Ripping Blu-Rays II - Page 46

What enclosure and BD drive do you recommend? Do you use multi drive enclosures?

I don't use any multi drive enclosures. Although it probably would have been easier when I first started ripping my BD titles. But I wouldn't need it now.

A bit larger enclosure or a Wall Wart is the trade-off. The fan is a bit noisy but I only turn the enclosure on when I'm using it and that isn't for watching a Blu-ray in my HT but only for reading a disc at my PC in my office.

That's kind of where I am, although I'm still not following why you use an enclosure. Why not just buy an external drive?

When i got mine it was much cheaper to get an internal drive and put it in my own enclosure. Although I don't know what prices are now for the external drives. But the internal drives have dropped a lot in price.

Ah! Thanks for the reply, so it is/was a cost issue. I'll be sure to check both ways but it seems these days cost is not a real big factor. However if performance or features were issues they would have been something I needed to learn about.

I'm of the "buy components" mindset so I can choose each for what suits my needs best.

Well I read through about 500 posts and just got cross-eyed so I figured I'd go ahead and ask for advice.

I've got a PCH A300 on order and I want to start ripping my Blu-Ray collection to store on my NAS.

I've got three tiers that I want to rip/encode:

1) Favorite movies: I want to rip these so it is just the full quality main movie, HD Audio, and English Subtitles. Can I do this with DVDFab only or do I need another program after DVDFab removes the copy protection? If I wanted to do this with AnyDVD HD, what other program would I need to use?

2) Rainy Day shows: Same as #1, but encoded to save space. These would still be played on my PCH A300 through my AVR. What's a good container to use that balances compression and quality?

3) Portable copies: I'm perfectly comfortable using Handbrake to create my iPad/Android MP4s. If I get the first two sorted out, I'm pretty sure this one will work just fine.

1. MakeMKV should handle 95% of these. ClownBD, MKVtoolnix and/or MKVMerge will pick up the rest.

2. Handbrake should take care of this for you. I haven't used this but have heard it mentioned a lot. I don't shrink anything I rip.

3. I think you answered your own question.

Others may have other comments or suggestions based on what they use (dbone1026).

He speaks the truth!

With the latest nightly build of handbrake, these are the only steps you need follow to rip blurays with forced subtitles intact:

1) Run AnyDVD with bluray in drive
2) Run Handbrake, choose bluray drive as source, choose ATV2 preset, under Subtitles tab select the English PGS track, check "Forced Only" and "Burned In", then click Add.
3) Rip bluray and enjoy

All you guys messing with multiple programs, importing SRT files and going through dozens of steps to get forced subtitles on your bluray rips... well you can stop now.

BTW, I'm sure my steps outlined above would work just fine with the other HB presets as well (I have ATV2 so this is what I used).

Doesn't Anydvd HD cost $$ every year?

Check their website for their terms. They may have different pay plans like DVD Fab where you can license yearly or lifetime. Like any software, major version releases may cost you an upgrade fee -- it all depends on their terms. Just go to their website and get the information first-hand.

When I bought mine several years ago I got a lifetime license. So it was a onetime cost. It was certainly worth it for me. I figured at the time I would get a lifetime license since I had purchased a couple of other programs from them many, many years ago and didn't get a lifetime license at the time so the license expired. And since I use Any DVD HD regularly, it was worth the $80 or $90 cost at the time.

Great, but you do realize there are quite a few people who don't want to encode their Blu-rays but instead want to keep the original quality

Amen to that

Bill

+1

What he said.

Pardon the stupid question, but how do you check a rip to make sure the HD audio was included properly? My PCH A 300 won't be here for a few weeks and I don't have an HTPC to check it on. For that matter, how do I verify video resolution?

download a program called Mediainfo

Thank you! I suspected there was a program out there but I just finished working 14 hours and taking care of two babies... This boy is tired!

No prob, here is the link:

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Also, your receiver/processor should display the audio codec it receives, and your display should be able to give the input resolution.

My guess in reading his question is that he is pre-ripping before his PH shows up and he wants to be certain he is ripping correctly.
Once the PH comes in, he can use the method you describe.

I love mediainfo

Bill

Don't forget to support Handbrake and the other freebies that you use.

If you just try it and don't love it, don't sweat it, but handbrake is awesome and it's important to keep it funded.

Handbrake is great for recoding actual video files, including decrypted ISOs. I've had mixed experiences using it for ripping, in conjunction with a decrypter. Handbrake scans through title segments of a BD disc much slower than other official rippers, making the process very tedious. Since I choose not to compress any of my BDs beyond a lossless MKV file, MakeMKV and DVDFab work best for me.

I tested it and this works great. Thanks! (used for Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol)

Now, if I could just find a way to spot Forced Subs ... or when I need to do this procedure. I mean, without watching the whole movie first, or playing with tracks in VLC to find out what is inside each one.

^ If you don't normally view subtitles or they aren't important outside of the forced subs, you could just rip the forced subs on all your movies and leave subtitles turned on all the time. Wish I would have figured this out before ripping my entire library with subs...

Right, but instead, I like:

- Normal English subs (for whole movie) off by default.
- Forced English Subs on always (for foriegn dialog).
- Option to turn on English subs in case they are speaking English but I still can't make out what they are saying.

If I want any more than that or to watch the extras, I move from HTPC to real Blu-Ray player and pop-in the real Blu-Ray.

Was much easier with DVDs ... you could rip the whole VIDEO_TS folder and get everything. But I think Blu-Ray is still worth the extra trouble ( 1080p, HD, and the movie re-masterings we are seeing).