Hardware requirements for .mkv??? - Page 2

Without hardware acceleration, what is the minimum CPU (AMD or Intel) to play HD/1080p mkv files? Will an AMD Phenom X3 8650 be enough?

Originally Posted by K-Spaz

Ok, so is there an example somewhere of how to do a simple rip with either lossless to flac or 5.1 to pcm?

Let's make it simple with something everyone has. I have Transformers on Blu. The original. My current receiver is connected via optical, and my new one (arriving mon or tue) is a V765 and will do anything.

What steps do I take to rip this thing to MKV real simple like, and just have it work?

I tried this some time ago, I forget what movie I tried with, but I was using VLC for a player. My experience with it was such that I gave up. But, since I am beginning to purchase BR discs in earnest now, (7 in the last week), I think I need a way to keep these without using uber amounts of disk.

The file I created then was huge, like 30GB, but the video quality was less than dvd. I have no idea what I did wrong, and I know it's not my system.

Any help appreciated. Especially a step by step example to learn from would be nice. I think the guide assumes a lot, and would benefit from having some total newbs go through it and point out missing info and such. Sort of a chicken / egg deal.

TIA

Originally Posted by Obelik

Favelle, I don't mean to hi-jack your thread, but I have the same question that you asked originally. Instead of asking in another post, I will add to this one. I hope you don't mind.

Without hardware acceleration, what is the minimum CPU (AMD or Intel) to play HD/1080p mkv files? Will an AMD Phenom X3 8650 be enough?

My impression is that software decoding of HD mkv files depend on the power of a single core. Currently, there is no decoder that takes advantage of multi-core CPU.

Originally Posted by archer75

Guide is here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1033822

It's quite easy to do though at first it looks overwhelming. For your transformers movie you use eac3to to rip it.

I use the hdbrstreamextractor gui for it(whatever it's called).

You select the video and choose mkv, the HD audio track and choose flac. Hit start. When it's done you use mkvmerge to take both the video and audio and put it in an mkv. Done.

The file size will be large. This is a straight up rip with no quality loss anywhere.
You can re-encode it to save space if you wish. That guide has directions how using megui. I use ripbot for my kids movies but movies like transformers I leave as is.

You also don't use VLC. If you want a stand alone player use MPC-HC. Though it is quite easy to get these to play directly in media center.

Originally Posted by K-Spaz

Sorry, I deleted my post cause I was going to go start another thread rather than hijack this one. Thanks for the response, you must have begun real fast after I posted.


To rip it to what? Iso?


Do you mean you use hdbrstreamextractor.gui instead of eac3to?



In my first attempt, I did get to a MKV, but something went badly wrong.


My first attempt didn't save much space. It's been months and I just searched and can't find the old MKV, I must have deleted it. Saving space is a major concern for me. Well, not really but if I can't save space, I have no reason to go through this since I can play all my stuff flawlessly now. With so many people saying mkv is the way to go, I wanted to try it anyhow.


I just have XP on my HTPC, with AnyDVD and PowerDVD. I never bought into media center.

I should not spend today messing with this but I bet that's how it ends up. I dl'd MPC already, and have many of the other apps on here... Nothing getting done again today I bet.

Originally Posted by K-Spaz

I spent quite a while getting things working, mostly getting the file structure to work on the drive using the filesystem driver or whatever that was. What a pita finding info there. My eac3to would fail every time saying it could not open the drive. Anyhow, I got that resolved.

Then I did finally run eac3to and got a good rip ( I think), I was just playing it, but it's only sending audio to 3 channels I think. I can hear the center, but no surrounds. This is however a movie with only DTS, and, I'm handcuffed with DTS due to not owning TMT.

It took for...ev...or... to rip from the actual bluray disc. Is it faster if I first rip to iso and then run eac3to? Seems like there's got to be a faster way. I left to go to a family function, and it was running for about 4 hours before I left. I don't know when it completed.

I did get MPC working and it seems pretty nice. Certainly more stable than VLC, that's for sure. But, if I had to guess (and I do), I'd say they were both based on the same project.

My speakers showing in the dialog about audio (in mpc) show 6 channels, but no sound in the rear yet. I won't get too excited about that till my new receiver get here. At least this is a start. From here, I have no doubt I can make this do whatever I need.

Thanks again.

Originally Posted by archer75

I don't know what you mean by file system driver. It's not needed, whatever it is.
You need to have tmt2 installed for DTS-MA HD decoding. The link to it is int he guide. Rip the audio to flac. Have the madflac decoder installed. Set windows to 5.1 or 7.1 in the sound properties.

You also need anydvdhd installed if you don't have it. Without it, it won't open the drive and show the file structure.

I use eac3to to rip straight off the disc. Takes me 1 hour or less per movie.

VLC and MPC-HC are vastly different players. Not the same project at all. VLC doesn't even support hardware acceleration. On my HTPC I use media center and it's great. On my desktop I use MPC-HC.

Originally Posted by K-Spaz

It's not needed for Vista, but it's required for XP. Without it, when you do c:\\eac3to\\>eac3to g: eac3to returns an error saying the source is empty (which it is, there's no bd structure there). I may make a request to link this post in the guide, since this XP user just wasted a TON of time not having the structure visible.

I don't have tmt, so I'm stuck with just the "core" audio till I buy that; and that's just fine. I was more interested in seeing this work.