2, I have began switching over to it for my HTPC needs. I have been converting my DVDs to m4a's via HandBrake. While this has been working using the ATV2 preset, I find that the quality is pretty...meh.

Doing some research, I began throwing MakeMKV in the mix and gave a go at a Blu-Ray. I just want to make sure I'm doing this right...

  1. Insert disc and rip using MakeMKV selecting only the main title and DD 3/2 or DTS (but NOT True-HD DD)
  2. Once it's converted, I point to the file in Handbrake and choose the ATV2 preset. I make sure the Constant rate is set to 20 and have AAC3 Passthorugh as an audio channel. I then convert the movie to m4a.

Does this sound right? Is there anything I'm missing, whether it be a setting in Handbrake to increase quality or what not? I am NOT concerned about file size as I used to do lossless ISO rips. The better the quality the happier I'll be!

Thanks in advance!
 
Workflow is right but if you want better quality sell the ATV2 and get an ATV3.

You can Handbrake on High Profile (I lower the quality to 22) and get a nice 1080p encode.
 
My ATV2 units play the High Profile 1080P encodes with no problem, even at fairly high (~15Mbit or so) bitrates...(obviously down @ 720P conversion)

ATV3 is the better choice if buying today, of course, but ATV2 can handle those encodes as well.
 
I was thinking about buying a blu ray drive so I can rip my blu rays.

I just want to do them into mkv with the apropriate subs for foreign films..... Will that just be a case of installing the drive and ripping straight with handbrake?

I.e. Im asking if handbrake can just rip blu rays without too much problem
 
blueroom said:
Workflow is right but if you want better quality sell the ATV2 and get an ATV3.

You can Handbrake on High Profile (I lower the quality to 22) and get a nice 1080p encode.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. The only issue I have is that the TV is only 720p (58 Panny Plasma from 2007ish). Therefore, there is really no reason to get ATV3 as my TV does not support 1080p. What is this 'High Profile' encoding that you are talking about. I do not remember seeing the option on Handbrake for that.
 
Just started thinking..

Is there anything specific that I would need to do to get the video's to resize to 720p? I know from the MKV they are 1080p since they are BD rips. However, since my TV cannot play 1080p, I want to ensure it is encoded in the right resolution so the video is not boxed in unnecessarily.

Thanks!
 
jnick said:
Just started thinking..

Is there anything specific that I would need to do to get the video's to resize to 720p? I know from the MKV they are 1080p since they are BD rips. However, since my TV cannot play 1080p, I want to ensure it is encoded in the right resolution so the video is not boxed in unnecessarily.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Handbrake AppleTv 2 setting takes care of it automatically.
 
jnick said:
Just started thinking..

Is there anything specific that I would need to do to get the video's to resize to 720p? I know from the MKV they are 1080p since they are BD rips. However, since my TV cannot play 1080p, I want to ensure it is encoded in the right resolution so the video is not boxed in unnecessarily.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If you want to future-proof your files, you might want to encode to 1080p anyway. Your ATV2 can handle that resolution, and output 720p to your TV. Down the road, you may get equipment upgrades and you'll have 1080p content ready to go instead of having to re-encode.

The only downsides for now are storage space for the larger 1080p files and the longer encoding time.
 
Storage is no concern :p. Sitting on nearly 3TB of space right now and since I used to do everything lossless, I'm actually saving space :D

Good point about the 1080p conversion though. So it would then be better to select the 'High Profile' preset vs the 'Apple TV 2'? This would keep the file 1080p and force ATV2 to down-convert as well as maintain the highest quality video?
 
jnick said:
Storage is no concern :p. Sitting on nearly 3TB of space right now and since I used to do everything lossless, I'm actually saving space :D

Good point about the 1080p conversion though. So it would then be better to select the 'High Profile' preset vs the 'Apple TV 2'? This would keep the file 1080p and force ATV2 to down-convert as well as maintain the highest quality video?
Click to expand...

Correct. Select High Profile, then open the picture settings and set anamorphic to strict, detelcine to off, decomb to default and code away!
 
One new setting in the nightly releases of Handbrake is the ability to import stylized BR PGP subtitles. So if you have a movie (I just did MI:4) with some foreign audio, set the titles to English Foreign Audio Search: Burn In and it will be in the final version :)

Just FYI to people out there - this feature was sorely missed in previous versions. HERE is a link to the nightly releases.
 
blevins321 said:
One new setting in the nightly releases of Handbrake is the ability to import stylized BR PGP subtitles. So if you have a movie (I just did MI:4) with some foreign audio, set the titles to English Foreign Audio Search: Burn In and it will be in the final version :)

Just FYI to people out there - this feature was sorely missed in previous versions. HERE is a link to the nightly releases.
Click to expand...

Is this one more stable? The nightly that had the BR subtitle ability added tends to quit mid-code.
 
rayward said:
Is this one more stable? The nightly that had the BR subtitle ability added tends to quit mid-code.
Click to expand...

The very newest one (I just updated last night) seems to have fixed that. I was pulling my hair out dealing with halfway done encodes.
 
blevins321 said:
One new setting in the nightly releases of Handbrake is the ability to import stylized BR PGP subtitles. So if you have a movie (I just did MI:4) with some foreign audio, set the titles to English Foreign Audio Search: Burn In and it will be in the final version :)

Just FYI to people out there - this feature was sorely missed in previous versions. HERE is a link to the nightly releases.
Click to expand...

In a case like this, would it be an issue if the EFAS: Burn In was always set? I'm thinking of times where I may forget a title has Subtitles (IE: totally forgot about it in Mission Impossible!) and therefore it's ripped without them, thus wasting a bit of time. Is there any downside to always leaving this option on to 'catch' the subtitles on any movies that may have them?
 
Awesome! Do I have to do anything in particular to get this feature to work in the MakeMKV step, prior to using Handbrake?

For instance, I always usually UNCHECK subtitles as I never enable them. However, in a film like MI:4, subtitles are part of the main movie. Therefore, would I need to start including subtitles in all of my rips? Or are subtitles that are only shown for a portion of the file included in the main movie title?

Thanks!
 
jnick said:
Awesome! Do I have to do anything in particular to get this feature to work in the MakeMKV step, prior to using Handbrake?

For instance, I always usually UNCHECK subtitles as I never enable them. However, in a film like MI:4, subtitles are part of the main movie. Therefore, would I need to start including subtitles in all of my rips? Or are subtitles that are only shown for a portion of the file included in the main movie title?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

They're not in the main movie file; you'll have to have MakeMKV include them. Just select the language that you want to include though; you can skip the rest. Really, though, the size difference is negligible, and Handbrake will delete the ones that it doesn't use, so there's no harm in just including them all the time.
 
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blevins321 said:
They're not in the main movie file; you'll have to have MakeMKV include them. Just select the language that you want to include though; you can skip the rest. Really, though, the size difference is negligable, and Handbrake will delete the ones that it doesn't use, so there's no harm in just including them all the time.
Click to expand...

If you set your language preference in MakeMKV as "English", or whatever your preference, it will automatically deselect all the other languages - both audio and subtitle tracks. It saves a lot of time checking off unwanted "other" language tracks.
 
rayward said:
If you set your language preference in MakeMKV as "English", or whatever your preference, it will automatically deselect all the other languages - both audio and subtitle tracks. It saves a lot of time checking off unwanted "other" language tracks.
Click to expand...

Nice tip, thanks!
 
Just wondering...is there another program similar to MakeMKV that is better to use? I noticed MakeMKV takes a LOT of guess work to see if you actually got the rip right. For instance, ripping a movie only to find out it did the directors commentary.

I'm doing a rip now that has two identical tracks... DD 3/2+1 English and I have no idea what the difference is. The only way to tell is to rip it and see if I wasted time. Is there a trick to MakeMKV or another program that people use that make it a bit more streamlined?

Thanks!
 
jnick said:
Just wondering...is there another program similar to MakeMKV that is better to use? I noticed MakeMKV takes a LOT of guess work to see if you actually got the rip right. For instance, ripping a movie only to find out it did the directors commentary.

I'm doing a rip now that has two identical tracks... DD 3/2+1 English and I have no idea what the difference is. The only way to tell is to rip it and see if I wasted time. Is there a trick to MakeMKV or another program that people use that make it a bit more streamlined?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

AFAIK, MakeMKV is the only BD ripper for Mac. If you have a PC, or a Windows installation on a Mac, you can use any number of BD rippers.

Regarding the track to rip, I rip the first video track on the list, and include only the first audio track. I have never ended up with a director's commentary doing this.
 
rayward said:
Correct. Select High Profile, then open the picture settings and set anamorphic to strict, detelcine to off, decomb to default and code away!
Click to expand...

Should Large File Size be checked? Also, do I leave the framerate at 29.97 or set it to Same as source?
 
Besides those questions, I'd like to add another..

I ran through a rip of Avatar tonight. Worked great...except for sound. The audio was a bit screwy. The music and sound effects were great. However, the dialog was extremely low. In order to hear the dialog, I had to crank the volume. However, this made the music and sound effects CRAZY loud. Is there any way to fix this?

Here is a screen shot of the audio settings I used:

audio.jpg


Note: This audio problem is using 2 channel audio. I would bet on my dad's 5.1 setup, the passthrough would work fine and thus have no audio quality issues. However, in my apartment, I can only run 2 channel audio for the time being and the low sound is a problem :(

Thanks!
 
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