New Dune HD Max and HD Smart anticipation thread Q3 2010 - Page 326

Hi, a question for all Dune users (especially those using the Smart Series, or those based on the same chip...)

I have often seen Dune users mention how they prefer ISO rips when dealing with Blu-Rays and also DVDs. But -- I have never seen a discussion of exactly why that is.

I own the Smart H1 (actually, I own three of these). I love this unit, and how stable it is. I am storing movies on a Synology NAS. I am using My Movies as my jukebox.

I have ripped many films, and have found only a very very few that would not play the very first time I ripped them. Those few were all Blu-Rays, and they were just happened to be .ISO rips. In those instances, i decided to go back and re-rip them, and to avoid using the ISO route. Guess what -- they suddenly would work. This happened on five movies (out of about 400 rips, perhaps 60 of these rips were Blu-Rays).

I usually use DVDFAB as my tool of choice for ripping. In the majority of cases, I prefer "movie only" mode. There are a very few exceptions, usually the few which have terrific bonus materials.

So, I am curious -- why are so many here fans of the ISO mode for ripping - for both DVDs and for Blu-Rays?

My set-up:

Windows 7 PC (32 bit) for ripping. DVDFab is generally the software used for ripping.
Synology NAS (for storage of movie files)
Three Dune Smart H1s at various locations (wired with Cat 6 Ethernet).

Am I missing something? Are there disadvantages to using a standard "file mode" -- as opposed to an ISO rip? I would love your thoughts.

Thanks!

The forced subs are indicated in the MovieObject.bdmv file, using a SetStream command. You can see this in the BDEdit GUI.

If someone can give me some open-source code that can analyze these files and find these kinds of commands, I might be able to do something like I did with MKV forced subs. So far my search has turned up nothing.

Are you asking if there is a difference between ISO and Folder rips, or ISO versus the single container rips (like mkv, m2ts, etc..)?

The Dunes are best suited for Folder Structure Rips (an ISO is nothing more then the container). I prefer just to keep in the folder structure itself as for me using an ISO just adds an extra layer not really necessarily (but looks cleaner for some since you only see one file). Otherwise an ISO and a folder structure rip should perform the same

I am a fan of ISOs, by which I mean ClownBD ISOs, not full-disc ISOs. This is because my older Dune (HD Base 3.0) plays them well, with full support for forced subtitles, which MKV did not have until recently.

Also for some reason, in my setup, MKV files don't play well -- fast-forward and rewind are very slow, approx 2x normal speed even when the OSD says 16x. Also sometimes rewinding starts to stutter and then ends up jumping an entire chapter back. This is too-low WAF, and since I have a perfectly good alternative, I haven't bothered to investigate any possible solution.

I think the issues you are talking about regarding ISO blu-ray rips with DVDFab that won't play is isolated to full disc rips correct?

I know with DVDFab this can be an issue depending on what method you use to rip the disc, you have to use the full disc copy for the most reliable method, for some reasons using the clone option doesn't always produce a Dune friendly copy. The Full Disc copy first creates a BDMV and then repackages the BDMV to ISO - this seems to work much better.

I never really investigated why it's the case as I've ripped almost all of my blu-ray's as movie-only ISOs using DVDFab and all play flawlessly but I do remember having some issues with some full disc copies (even with using the full disc method) - e.g. T2 required that BD-Live be kept in tact to work as an example. In short, full-disc backups introduce a few extra variables that can cause you some trouble.

As for why to pick ISOs (or BDMV), I think dbone and ScottJ have already provided the main reasons. Basically, if you're talking about movie-only BDMV or ISO, the Dune is flawless.

On a side note, some users may stand to benefit (or rather minimize damage) by picking ISO over BDMV. For example, I store my blu-ray ISOs on a WHS but I don't have any redundancy (since I own the discs). By storing them as ISOs if a drive goes down I would only have to re-rip the movies on that dtive - if you rip to BDMV files belonging to a particular movie can get stored on any number of drives potentially impacting a large portion of your entire collection even if just one drive fails. However, this is mainly an issue for those that choose to go without any backup.

Scott,

So if I use BDEdit GUI I can determine if a movie has forced subtitles? This is great info! I've been contemplating picking up a Dune 3D model when mvc mkv gets added but I didn't want to get stuck using two media players for my blu-ray rips since almost all my movies are ripped as movie-only ISOs.

This way I can just figure out which have forced subtitles and repackage those ISOs as MKVs (and use your forced subs patch for MKVs). On the other hand it would really be great if you figured out a patch for forced subs in bd-lite.

I'm surprised HDI hasn't hired you on after creating the MKV forced subs patch, it's something they didn't seem to be able to figure out for a lengthy period of time.

By the way, do you have a link to BDEdit GUI - I seem unable to find it.
Edited by EVT - 3/1/13 at 7:04pm

Hi BSpielbauer, Unless the disc is part of a TV series, where I would use MKV, I always rip the full disc to folders. I also use DVDfab. I've only used ISO once, and that was for a Boxee-Box test.

The reason I use folders over ISO is because, as Damien said, the ISO is just a container that holds the folders. If you rip to folders, the unpacking of that container is done once by DVDfab, and never has to be done again. If you rip to ISO, the Dune needs to decode the ISO file structure each time you play it. Now, it may just be the anal-retentive programmer in me trying to spare the Dune from all of those extra cpu cycles, but I feel that the less work that needs to be done in real-time, the less likely something can go wrong.

I have yet to have a problem playing on either my Dune or NeoTV-550 using DVDfab and folder-structure. However, I have only about 200, and only 30 are Blu-Ray so far. The rest are split between DVDs and MP2s copied from VHS.

Thanks for the confirmation! And the other piece that dbone deduced is that I am indeed using dvdfab for ripping and not ClownBD. I've had great experience with dvdfab for blu-rays (oddly enough less so with DVDs), but knowing this about ClownBD makes me think I'll give it another try.

Honestly, if you're going to start re-ripping I would strongly consider MKV at this point. It looks to be the future with the demise of blu-ray menu support and both seamless branching and forced subs are not an issue if you're using a Dune player (thanks to ScottJ).

If the bdmv is from Clown then yes Bdedit (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125903) can easily identify those with forced subs. If you see a SetStream command in the right-hand pane, then it has forced subs. If not, it doesn't. Of course, you can also play the movie on the Dune and hit the Subtitle button to see. But I suppose bdedit is faster.

As for why HDI didn't fix MKV forced subs long ago, I can only assume it's because they didn't try.

In related news, I recently figured out how to get more "natural" BD forced subs, where the player says no subs are enabled even though the forced subs still show. You can turn on/off full subs with the remote but cannot turn off the forced subs. It's a tiny bit cleaner and higher WAF. I wrote this up under "Advanced" on my wiki page: http://scottjohnson.org/wiki/Dune/Forced_subtitles_with_ClownBD

Thanks Scott.

I used the pwr supply from my 900b for a while as the specs were very close! Could you please post the specs of both pwr supply's please?

I just got my D1 ! After spending years with Sony streamers, BD Players, ps3 and XBMC on ATV 2 .... The d1 with zappiti configured, is light years ahead.
Edited by apw2607 - 3/7/13 at 10:46pm

The Roku PS: 5V 1.5A
The Dune PS: 12V 3A

Yeah
Yeah that's no were even close, luckily you did not damage the unit!

Holy crap! I am surprised you did not do some damage!

Under supply of current/voltage won't damage equipment, if the voltage was higher, the current draw would be higher and hence possibly kill the power inputs of the device.

So if the Dune PS was plugged in the Roku device... you'd damage the Roku device.

+1

in fact what's amazing is that the dune was working while it received 50% of the normal power it needs...

Yep. The guy I bought it from said he'd always used it with the Roku PS and never had an issue.

Has anybody been able to put MM on an external HDD? I have a passport drive with a bunch of movies that I take on trips with me. When it's attached to the dune I can see it over the network but I can write to it like it was inside the dune. If I hook it directly to the computer (MacBook air running parallels) I can write to it but I cannot set the paths with the URL that is requested my duo is \\Dune\DUNEHDD1 that's for an internal drive. Any help would be great!

Connect your hdd to your pc. Open cm, go to a movie profile and manually change the link to the file (use the "disc" icon), browsing through the network part of the explorer. Once done mm should give you the possibility to change all similar links in your Ollie ton. Accept.

Then your une path should be updated, just select "attached" and write down the hdd name in the text field.

Set the index location to this same hdd connected to the pc.

Run a full update to apply.

Done.

Ps : I hope I understood what you wanted to do...
Edited by Mr Eric - 3/5/13 at 11:37am

Yes this is exactly what I need. Now I plugged my other passport HDD which is partioned in to several drives and ran the steps you outlined, it worked perfectly. Now I plugged in the HDD that I am gonna use and ran the steps and nothing but problems!! Bothe drives are formatted alike except one is partitioned the other is not, now when I load up MM I select network and sometimes I don't even see the the MacBook air. And when I do and select it it says I don't have the permissions. WTF so I re formatted it and tried again. I can see the Mac under network so I go through all the procedures in MM I do the Dune configuration and save everything then go back and there is nothing saved under the part were you browse for your drive before setting the path! Once I save it just goes back blank! This is really pissing me off because it should just work! It does with the other partioned drive! I will keep messing with it but damn! What a PITA

Hey, has anyone seen the change log for the latest AnyDVD HD released today.

7.1.6.0 2013 03 0
- New: Option to disable Cinavia detection when using AnyDVD with ArcSoft
TMT 5.3, TMT 6.0 or PowerDVD 12 12
- New: Rip to image will create sparse files to reduce the size of
required disc space and faster image creation
- New (Blu-ray): Support for new discs
- New (DVD): Support for new discs
- Fix (DVD): Removing annoyances could make some discs unplayable
- Some minor fixes and improvements


I have not had a chance to read up on this and wont be able to install the update till this weekend..... I hope this is what it looks like, we've all be waiting on this!

Cinavia is still present, AnyDVD is simply altering/blocking the actual Software player from detecting. As of now this would only apply to an HTPC and AnyDVD needs to be running for it to work (i.e. Cinavia is not removed from the disc)

Has anyone tried out the music file management in the Beta's of Zappitti?

Ahhh.. OK ... wishful thinking. I didnt realize those apps were all players, not rippers. Sorry for the misplaced excitement. At least it's a start.

Thanks!

A start, or a reasonable alternative as an HTPC can be setup for a relatively reasonable cost and you can get full blu-ray structure and 3D support that way too. A combination that's presently not available on any media player at any price. I'm not ready to go that way myself as I like the convenience of my Dune players too much to give them up but it's nice to know that there's options.

I have 2 of the same passport drives one is a 1tb the other is 1.5 I can get the MM to work fine on the 1.5 but do the exact same set up on the 1 it will not work. I get the failed to open URL message! These discs are formatted the exactly the same I guess I will have to transfer over to the 1tb and use the 1.5 since it works for some reason!

Wouldn't it be because its still looking for the previous hdd path? Once you remove and connect to a different hdd, you would need to change the name/path to the new hdd. No?

Hi Todd, I tried it when it first came out, but not lately, since it won't work with Dunes.

The look is great. I don't know where they get the icon-art, but it's a big improvement over Zappiti's Movie and TV-show icons. It also has artist, album and genre search capabilities, which is lacking in the Video half of Zappiti. It's still not as good as the NeoTV-550, but maybe it will get there. I'm hoping they bring some of that search functionality over to the video-half, but I realize they would need to both rewrite their database and scrape for the additional information in order to do that.

Like most scraping software, it misidentified about a third of my collection, although everything is tagged correctly. That in itself would not be a big deal, except that it had no capability yet to edit anything in the music half. Maybe they remedied that in a later beta, which I haven't tried.

Once it is no longer beta, I may try it again. But it will be of limited use to me, as it will only work on a PC, and I now mostly use my Audiotrons and Neo for music.