HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. GUIDE UPDATED!!

[glen8]

http://www.glenharrison.com/bluray

I have 'finally' got my new guide finished and uploaded

If anyone uses this guide elsewhere can they please credit both me and this site

Thanks!

[NOTE: This post has been editted so some of the comments below are now redundant as they would have been for the old outdated guide]

for posts regarding this guide see from 18th March 2008 onwards

[Atak_Snajpera]

step 5 can be replaced by muxing directly to 00000.m2ts into /BDMV/STREAM directory

Bluray Structure generated by Scenarist
http://www.mediafire.com/?a4mndhoyfdd

[rack04]

Maybe your title should read "HD-DVD (h.264 and DD+) to Blu-Ray. Working Guide :-)" because you don't address VC-1 and MLP.

[glen8]

Maybe your title should read "HD-DVD (h.264 and DD+) to Blu-Ray. Working Guide :-)" because you don't address VC-1 and MLP.

True

I wasnt aware we had a problem with VC-1?

Just looking at getting DTS sorted altho I don't think there's much of a problem with that

[sugatam]

For VC1, step 3 should refer to vc1conv, right? Other than that, I think the guide is perfect for VC1

[glen8]

Thanks, and thanks for the positive PMs I have been sent.

I'm not an expert by any means but enjoy doing it. It makes me happy converting videos and learning new stuff

[musicman2311]

just did a 1 min test - looks great ! - thanks !!!!!

can it be that the only difference really is to enter 29.976
as framerate rather than 29.97 ???

anyway - 1 min clip looked fantastic - thanks from my side to the writers of these tools

[tyee]

Step 3 isn't necessary (for AVC/x.264) as tsmuxer has that "24/1001" option which is the same as 23.976fps. Anyway that's what I did.

Hey Glen8, does that tsmuxer, .ts file, playback in your computer media player perfect, like Media Player Classic or others you have on hand?

[glen8]

trust me guys, all of those steps are completly necessary. I have done further testing since writing that guide.

If I change the framerate anywhere else other than h264info I get av sync issues and the dreadded 5sec audio problem I listed in another thread.

These steps are the only way I have found after months of testing and using MANY different methods and software of getting everything in sync and working on the PS3.

I have come close a few times but nothing as perfect as this.

I have played back the .ts file on my PC which works fine :-)

musicman, don't you mean 23.976? you need to do that and also to remove the pulldown

[musicman2311]

yes, glen, that is what I meant - 23.976.
And I had gone through the very same as you and confirm all you found. Yesterday I successfully ran a 1 min clip of a difficult stream according to your method. It played perfectly.

As for Vc1 - does anybody here have experience with vc1conv treated files on blu ray - all I know is that scenarist doesn't accept the resulting stream.

I will need to do some testing, when I have time.

but I am eager to get feedback from people with experience.

[bennynihon]

Is there a guide that is in the opposite direction: Bluray to HD-DVD authoring? Long live HD-DVD!

[tyee]

@glen8
I just tried h264info to remove pulldown but I was getting about 150 KBytes/sec. It was taking forever. How long does it take on your machine?

[glen8]

@glen8
I just tried h264info to remove pulldown but I was getting about 150 KBytes/sec. It was taking forever. How long does it take on your machine?

Luckily I have a pretty fast machine (2 x segate 7200.10s in Raid-0, they are the new single platter models) but it still takes a good 30mins

[glen8]

I can confirm that dts from dtshd source also works perfectly using the above guide. It didn't seem to work too well from eac3to but worked great directly from tsMuxeR.

[Trahald]

yeah.. i really need to speed that sucker up. its sucking up tons of cpu for some reason.

[glen8]

yeah.. i really need to speed that sucker up. its sucking up tons of cpu for some reason.

one of my cores is pretty much maxed out so I guess its normal

I have just done the transformers conversion which works great too. I compared that with the version from usenet which seems to be the first hd-dvd > blu-ray ever released.

I've just noticed that the usenet version has DTS. Very strange when you consider it never had a dts track only dolby digital +

I'm wondering if he ripped the audio from the DVD :eek:

[Creator1]

one of my cores is pretty much maxed out so I guess its normal

I have just done the transformers conversion which works great too. I compared that with the version from usenet which seems to be the first hd-dvd > blu-ray ever released.

I've just noticed that the usenet version has DTS. Very strange when you consider it never had a dts track only dolby digital +

I'm wondering if he ripped the audio from the DVD :eek:

glen glen glen, you're my savior! I am at your feets!

I will try your guide tonight if I have the time! :thanks:

It seems the remove pulldown option is new to h264.info because that program didn't have that option before when I tried to find something to remove the damn pulldown.

Also, txMuxer must be a new tool, I never saw it before? Would be cool if it works better than Elecard Xmuxer pro which is not too good imho.

I can answer your question for the DTS track on the usenet version of Transformers. The guy simply converted the DD+ track to DTS 1.5mbps. You can do that with eac3to. In fact, I suggest you always do that as it is the best quality you can have if you don't want DD+ or DTS-HD sound. Just put a ".dts" extension to the destination file in eac3togui and be sure to have "Surcode DVD DTS" installed and eac3to will convert your DD+ source file to DTS 1.5Mbps. That's what I always do.

I will try this guide on the star trek season 1 HD-DVD that I bought. It's the only H.264 HD-DVD I have besides Transformers.

I have two questions though to anyone who tried this guide:

1) Does the elementary stream with pulldown removed import in Scenarist BDA?

2) Can you use the Nero encoder in eac3to instead of the sonic one? Unless things changed it is the best one for sound quality as DRC and other bad stuff can be turned off by eac3to using the Nero decoder but not with the Sonic one.

I want to add some thanks to the makers of all those apps also. Wouldn't be possible without your help guys. :cool:

[musicman2311]

yes, glen, that is what I meant - 23.976.
And I had gone through the very same as you and confirm all you found. Yesterday I successfully ran a 1 min clip of a difficult stream according to your method. It played perfectly.

As for Vc1 - does anybody here have experience with vc1conv treated files on blu ray - all I know is that scenarist doesn't accept the resulting stream.

I will need to do some testing, when I have time.

but I am eager to get feedback from people with experience.

correction - i tested again

23.97 vs 23.976 makes no difference in h264info.

in my earlier tests i had forgotten to set the 'write PPS..' flag,
that makes a big difference - sorry for confusion

[Creator1]

Ok, I did a quick test tonight with transformers and it seems to work for importation into Scenarist BDA! :)

SO I answered my question #1 above. This is good news. It seems the missing link for me was simply the availability of the remove pulldown option which is now available thanks to the latest updates to the h264info program.

Many thanks to the creator of h264info!

I'll tell you more when I do more tests on this.

[glen8]

I am doing more testing with the conversion and after a week will produce a better guide

I have found after months of work that the elcard range of products simply don't work with the hd-dvd > blu-ray conversion. Xmuxer pro was a waste of time.

I didn't get on any better with streaming it through converter pro either. I even tried streaming the video through graphedit/avisynth with a forced framerate but that also didn't work

I played around with Scenarist for weeks and just gave up. I was getting nowhere fast

In short, this guide is currently the ONLY way of getting a successful transfer

[musicman2311]

glen8 and all - does anybody have a working way for vc1 to blu ray with 24p ?
so far vc1conv doesn't work for me, neither does TsMuxer.

I can do vc1 at 29.97fps interleaved - no problem.

thanks

[glen8]

Unfortunatly I don't have any VC1 discs

Can you list a few and I'll see if I can find a friend who may have one...or I'll rent one

If I can cover all the angles I have a friend who is a full time vb programmer. We'll create a single piece of software to get this sorted once and for all :cool:

[Creator1]

glen,

Basically all hd-dvd movies that are not from Paramount since they went HD-DVD exclusive are VC-1. So the choice is large.

What was your problem with scenarist? Did you have audio sync issues? Because besides that I don't see what would be the problem.

musicman,

I was wondering if going to 24fps would be better for the blu-ray conversion. You think it is? Is it because a blu-ray player cannot do 1080P (progressive) playback when the vc-1 file is interleaved? I know the AVC file must be progressive but I was wondering if the blu-ray players had the capability to remove pulldown on the fly on VC-1 titles or not? If not, then it would be better to remove the interleave indeed. My TV is max 1080i so I have no real problem for now but the future might be bad if I don't do it right the first time on the conversions. Maybe if I test using a vc-1 interleave in powerdvd it would help me see if this is supported by the BD standard but then again sometimes the PC software does a little more than stand-alones so...

[musicman2311]

Hi Creator,
quite frankly I was also just curious really as to whether a conversion to 24p really does make a difference.
I do have a 1080p TV and I did watch VC1 based discs (e.g. Van Helsing) at 1080i - they looked great.

What I meant to address is that so far I simply have not succeeded in creating a disc, e.g. using vc1conv , that played
smoothly.

In practice, I think you are right - it probably won't make a big difference anyway.

[glen8]

is Batman Begins VC-1?

[musicman2311]

is Batman Begins VC-1?

according to this link it is

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/batmanbegins.html

[glen8]

DOH, didn't think to check that site out

I'll work on it this weekend. I wouldn't settle with 1080i ;-)

[Creator1]

Hi Creator,
quite frankly I was also just curious really as to whether a conversion to 24p really does make a difference.
I do have a 1080p TV and I did watch VC1 based discs (e.g. Van Helsing) at 1080i - they looked great.

What I meant to address is that so far I simply have not succeeded in creating a disc, e.g. using vc1conv , that played
smoothly.

In practice, I think you are right - it probably won't make a big difference anyway.

musicman,

According to the thread on vc1conv, it's not complete yet so it is normal that you don't get a correct result using it. Someone else just popped in in the thread and said he might try to finish the work (something about tagging the file as PROGRESSIVE, something vc1conv does not do right now).

There is no real difference between 1080i and 1080p on a 60Hz television but if we can make the VC-1 files 24fps, a tv or projector that can playback the movies in 24fps would make it way better. That is what I am truly wondering, that is, can the blu-ray player do the 29.97 to 24fps conversion (remove pulldown on the fly during playback) and playback the movie in 24fps out to a 24Hz display device? If yes, then it is not needed to make the VC-1 files progressive but if no then it would be preferable.

Glen8,

Yes Batman is VC-1. Like I said mostly all HD-DVD movies are VC-1 except for the Paramount movies since they went HD-DVD only (Transformers, Star Trek Season 1, etc.).

[zeroprobe]

Anyway to get truehd to blu-ray lpcm which scenarist accepts?

[Creator1]

Anyway to get truehd to blu-ray lpcm which scenarist accepts?

DTS-HD or DTS-HD MA can directly be imported from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray with Scenarist.

For DD+ and DD TrueHD, this cannot be done because of incompatibility between the two formats. Typically, I think the problem is that for HD-DVD, DD+ tracks does not require to have a standard DD core whereas on Blu-Ray it is an obligation. Since pretty much all the HD-DVD DD+ tracks have no standard DD core then it's not compatible.

For LPCM, eac3to can create a LPCM track but it cannot be imported in scenarist because of channel assigment errors. The only way is to import the 6 channels as mono wavs and to do that you need the latest version of Scenarist which I don't know which one it is, probably 4.3 or 4.5 or something like that.

[zeroprobe]

DTS-HD or DTS-HD MA can directly be imported from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray with Scenarist.

For DD+ and DD TrueHD, this cannot be done because of incompatibility between the two formats. Typically, I think the problem is that for HD-DVD, DD+ tracks does not require to have a standard DD core whereas on Blu-Ray it is an obligation. Since pretty much all the HD-DVD DD+ tracks have no standard DD core then it's not compatible.

For LPCM, eac3to can create a LPCM track but it cannot be imported in scenarist because of channel assigment errors. The only way is to import the 6 channels as mono wavs and to do that you need the latest version of Scenarist which I don't know which one it is, probably 4.3 or 4.5 or something like that.


I see thanks for that.

[ImsPro]

Thanks glen8 for your work to document.

I've tried to convert a VC1 HD-DVD (Shrek the Third) substituting step #3 with vc1conv on the demux'd .mpv file from EVOdemux.

My end result does play back on the PS3 in 5.1 but the video is jumpy. The audio is in sync and plays back fine (no stutter).

I'll be interested to see what you're able to produce over the weekend.

[musicman2311]

Thanks glen8 for your work to document.

I've tried to convert a VC1 HD-DVD (Shrek the Third) substituting step #3 with vc1conv on the demux'd .mpv file from EVOdemux.

My end result does play back on the PS3 in 5.1 but the video is jumpy. The audio is in sync and plays back fine (no stutter).

I'll be interested to see what you're able to produce over the weekend.

if you can live with 29.97fps and just do not use vc1conv then you have a playable movie

[glen8]

Guide has been updated to included better audio quality. Obviously it's hard to write a guide which covers every movie as they all differ with soundtrack selections and bitrates but it should be a good starting point for people.

TrueHD > DTS 1.5mb tested lastnight and works fine on PS3. Perfect sync and much better quality over previous AC3

[zakia]

glen8, thanks for the guide. Did you try with Transformers?

I posted my problem with eac3to a while back ago but still have this problem. I ripped it again from the original disc with AnyDVD HD ripper btw. Delaycut 1.3.0.0 shows a lot of error and it ended up with a ac3 file bigger than it's original mpa from evodemux, which then eac3to can't recognize. Maybe I should post the logs? It's the US region of Transformers if that makes a difference.

[zakia]

Step 3 isn't necessary (for AVC/x.264) as tsmuxer has that "24/1001" option which is the same as 23.976fps. Anyway that's what I did.


trust me guys, all of those steps are completly necessary. I have done further testing since writing that guide.

If I change the framerate anywhere else other than h264info I get av sync issues and the dreadded 5sec audio problem I listed in another thread.

These steps are the only way I have found after months of testing and using MANY different methods and software of getting everything in sync and working on the PS3.
I can confirm glen8. I tried using tsmuxer to convert the video but its like watching "slow motion" entire movie.

Keep up the good work glen8, and don't forget my question above. :)

[Sparky101]

Guide has been updated to included better audio quality. Obviously it's hard to write a guide which covers every movie as they all differ with soundtrack selections and bitrates but it should be a good starting point for people.

TrueHD > DTS 1.5mb tested lastnight and works fine on PS3. Perfect sync and much better quality over previous AC3

I didn't think the PS3 supported DTS tracks in .m2ts files? Are you streaming/playing from internal drive/buring to DVD?

Thanks for the guide, really useful. Has anyone tried it on The Sum of All Fears HD-DVD? It works fine on the other 3 Jack Ryan films but on Sum of All Fears after running the video through h264info the video goes a bit weird, kind of polarized. Anyone else seen this?

[glen8]

The PS3 does support DTS, I'm burning to BD-RE if that makes any difference?

I have run into a slight problem tho with DTS on transformers as it starts to go out of sync towards the end. The AC3 version is fine.

I have a much better idea tho at the minute which Ive been working on all weekend :rolleyes:

I shall update the guide once finished

[glen8]

Guide now updated

[Sparky101]

Guess that must make the difference. The PS3 certainly supports DTS from an original BR disc but I guess not when streaming in an m2ts container. Just tried it again to confirm I wasn't losing it with Fantastic Four and it just doesn't detect any audio track at all. Unless others have managed it and I'm missing something.

[Sparky101]

Just looking at your updated guide, do you no longer have to convert the DD+ track to DD?

[glen8]

Just looking at your updated guide, do you no longer have to convert the DD+ track to DD?

Nope, im trying to make things as easy and problem free as possible. I was getting a few issues with transformers on anything other than boggo ac3 until I though...why not just mux in the original dd+ which worked :-)

[DonCarlos]

Hi,

I tried this guide and it worked really good. But there is one thing I don't understand. Why don'T you simply use tsmuxer to do the fps?It worked for me perfect. Also with VC-1. I did it with Bourne 2 and it was really fine.

[glen8]

Hi,

I tried this guide and it worked really good. But there is one thing I don't understand. Why don'T you simply use tsmuxer to do the fps?It worked for me perfect. Also with VC-1. I did it with Bourne 2 and it was really fine.

because it doesn't work for all movies. My guide takes into account any problems and works around them.

You may have found a way of missing a few steps but trust me when I say it wont work for all

I have spent another weekend on it and think I have come up with a pretty fool proof method now.

Just updating

[glen8]

Right the guide has been updated again...please let me know if you come across an AVC movie you have problems with.

I'll now start looking at VC1s

[Sparky101]

h264info gave me problems with Sum of All Fears but using TSmuxer to change the fps worked a treat. Everything else has worked fine using your method glen8.

[DonCarlos]

That is what I said before. It works really good if you use Tsmuxer. Even with VC-1 movies. I tried 2 more and all were very good. It is a pitty that there is no way to get the menus of the HDDVD to a Blu ray menu.

[tyee]

@glen8
Thanks for all your work, much appreciated!

For this line -- for dolby digital plus:-
eac3to "c:\videos\audio.dd+" "c:\videos\audio.ac3" -nero -640

Do I need certain Nero dll's like you mentioned or do I need a full Nero installation??

I do not have Nero on my PC and don't intend to install it, but just having the dll's would be OK.

Is Nero the only way to process DD+? I was up till now using Sonic but like you said it does something with the channels. When I playback on my PC my media player says the audio is 2 channels, but playback on my PS3 says 5 channels, strange!

[glen8]

Unfortunately nero 7 is by far the best for DD+

You need a full installation, Im using a free nero 7 essentials which came free with my burner together with the hd plugin.

Sonic is just a big fat no no unfortunately, the audio is 2.0 channels. In my testing I found that the sonic decoder actually crashed eac3to on the transformers dd+ track

[tyee]

@glen8
So is dts playable from the XMB (on internal or external HDD) on the PS3 or just ac3?