Point Me to Converting Please

I'm sure there is a thread about converting my HD-DVD movies to Blu-Ray somewhere in the forum, but I don't know what keywords to search for.

I have about a dozen HD-DVD titles and am getting my first Blu-Ray burner soon. I have an HD-DVD player, but not enough HDMI inputs. Besides, I would like to bring the films over my parents place and watch them there, and they don't have an HD-DVD player.

I know you can copy the main feature and burn it to Blu-Ray. I'm guessing this was a popular subject when they threw in the HD-DVD towel, so the threads may be burried by now.

I searched for "convert" and HD-DVD, but got too many hits (and none seemed relevent).

Thanks.

Thanks. I would still like to find posts regarding the subject I mentioned, if anyone knows where they are.

Thanks for the tips. At my age I guess I can figure out if it's worth it to me to invest in learning Blu-Ray authoring.

I didn't go into complete detail about my plans, because it wasn't relevent to my original question.

I also hope to author some HD recordings to Blu-Ray, but those questions are for another thread.

As far as the cost:

Just bought an Xbox 360 USB HD-DVD drive for $30.
LG Blu-Ray burner for$70
Blu-Ray discs for $1/ea. (similar in cost to DVD dual layer).

Learning something new: Priceless.

Hey iontyre, so DumpHD for decrypting the HD-DVD's , and Clown to "Re-author" the main movie to Blu-Ray??

Still waiting on the Xbox USB drive, but I downloaded Dump and I have no clue how to use it! No instructions at all.

I gather that it is to be run from the command line (no GUI?), but how to get it running and how to use it to decrypt I have no clue.

DVDFab has something called Passkey that is also supposed to decrypt HD-DVD's, and at least has a GUI. Still no instructions, but hopefully I can figure it out from the GUI.

Edit: Whoops. You have to double click on DumpHD.jar to get to the GUI. Hadn't seen that mentioned. Figured out the aacskeys failed error.
Getting a BVDM error, but maybe that has to do with Blu-Ray?

No, just their Passkey product seems to still support HD-DVD decryption, but it's free. The"Lite" version anyway.

I have to wait for snail mail to deliver my drive, so at this point I'm just trying to get familiar with the needed software to cut down on wait time.
The aacskeys error is gone, so hopefully the other error I mentioned is related to BR only.

I know. But their support told me it does and after installing it, it shows options for HD-DVD.

I'll let you know after my drive arrives, hopefully in a couple of days.

Well, the Xbox drive arrived, and I attempted to convert an HD-DVD movie of "The Game", but it didn't seem to work.

Passkey lite worked fine to decrypt. But after Clown finished, I ended up with these files:
vc1, AC3, Chapters.txt, sup (subtitles) and meta.

The only folder created was named "LOGS".

No BDMV folder or anyrhing else.

Well, yes. That where the VC1 and AC3 files ended up.
I'm now using Clown to creat an M2TS and AC3 file, then I guess author with Power Producer.

I'll try another HD-DVD title later and see if that works.

Edit: I still ended up with AC3 and VC1 files. Clown is demuxing but not remuxing I think. don't know why. I tried using two different folders for the demux and remux, and again using one folder. But it's just stops after the demux. There was an error:

[v03] Creating file "C:\\Users\\Lee\\Videos\\The Game Bly_Ray\\Video_3.vc1"...
[v03] The destination file "C:\\Users\\Lee\\Videos\\The Game Bly_Ray\\Video_3.vc1" could not be created.
[v03] Writing the destination file failed.
Aborted at file position 3145728.

No joy. I discovered ClownBD comes with an older version of tsMuxeR, so I downloaded that and replaced it in the folder Clown checks.

But I got the same results: A video_3.vc1 file, a wave file, and a .w64 audio file. Also there are text, sup and meta files.

Then ClownBD stops after demuxing.

The sub log file says: ERROR: No extension given for target C:\\Users\\Public\\Videos\\The Game Demuxed\\*_exp

The eac3to v3.24 log file shows at the end: [a04] Creating file "C:\\Users\\Public\\Videos\\The Game Demuxed\\Audio_4_English.WAV"...
[a04] Caution: The WAV file is bigger than 4GB.
[a04] Some WAV readers might not be able to handle this file correctly.
Video track 3 contains 185056 frames.
Subtitle track 6 contains 1584 captions.
eac3to processing took 14 minutes, 31 seconds.
Done.

My output folder remains empty.

I'm using tsMuxeR's GUI to remux into Blu-Ray format, but it wont accept the subtitle file. Hopefully I will at least end up with a Blu-Ray of this movie. Too bad about the subs though.

Well, this is interesting.

The original HD-DVD folder is only 24+ gigs.
But the output from tsMuxeR to a BDMV folder is over 28 gigs! Explain that one.

So not only can I not burn that to a 25 gig BR disc, I can't play the m2ts file. VLC opens and the curser indicated the file is playing, but the screen is black and no sound.

So finally I have a little time to return to this.

I noticed that the de-muxed folder of this movie (The Game) has a vc1 file and TWO audio files: .W64 (whatever that is) and WAV. Both audio files are just over 6 gigs, and the vc1 file is 20.4.

Am I even supposed to include either of the .W64 or WAV files? does the vc1 file include it's own audio? I'm currently muxing the vc1 with the .W64 (previously I think I muxed all three). But even just muxing the vc1 and .W64 should bring the size to 26.4 gigs, too big for a blank BR disc.

I still don't understand why Clown didn't complete the whole job. Later or tomorrow I'll try a different HD-DVD disc and see what happens.

OK, well some progress.

This time the re-muxed files play using VLC just fine. I tried WMP but it playes without picture or sound (the curser and time counter both move however).

But I still can't burn the thing because the combined file sizes are 28 gigs! Explain to me please how adding a 20.4 gig file with a 6.2 gig file equals 28 gigs?

For that matter, explain how an HD-DVD disc with files totalling 24.1 gigs produce 32.1 gigs when de-muxed???

Well, I tried again with The Italian Job. This time it seemed to work.

The source HD-DVD disc was 16.2 gigs, and the converted BR folder is 17 gigs, after removing three audio tracks.

So do I just burn the BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders to a BR? And how, as data files using any burning program? Since I didn't create an inage, I assume I can't use Imgburn.

Thank you for the response. With "The Italian Job" HD-DVD, I did not have to take any extra steps. For some reason, I'm having issues with "The Game" HD-DVD.

I will have to do more research with that one.

OK, well I deleted the ripped and demuxed folders for "The Game" and started over. This time it worked fine. I never figured out what the problem was, but the only thing I did differently was I used a different location for the demuxing and Blu-Ray creation folders.

One more question: Many films have both DTS and AC3 audio tracks. Which is "better"?

I have a surround system capable of playing both, and a PS3 for playing Blu-Ray discs. If I choose DTS and attempt to play the disc on a player that is not connected to a system with DTS compatability, with the sound be converted to something more generically compatable by the player? Specifically, I'm thinking about my mom's Blu-Ray player connected to a TV with an HDMI cable, and to a sound bar via optical.

So my created Blu-Ray issues are not over yet.
Both discs player flawlessly on my PS3. Hoever, neither will play on my mom's Samsung player. I get the error "Cant play disc" or something like that.

I'm guessing there is little I can do other than use a different brand of disc? Anyone have experience with this?

Hmm...
I used Roxio Creator DE 10.3. Under options, I only see:

Type: Track at once open, track at once closed, or Disc at once.
Mode: Mode 1, Mode 2XA
File system: ISO+Joliet, ISO+Joliet+UDF, or ISO Level 2

If ImgBurn has settings for UDF 2.5 or 2.6, I suppose I'll try that.

My expierence with DVD's is that certain players don't like certain brands of discs. I just assume Blu-Ray is no different.