Has anyone figured out how to automatically rip the main title of a Blu-ray?

You can use DVD FAB. Good luck.

I don't know of any program that can rip just the main title automatically, nor would I use it anyway. There are too many variables between BD releases to get something like this to work properly 100% of the time.

You never specified what format you want it ripped to as there are several options available (i.e., BD folders, iso, or MKV). Personally, I prefer MKV since it seems to be the best format for playing on an HTPC without skipping, stuttering, or freeze-ups. MakeMKV allows you to select just the main title, HD audio, and subtitles, just as you want. It may take a minute or so to analyze the disc, but other than that you can just pick what you want to keep and let 'er rip.

Why not just put MakeMKV on your PC? I don't remote into it, I just use it on my PC. But, that said, It really isn't that difficult to remote into the HTPC if you have it set up with the credentials remembered in RDP. One click and I'm in with the shortcut on my PC's taskbar. Same with MakeMKV.. One click on my taskbar, load the disk, verify the right codecs are selected for HD Audio and click MakeMKV. It is pretty automated as it is already.

I've been looking for a solution for years, and unfortunately this is impossible. You can try Auto Rip n Compress with makemkv or dvdfab. Unfortunately, it's not always as simple as just grabbing the main movie. For instance, some movies come with multiple versions (such as theatrical, extended, and director's cuts) as well as multiple angles (such as the Star Wars blu-rays and many Pixar movies). The software has no way of knowing of exactly which one you want. Often, there's no way for the user to even know what they want! How do you know which angle is the right one? I often just searching the makemkv forums for an answer. I've always dreamed of makemkv incorporating some sort of crowd sourced ability to select the theatrical version. I would pay lots of money for this.

If you were hoping you could get your family the ability to rip the main movie off blu-rays, you are out of luck. This is actually the primary roadblock preventing me from recommending HTPCs to friends and family. The only true automated solutions for ripping blu-ray movies involve ripping the entire ISO (such as My Movies for WHS). You're best off just using makemkv yourself to rip the movies.

This is also why I just don't understand My Movies. Their WHS app is amazing. You can put 10 blu-rays into a computer at once and it will rip them all and spit them out when it's done. But what the heck is the point when playing back blu-ray ISO's is such a PITA? People on this forum, who are savvier than most, constantly complain about how poor and unreliable the experience of playing back blu-ray ISO's through WMC is. So why bother with automated blu-ray ripping if you can't play back the rips effectively? So either you can make blu-ray ripping easy and playback a PITA, or you can make blu-ray ripping manual and annoying and make playback elegant. This is a fundamental problem with HTPCs today.

I'm not going to lie, I've seriously considered just setting up sabnzbd and couch potato at my parents house to downright steal movies just to make things easier. My dad can certainly afford to buy as many blu-rays as he wants, but stealing would just be more convenient.
Edited by lockdown571 - 6/26/12 at 7:57pm

It's about a mile from automated even if you are willing to click the task bar and load the disk, there are still about 12-15 more clicks required on average for the default setup. What's interesting is that there is a text box hidden in the expert mode, but nobody here has ever mentioned making use of it to get everything beyond the loading of the disc down to one click.
As for discs with the java based protection, forget about it. Usually fifty or so titles that you have to un check before clicking make mkv.

I just found the expert mode recently, and will post my findings after I get it tweaked to my liking

Set it to ignore titles under 1800 seconds.
Set it to default to only english audio and subtitle tracts.

Then when you load the disk there's only one title to deal with (the movie). Check the HD Audio checkbox as it doesn't default to that, verify the subs, click browse for the mkv folder location. Type in the correct folder name so MCM can scrape the metadata and click go. This takes about a minute or even less for me after MakeMKV has opened the disk.

Seriously, try to rip one of the Star Wars blu-rays (which have numerous angles, full subtitle tracks and forced subtitle tracks) with makemkv, and then tell me how automated it is. This is not makemkv's fault really, but it's still a problem for the end user.

That's an exception not the rule. This is discussed in the Ripping Blu Rays II thread. I haven't completed that either. But I will when I'm done with the remodel at my house.

Sure it's the exception. I would estimate about 9 out of 10 blu-rays are straightforward. Select the main movie and go. But when popular movies like Star Wars require intervention, it's just not a fully automated process.

My experience has been better than 9 out of 10.

I think an automated solution would choke on Star Wars Saga too.

I'm not sure what you mean. The whole point is an automated solution wouldn't choke, hence why an automated solution doesn't exist, and may never exist.
Edited by lockdown571 - 6/26/12 at 8:00pm

The algorithym to read a blu-ray disk and smartly figure out which angle is correct, which sub stream is correct and to a lesser extent which audio stream would be quite complex, especially to work with all discs. I'm just happy that the encryption is broken so I can back up my media with freeware.

You are missing the most obvious point as to why this would never work.

The studios will find a way to trick the software. Which would be fine if you had a developer (or group of developers) that would then counter-trick the studios. Of course these developers would want to get paid for their time and then people would complain about paying for the software.

Never going to happen.

It's a shame there just aren't more licensed software options. I don't really know how it all works, but what's stopping Jriver from getting a license for blu-ray playback? I might consider dealing with trailers and menus if there were a good reliable player. Obviously studios don't want you playing copies off your hard drive, but that hasn't stopped TMT and PowerDVD.

A stand alone player is so cheap there's no reason to do that.

No reason for what? I'm talking about Jriver integrating a blu-ray player into their Media Center application so you can play ISOs off your hard drive, just like you can with TMT and Powerdvd, but presumably in a more elegant and reliable fashion.

If you're talking about ripping Blu-Rays then there's every reason to do it. I rent my discs ffrom NetFlix and don't want to amass a huge library of discs taking up space that I'll probably never play more than once. Rip, play and delete. Problem is, I don't always have time to watch the movie when it arrives, so rather than hold onto it while other people are waiting to watch it, I'll store it on my unRAID server until I find the time to enjoy it.

Having it on a server allows me to access it from any PC in the house without the need for individual Blu-Ray players at each TV. It does require a PC at each location, but it also allows me to watch live TV, share recordings, and all other features available on an HTPC which aren't included with BD players and would require additional hardware and software.

Aside from this, the No. 1 reason to rip Blu-Rays and/or DVDs is to circumvent the extraneous crap on the disc that impedes any attempt at getting directly to the main movie.

That's because it's massively expensive to get an AACS license, and the penalties if your software is determined to have failed to protect AACS protected content are even more massive (IIRC it was like an $8million fine). And it's impossible to get a license to rip BDs because the AACS license agreement forbids such use.

Money, lots and lots of money for all the licenses you need.

That's the entire point of AACS, BD+, and HDCP, and probably about 50-75% of the point of BD, to make it so people can't rip them.

Once it's on the hard drive, there's not a lot that can be done. Well besides Cinavia, and making it part of the licensing agreements to detect that and disable playback of content with Cinavia.



Now to the original question, the simplest solution would be to create a database of discs and which titles/tracks make up the main movie, then the first couple people would have to try it the hard way, but after that you could just pull down the info on which titles to rip automatically. MyMovies has something like that for TV show DVDs.

Thanks for the clarification. This, though, I think would be the best solution, and it's what I suggested early. It doesn't seem like it would too difficult to implement into makemkv or another program.

I think you'd be surprised how difficult it would be. You'd need a web service to host the data and provide the means to both download the info, and for users to contribute the data. You'd need some sort of way (forum?) for users to validate the data and report errors. If you look at DVD Profiler and MyMovies they've got some pretty big infrastructure in place to support user-contributed data.

Unless I miss something, there is and always been a extremely easy solution. Of course, you need AnyDVD running in background, after that use a freeware tsMuxer ( tsMuxerGUI).Google for it.
Just drop the largest file in it, select video, audio of your choice and subtitles - now you can remux it a new Blu-ray or else. If you want chapters - it is a bit more complicated - you need to find a drop into it a correct playlist ( sometimes out of many). That is it.
Freeware BD Rebuilder is another choice, but it is primarily used for BD50 to BD25 conversions.

This => "how to automatically rip"

I've used my movies for years, but have never tried the disc ripper. The discs I mostly rip (disney discs) require too much intelligence to choose the correct playlist. I usually have to google for a few minutes to find the correct one, and even that doesn't work 100% of the time. sometimes I think I've got the right one only to find some subtle text is in the wrong language and I have to do it again (tangled was a good example of this).

I wish anydvd would log the the files being played so you can easily determine the correct playlist. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard.

My movies could also implement something where contributors could identify the main playlist for a given disc id. that would help mm users.

Probably wouldn't be that hard actually. Lot's of web sites do this already. You can reuse pre-existing code and modify it to suit your needs.

How more automatic it could be?

In tsMuxer:
click one - drag the largest file into GUI.
click two - select blu-ray as output
click tree - press process

In BD rebuilder:
click one - select main movie only option ( unless previously selected)
click two - select a folder with a movie
click tree - press process

We're talking two-three clicks total ( plus a couple of extra clicks, if you need to get rid of extra audio tracks and/or subtitles)

Unless you can find a voice activated program , nothing else could be done in less than two-three clicks.

You're just not getting this. We're talking about sticking a blu-ray in your drive, the program doing everything for you, and then spitting it out. NO USER INTERVENTION. This is how My Movies for WHS works, although it rips the entire ISO. All of us know already how simple tsmuxer and makemkv are to use. The 2nd problem is the one that Derek K., myself and others have mentioned. Simply selecting the main movie is not sufficient for a number of blu-rays. There isn't always a single main movie. There are different versions, angles, multiple subtitle tracks, etc., and it's not always clear which one you want.