Blu-Ray~DVD Backup & Conversion

[jdobbs]

For 16:9 you definitely wouldn't. I haven't tried with 4:3. I would guess that it would be easiest to resize the output to 1:1 and add the borders -- unless you keep it 720x480/576. I could probably do a couple of encodes with the SAR set differently and see what happens. I think it will add the bars itself. Bars and top and bottom would generally remain the same when you upscale (from DVD).

[Sharc]

The necessity to add black bars may also depend on if we crop the bars of the DVD pictures before upscaling/encoding, or if we upscale/encode including the bars of the original anamorphic DVD - wasting some bits for encoding the black bars.
The SAR is not depending on the cropping, though.

[~bT~]

^ yes, you would need to add borders.

[RickA]

Greets,

Looks like the idea of putting HD content onto a SD DVD is spreading. Stumbled across a few guides on other sites. Glad to see the interest growing. :-)

http://www.elurauser.com/articles/avchd_to_bluray.jsp
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=667462&page=1&pp=30
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=705146

Cheers,
Rick

[mrchri5]

Do you see AVCHD becoming a standard way to back up blu-ray discs until the prices for blank discs come down?

I tried ripbot a few times and had trouble getting the file size down to dvd-5. Also the program just stopped working during a pass.

I'm not very technical so I would gladly pay for a new version or add on to dvd rebuilder when it works reliably.

Will it ever be possible to do anything but movie only avchd discs?

thanks

[jdobbs]

Interestingly, I've noticed that the discs I've been creating lately with TSMuxer aren't detected as AVCHD. My standalone player sees them as BD-ROM. But to answer your question, yes. I think backing up HD to DVD-5 or DVD-9 discs that are formated for UDF 2.5 in BD format is going to be the way to go until Blu-ray blanks become affordable.

Since the player sees the discs as BD-ROM, that would seem to also imply that you could do backups or authoring other than movie-only (but I haven't tried).

[Discoboy]

Interestingly, I've noticed that the discs I've been creating lately with TSMuxer aren't detected as AVCHD. My standalone player sees them as BD-ROM.

I've noticed the same also with a Panasonic DMP-BD30.

For software DVD players PDVD 7 & 8 show BR-ROM, but the latest WinDVD does show as AVCHD!

[jdobbs]

Something has changed in the way it writes them, the ones I used to do (although I may have been using TSRemux instead) all were recognized as "AVCHD" on my Sony player -- but now all are seen as BD-ROM.

[Discoboy]

Something has changed in the way it writes them, the ones I used to do (although I may have been using TSRemux instead) all were recognized as "AVCHD" on my Sony player -- but now all are seen as BD-ROM.

Hi jdobbs,

I am now not so sure this issue is to do with the latest version of "tsMuxeR" 1.8.4. I have not been using TSremux so maybe this is the reason for your problem? I am now only using tsMuxeR and all is well since I did the following below:

I have now done 2 things since my latest BD to AVCHD DVD-9 conversion projects:

1. Updated my stand-alone player Panasonic DMP-BD30 to the latest firmware 1.0 --> 1.3
2. Flashed my Pioneer DVR-215 burner with the latest modified firmware that now forces bitting set to DVD-ROM book type for DVD-5 (DVD+R) and DVD-9 (DVD+R DL) of burnt media (Verb's)

After the above, now my stand-alone player always displays the disc a "DVD" and shows it a AVCHD via on-screen play menu.

Hope this info is of help to you? :helpful:

Regards,
Discoboy

[jdobbs]

Actually it isn't a problem. I want it to seem them as BD-ROM.

[Discoboy]

OK then that’s OK for you then. :)
My Panasonic unit will only show BD if a bd-rom media disc is used and DVD if a dvd-rom disc is used. AVCHD will show up once play is pressed a dvd-rom disc is used.

[atreides93]

Sorry if this is an obvious question, but from what I've read, the blu ray standard supports both MPEG-2 and h.264 (mpeg4) encoding.
I guess what I don't get, is if newer movies are already encoded using H.264, then how are you achieving such a space savings by re-encoding them?
On wikipedia, they were saying that early BD movies were encoded with mpeg-2, so that would make sense...but newer ones are supposed to be using H.264 now.? or did they never change to it?

[moviefan]

Sure, many movie are encoded using H.264, but they waste bitrate all over the place (in my eyes just to justify the 50 GB disc space of a Blu-ray). With optimized settings, maybe pre-processing, good encoder settings, you can compress the movie a lot more at almost transparent quality. No one keeps you from encoding the same content at either e.g. 5 Mbps or at 25 Mbps...

[jdobbs]

Exactly. Just because you use the bitrate, that doesn't mean you needed it. This is a definite truism based upon what I've seen.

[atreides93]

This is pretty exciting. What I'd like to do is get a Blu-Ray Rom drive, then using ANYdvd, decrypt it whatever bluray movie I buy, re encode to a smaller size and then copy it to this little box. http://www.tvixbox.com/product_details.php?product_id=23

I already do this with an Mvix which handles standard DVD's fine. Its so convenient having all your movies in a portable box you can take with you when visiting the parents and leave all the disks at home.

[rernst]

Will they play on anything other than a PS3?

If you recode to H.264 (or keep them that way) they will play on any PC. You can play this on most media servers that support h.264.

[jdobbs]

If you recode to H.264 (or keep them that way) they will play on any PC. You can play this on most media servers that support h.264.
I was thinking more along the lines of standalone players.

[atreides93]

Jdobbs, was wondering if you're still actively working on adding support for backing up a BD to a DVD-5 or DVD-9 ?
I got a PS3 recently, and what I'd love to be able to do is copy my bluray movies to the hard disk on the ps3 and then take the ps3 to my folks house when I visit them.
I've googled how to convert bluray to mp4 (h.264 with aac audio) and every guide I've seen reminds me of the rather tedious and painful methods of backing up DVD's I used to do. I just don't have the same kind of free time like I used to back then :)

[jarthel]

is there a guide that uses dvd-rb that backup dvd to BD-like format (using blank dvds as medium)? I would like to resize the video to full HD just because we will be buying a 52in setup in the very near future.

ps. I know about upsampling dvd players but I'm hoping resizing it during the encode process would provide better results. :)

[jdobbs]

The easiest way right now is to use the MOBILE encoding option with the "Experimental AVCHD, 1280x720" template. It will create a .TS file as output. Then just select that .TS from within TSREMUX (search DOOM9 for the TSREMUX thread) and tell it to output to Blu-ray format. Burn the contents of the output folder to DVD-R using ImgBurn in UDF 2.5 mode.

You may want to adjust the video bitrate depending on the movie size.

[atreides93]

I picked up a BD-ROM drive and have been happily experimenting with backing up my only bluray disk which is 3:10 to Yuma. I'm using a method described in a blog : http://www.washabledryink.com/2008/04/blu-ray-to-mp4mkv-step-3/

Since my main goal is creating backups that I can copy to my PS3's hard drive and play in HD. The PS3 will play back mp4 files that are encoded with AVC H.264 for the video and AAC audio.

The only problem is that the encoding speed is incredibly slow even on my Athlon X2 64 4400. The 2nd pass is encoding between 2 or 3 fps. So should take around 24 hours for a single disk. OH well I don't have many blu ray's anyway (one so far)

[jdobbs]

There isn't a whole lot you can do about that. If you set X264 for high-quality on the second pass it is very CPU intensive. I have a quad processor and I only get about 6-7fps on the second pass -- with 100% CPU utilization on all four cores.

Lot's of work to do in H.264 encoding... it feels a lot like MPEG-2 encoding was a few years back.

But the quality sure is outstanding. I've been doing 1920x1080p encodings to single layer DVD on the last few discs, and it looks outstanding. I backed up my copy of Apocalypto yesterday. It's a fairly long movie with lots of movement and detail (in the jungle) -- and it looks really impressive. The people I show it to can't tell the difference from the original.

One thing I found that speeds it up a little was installing the CoreAVC codec. It's fairly cheap and decodes the original stream (for reencoding) quite fast. Of course that will only help on originals that are X264 (as opposed to MPEG-2 or VC-1)

[Sharc]

If you are out for speed you may want to try Xvid @ 1280 x720 single pass Q2 or Q3. Quality is very reasonable, however I don't know if it is compatible with PS3.

[jdobbs]

It's definitely not Blu-ray compatible, I'm not sure if the PS3 plays it.

[Morbo]

You all using deblock in your scripts?...if the source is direct BD,...no need for it IMHO....and it speeds up a bit.

Just my .02

[rudolfo2]

Anyone could comment on this Toshiba news:At the end of 2008 Toshiba will bring on the market SD DVD player equipped with much improved upscale chips so the BD will no longer be needed.The picture quality will be almost the same and the bigger catalog of old titles will make all the benefits.

[jdobbs]

[snicker] You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[jdobbs]

You all using deblock in your scripts?...if the source is direct BD,...no need for it IMHO....and it speeds up a bit.

Just my .02 How do you turn it off? I know how to make is sharper (with negative values), but I'm not sure how you disable it.

[Sophocles]

'd also like to see if it's possible to get an entire HD movie on a DVD-9 using H.264 (AVCHD) with any decent quality.

I need to keep up with news but this is a long standing hope of mine. I suspect that a BR disc can be compressed using H/X/264 to a dual layer disc (size) with some obvious loss in in quality but still better than standard DVD. I've seen 1 hour compressions that are well under 5 gigabytes with very good quality in WMV (1080P).

[rendez2k]

I need to keep up with news but this is a long standing hope of mine. I suspect that a BR disc can be compressed using H/X/264 to a dual layer disc (size) with some obvious loss in in quality but still better than standard DVD. I've seen 1 hour compressions that are well under 5 gigabytes with very good quality in WMV (1080P).

Isn't this essentially what RipBot264 is doing? I compressed a blue ray movie to a dual layer and it looks great!

[Sophocles]

Isn't this essentially what RipBot264 is doing? I compressed a blue ray movie to a dual layer and it looks great!

What was the final file size? Can it be backed up to standard dual layer that can be made playable on a standalone? Just a thought.

I've been trying so many different ways of doing this and none of them seems to have the answer. Remember, before DVD burners hit the shelves we were all faced with compromises? If one wanted a standalone playable disc they had to transcode it to VCD for one disc or SVCD across several discs. The best backup choice was of course Xvid/DiVx which didn't play on either without a computer and a mouse click, but was far more efficient.

[rendez2k]

The disc is full. But its a blue ray structure on a dual layer DVD. All I can test it on is the PC and my PS3 - and it works great on both. Obviously some compression has had to be done but it looks great and is full 1080 resolution. I've only done one movie and haven't messed with the program much beyond that but I think it has other output options.

[Sophocles]

The disc is full. But its a blue ray structure on a dual layer DVD. All I can test it on is the PC and my PS3 - and it works great on both. Obviously some compression has had to be done but it looks great and is full 1080 resolution. I've only done one movie and haven't messed with the program much beyond that but I think it has other output options.

Cool! I use a PC for my disc playbacks anyway and use PowerDVD for playback so I should be fine. I'll give a try.

[rendez2k]

Be waned - it takes a very long time (even on my quad core!). jdobbs: don't let this put you off you're project - I'm looking forward to what ever you develop!

[Sophocles]

The disc is full. But its a blue ray structure on a dual layer DVD. All I can test it on is the PC and my PS3 - and it works great on both. Obviously some compression has had to be done but it looks great and is full 1080 resolution. I've only done one movie and haven't messed with the program much beyond that but I think it has other output options.

Not a problem I have only dual core PCs but I have one with an Opteron 170, 175, Intels' D945, E6600, E6700, and an E8400@3.84 GHz. All of them are quite overclocked and time is not a problem. Ripping it to the one used with a limited number of BR/HD drives is the problem. LOL

[jdobbs]

To add to what has been said: In fact because X264 (H.264/AVC) is so efficient -- you can back up an entire HD movie to a single layer disc with very high quality. Lately I've been doing all of my Blu-Ray movie-only backups to DVD-5.

Can you backup HD to DVD? I have a shelf full of 1920x1080p backups that say "yes".

[Sophocles]

jdobbs


So what you're saying is that there is a DVD RB HD version in the making?:P


Can you backup HD to DVD? I have a shelf full of 1920x1080p backups that say "yes".

I have shelves of less than desirable outcomes.

Hmm!. I have an unintentionally well constructed testing lab, and I'm always ready to experiment.

[jdobbs]

Yes in the making (BD Rebuilder), but not close to completion. My programming time has been pretty limited lately.

All you really need to create a good movie-only disc is FFDSHOW, HAALI Media Splitter, AVISYNTH, X264 and TSMUXER. You just create an AVISYNTH file that uses DirectShowSource() to read the original. Haali Media Splitter will handle the M2TS and FFDSHOW the playback. Then encode using X264 (I have a .BAT I can give you with settings that make the stream compliant). Use TSMUXER to demux any audio and subtitles you want, then use it again to mux the new video, audio, and subs into blu-ray format. You can then burn to DVD using ImgBurn set for UDF 2.50. Put it in a Blu-ray standalone and it will see/play it as a blu-ray disc. You can also play the resulting M2TS back on your PC if you want.

[Sophocles]

All you really need to create a good movie-only disc is FFDSHOW, HAALI Media Splitter, AVISYNTH, X264 and TSMUXER.

Thanks jd, I have them and moving forward.


My programming time has been pretty limited lately.

Sounds so much like when DVD burners first hit the shelves. Before that it was VCD/SVCD to have a playable standalone disc. I'll play for a while and see what turns up.:D

[atreides93]

These days I'm just converting to a m2ts file (muxed with TsMuxer) and so far they play great on my PS3. I was not successful in getting a bluray structure to play on my PS3 when burned to dvd-r though..but I suspect the problem is with my encoding somehow... That's interesting if ripbot produced something you could mux into a bluray structure and play it on a ps3.
honestly though, I don't care so much about that...I think in the future I'll either always use a ps3 like device which will play m2ts files..or a simple media player like a Tvix or Mvix which will play m2ts files as well I'm sure.
I am blown away by the quality of h.264....I never really liked my divx encodes...and the audio sync issues I always had were beyond annoying. So now that I have a nice and relatively simple way to back up the movies only I'm pretty damn happy right now :)

[Groucho2004]

I have a .BAT I can give you with settings that make the stream compliant

Could you please post your batch file here?

[jdobbs]

Ok. Here is the .BAT, it is placed in the same directory as the .AVS file and you have to set the file name and bitrate before running (first two lines). The bitrate is calculated based upon the size (in frames) of the input. Note that for readability I've broken the X264 commands into multiple lines here but in the .BAT file the entire command is on one line.

@SET IN_TITLE=FILETITLE
@SET IN_BITRATE=5240
TIME /T
"E:\X264\x264.exe" "%IN_TITLE%.AVS" --bitrate %IN_BITRATE% --level 4.1 --sar 1:1
--aud --vbv-bufsize 14745 --vbv-maxrate 17500 --filter 0,0 --bframes 3 --direct auto
--keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --subme 2 --analyse none --me dia --threads auto --thread-input
--progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --stats "stats2.log" --pass 1 --output NUL
TIME /T
"E:\X264\x264.exe" "%IN_TITLE%.AVS" --bitrate %IN_BITRATE% --level 4.1 --sar 1:1 --aud
--vbv-bufsize 14745 --vbv-maxrate 17500 --filter 0,0 --ref 3 --mixed-refs --bframes 3
--keyint 24 --min-keyint 1 --b-rdo --bime --weightb --direct auto --subme 6 --trellis 1
--analyse p8x8,b8x8,i4x4,i8x8 --8x8dct --me umh --threads auto --thread-input
--progress --no-psnr --no-ssim --stats "stats2.log" --pass 2 --output "%IN_TITLE%.264"
TIME /T
PAUSE
Comments from any X264 experts out there who could improve the command lines are certainly welcome.


[Edit - 09/03/08] Updated to limit key interval to 24 -- due to 1 sec limit on BD.

[Groucho2004]

Thanks a lot!

[laserfan]

...Use TSMUXER...to mux the new video, audio, and subs into blu-ray format. You can then burn to DVD using ImgBurn set for UDF 2.50. Put it in a Blu-ray standalone and it will see/play it as a blu-ray disc. You can also play the resulting M2TS back on your PC if you want.

These days I'm just converting to a m2ts file (muxed with TsMuxer) and so far they play great on my PS3. I was not successful in getting a bluray structure to play on my PS3 when burned to dvd-r though...
Is this true? That a simple movie.m2ts burned w/UDF2.50 will play on any BR standalone player? Without the BD structure?

For some reason I thought you had to have a BR burner (and of course BR recordable disc) to get an HD movie to play on a BR player??? :confused:

[Boulder]

Comments from any X264 experts out there who could improve the command lines are certainly welcome.I'm in no means an x264 expert, but from what I know, using --bframes 16 and --bpyramid is recommended. Also make sure you have an up-to-date x264 build which includes the adaptive quantization feature.

[Sharc]

--sar 1:1
Are BD native square pixel, or does the original picture need to be resized before encoding? Else --sar x:y to be set accordingly?

[jdobbs]

I'm in no means an x264 expert, but from what I know, using --bframes 16 and --bpyramid is recommended. Also make sure you have an up-to-date x264 build which includes the adaptive quantization feature.
Hmmm.... I was fairly certain that 3 was the maximum for b-frames. Maybe someone else will weigh in.

[jdobbs]

Is this true? That a simple movie.m2ts burned w/UDF2.50 will play on any BR standalone player? Without the BD structure?

For some reason I thought you had to have a BR burner (and of course BR recordable disc) to get an HD movie to play on a BR player??? :confused: No. That's not exactly what I said. If you use TSMUXER's blu-ray output it creates the BD file structure. You don't need a blu-ray disc, though. A DVD will work fine.

[Boulder]

Hmmm.... I was fairly certain that 3 was the maximum for b-frames. Maybe someone else will weigh in.16 B-frames is the maximum, and as you are using adaptive B-frames, x264 makes the decision of how many B-frames to actually use.

This is a nice pdf guide to many of the options: http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/pub/x264/

[jdobbs]

16 B-frames is the maximum, and as you are using adaptive B-frames, x264 makes the decision of how many B-frames to actually use.

This is a nice pdf guide to many of the options: http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/pub/x264/It will make the decision -- but not go over the max you set (or at least that was my understanding -- I've a ways to go before knowing all the X264 options completely).

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to add them and see how it looks... Do you know if there is a b-frame limit in AVCHD? I'm trying to remember where I saw that...