Blu-Ray~DVD Backup & Conversion

[m1ckran]

Hello. Now that it looks like we'll all be using Blu-Ray sooner or later, I have a question.

I have quite a collection of DVD's and I have no intention of replacing them anytime soon. Would it be possible to backup a DVD to a BD? This might be a silly question (I'm guessing that the two standards are incompatible) but I am attracted to the idea of having a BD containing the entire Lord of the Rings SEE series, without compression, driven from a custom menu. Or how about a dozen TV-series episodes driven from a similar custom menu?

Would this be feasible and might there be any plans for DVDRB to help make this possible?

PS I understand that sound-processing is on the agenda for DVDRB. I do something like this, in a small way, by processing the AC3 sound file with BeSweet.

[steptoe]

I've thought about just that once the price comes down to an acceptable level and media prices drop accordingly but DVD media was very high to start with, compared to just 6 months ago burners have prices dropped very steeply the more manufacturers take up selling and producing them


If you have them on DVD already and want to create them onto blue-ray with a menu, I think thats beyond DVD-RB and so authoring software would be the next choice that supports blue-ray, which at present is not cheap for decent blue ray support, and for the moment blue-ray support has been removed from ulead moviefactory 5


Basically it would be a case of importing the titles into the blue-ray software and create your menu, there should be zero quality loss as you're just adding a menu and creating a blue-ray disc

[rack04]

What would you gain from converting to blue-ray?

[Video Dude]

Does Blu-Ray support the DVD elementary mpeg-2 video stream?

[Wishbringer]

It's not an answer to first question in its's origins, but maybe it helps abit:

I have same dvd's (film on two dvd's splitted like LotR EE) and several series.
Put them on harddisk, joined them with shrink, nero recode and so on (without further compression).
Created one mpg-stream and converted that to an x264 m2ts stream with megui, ripbot or similar.
Converted that to blu-ray structure with tsremux 0.20 and burned with udf 2.5 onto dvd.

With --crf 18 (compression settings for mpeg4 AVC - qualitywise nearly transparent) I can put all three LotR EEs onto one DVD9
I can put all 13 episodes of "Elfenlied" and extras onto one DVD5 (still not full)

And it's recognized by my blu-ray player as BD-Disk (PS3) and plays fine.

Putting films onto BD-Media is still abit expensive. In europe a 25GB BD-R costs 12 Euro, a 50GB BD-RE costs 40 Euro (differs in countries).
And there is no low cost menu creation/ autoring tool for BD to put some nice menues onto disk to select films.

[jdobbs]

That's interesting. So a blu-ray player (at least the PS3) will recognize and play H.264 from a standard DVD as long as it's in a blu-ray structure?

Now that's something that may be worth looking into more deeply, if for no other reason than the high-quality you can get at lower bitrates in AVC. Do you have any idea whether other (standalone) blu-ray players will play them?

Do you keep the original resolution (720x480/576)?

[Fishman0919]

I have done this with HD-DVD and BluRay movies. Down convert them from 1080p to 720p with keeping the 648k DD track sizing to fit DVD-R and played them on my PS3

[jdobbs]

Will they play on anything other than a PS3?

[Fishman0919]

not sure.... I have a few friend from work with BluRay Standalones... when I get back from VACA I can ask them to try it.

[m1ckran]

Thanks for the replies.

I was wondering if a BR disc could be used as a kind of extended DVD without having high definition content. Although it appears to be possible, perhaps that's not such a good idea.

An alternative might be to set up a PC as a home-cinema server and run everything from the hard drive using a remote control.

Still not sure what I should do but there's no panic. I'll wait and see what turns up.

Thanks again.

[jdobbs]

Actually from the research I've done over the last couple of days (not extensive by any means), it appears most players should support HD on standard DVDs in support of AVCHD and should also support SD on BD. While the BluRay discs are expensive today -- you're bound to see the price drop now that the format war is over. In fact a couple of the Taiwan based large-scale manufacturers are getting into them more deeply now.

[m1ckran]

Thanks dobbsie. Something for the future, then. I'll keep a close watch on your DVDRB enhancements.

Just a thought:- I wonder how reliable BR-R discs might be, especially considering the volume of data that could be recorded on them. One duff sector could, I imagine, wreck an entire programme and be potentially more troublesome than DVD with its more limited storage.

And thanks for your continued development of DVDRB. I don't understand much of the theory or the implications of many of the technical terms, but I find that DVDRB is now better than ever. Despite its faults I was a fan of AutoQMatEnc (running through DVDRB) but, using bitrate distribution and HcEnc, I gain far superior results with none of the "edginess" of AQE.
Well done.

[jdobbs]

I'm going to do more research. I'd like to put a capability to create BluRay discs that hold multiple DVD (SD) movies. I'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.

[jikchung]

I'm going to do more research. I'd like to put a capability to create BluRay discs that hold multiple DVD (SD) movies. I'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 would be thrilled to see either of those options.

[jdobbs]

It's not an answer to first question in its's origins, but maybe it helps abit:

I have same dvd's (film on two dvd's splitted like LotR EE) and several series.
Put them on harddisk, joined them with shrink, nero recode and so on (without further compression).
Created one mpg-stream and converted that to an x264 m2ts stream with megui, ripbot or similar.
Converted that to blu-ray structure with tsremux 0.20 and burned with udf 2.5 onto dvd.

With --crf 18 (compression settings for mpeg4 AVC - qualitywise nearly transparent) I can put all three LotR EEs onto one DVD9
I can put all 13 episodes of "Elfenlied" and extras onto one DVD5 (still not full)

And it's recognized by my blu-ray player as BD-Disk (PS3) and plays fine.

Putting films onto BD-Media is still abit expensive. In europe a 25GB BD-R costs 12 Euro, a 50GB BD-RE costs 40 Euro (differs in countries).
And there is no low cost menu creation/ autoring tool for BD to put some nice menues onto disk to select films.
@Wishbringer

Any way you can outline the exact steps you use to create BD player (PS3) compatible DVDs? I'd like to do some experimenting with my new Sony BluRay player. Things like "is there a required naming/folder structure" -- what settings do you use and what steps do you take with the tools... or is there a guide already posted somewhere?

[Boulder]

This thread (and tool) might interest you and others interested in the idea: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=131782

[~bT~]

if BD accepts SD material, then i think DVDRemakePro should work.

@ JD

its poss to put a HD movie on DVD9.

[jdobbs]

I did some testing and using TSREMUX I found it very easy to create a AVCHD disc. I just encode at an HD resolution (1920x1080 or 1280x720) in H.264 and AC3 with FFMPEG using .TS as the output container. TSREMUX accepts that without problem and outputs it to a AVCHD folder (creating an m2ts stream). I burn that folder to a DVD+R using ImgBurn in UDF 2.50 format... and my Sony BD player recognizes it immediately as AVCHD and plays it.

Cool. It even has 5 minute chapter marks.

[~bT~]

^ i think this is the guide: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=134402

[Socio]

I have been thinking about this as well but I want to take a DVD'd process them with avisynth filters, resize them to 1920x1080 and burn them to Blu-Ray as a custom up convert.

I am sure with proper processing the custom 1080i/p up converts would look much better than any up conversion done by an HD player or scaler.

As soon as Blu-Ray burners and media drop to a reasonable price I for one plan to experiment with this for sure.

[jdobbs]

I did that earlier today. It looks quite good. I also upconverted to 1280 x 720 and at that resolution it looks like I can easily get a 2 hour movie onto a DVD-5 using AVC.

[~bT~]

^ what resizer did u use mate?

maybe u can post the script as a sample for others to try this out too?

[jdobbs]

Lanczos.

[jdobbs]

Just did a full backup of one of my BluRay discs as a test. I used FFMPEG to reencode to 1280x720 and used NicAudio() to convert to 2 channel AC3. I then used TsRemux to convert and format into AVCHD and burned to DVD-5. The movie was 2 hrs and 5 min. long and, man, it looks great when I play it back on my Sony standalone BluRay player. In fact, it looks so good I think I can just keep the 6 channel audio rather than downconverting. I may even try a 1920x1024 encode.

It is simply amazing what H.264 can do at a 4.9Mbs encoding rate. This concept has a lot of potential. Lot's of time involved, though, kinda' where DVD backups were a couple of years back.

[CupCak3]

i've been following this thread for a while...

jdobbs: That's great your tests came out so well! Is there any chance of a BR --> 720 or 1080 recode on dvd5/9 into rebuilder (or even a new tool)?

To be honest, I would probably donate again if these features would ever be implemented (especially with the additional dev time it would take you)

[Sharc]

......To be honest, I would probably donate again if these features would ever be implemented (especially with the additional dev time it would take you)
Same here :)
Could the same process/technology also be used to deliver higher quality backups of standard DVD-9s => DVD-5, compared to the current method?

[Adub]

Same here :)
Could the same process/technology also be used to deliver higher quality backups of standard DVD-9s => DVD-5, compared to the current method?

Only if played in a AVC compatible player, such as a blu-ray standalone.

[jdobbs]

Exactly. But eventually everyone will have a BluRay player (as it is the new standard) and it is my belief that AVCHD will be available on all of them as some point. It's the only real option available for HD home video recording/playback using any equipment other than the camera itself.

I think that the processing of a high-quality resizer like LanczosResize() will give you a better HD (simulated) picture than standard on-the-fly HD upscaling. In fact, you can do most of that now (all but the final authoring/burn associated with tsremux and ImgBurn) with the MOBILE function of DVD-RB. I'll probably add a preset for doing that to the next release.

[~bT~]

Same here :)
Could the same process/technology also be used to deliver higher quality backups of standard DVD-9s => DVD-5, compared to the current method?

this would be so awesome. also, doing backups of BD to DVD-5/9 is such a money saver!

[Fishman0919]

The movie was 2 hrs and 5 min. long and, man, it looks great when I play it back on my Sony standalone BluRay player. In fact, it looks so good I think I can just keep the 6 channel audio rather than downconverting. I may even try a 1920x1024 encode.


The movies I did I kept the DD 5.1.... not much of a diff in quality that I could see.

The few I did at 1080 keeping the DD 5.1 (to me) seemed a little lower in quality but still looking good.

[Video Dude]

jdobbs, did you make a 720x480 AVCHD disc to see if it is compatible with your Sony player?

I thinking this would be a good option to backup a 4 disc TV set to a DVD-5 or a 6 disc set to DVD-9.


AVCHD Specification Chart:
http://www.avchd-info.org/format/index.html

[jdobbs]

Yes, but it always plays back in 4:3 -- not sure why. So a 16:9 original looks stretched vertically and has black boxes on either side. According to the standard (from AVCHD.COM) you should be able to do 16:9 at 720x480. I tried setting the aspect in FFMPEG and it seems to have no effect. I also noticed that the aspect listed for the original H.264 streams from BluRay seems to be set for 1:1 (as it should be for HD resolutions). It may be possible that the aspect ratio is set in one of the other BD files generated by TSRemux and I don't know what it is -- but that's really speculation.

[archaeo]

Now that BD+ appears to be cracked
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=136035&page=3

I wonder what possibilities might now lie ahead for DVDRB and BluRay....

[blutach]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1114668#post1114668

[archaeo]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1114668#post1114668

@blutach,

fyi that's the same link :)

[RickA]

jdobbs I'm really pleased to see you taking an interest in h264 and hopefully the potential it can add to your already great program DVD-RB. Big fan and supporter of yours for a long time. I would gladly donate again if you integrated, or even started a new program. The idea of potentially being able to backup up a BD movie onto a DVD-5/9 is very exciting.

Not to swerve off topic or if you are even interested.. In another thread omion is working on h264 networked encoding. I'm a programing newb and have no clue how difficult network encoding for a home LAN setup would be for DVD-RB. I do recall a few threads mentioning it in the past. The idea of network encoding h264 with DVD-RB is almost enough to make me drool. :-)

Cheers,
Rick

[Sharc]

Another experiment:
I encoded a difficult scene with 2400 kbps using h.264, leaving the resolution untouched (720x576). In order to play it back on my DVD standalone I re-encoded the h.264 file to mpeg2 at the same bitrate i.e. keeping the file size. Despite the re-encoding h.264 -> mpeg2 the quality looked better compared to directly encoding the original to 2400 kbps using the mpeg2 encoder (2-pass VBR).

[jdobbs]

That means there was some smoothing in the first encode, you could probably get the same thing with filters.

[Sharc]

The original intention was to put two 2-hours movies onto a single DVD5 in "acceptable" quality - means to me no blocks at the expense of some details. Maybe strong filtering would achieve similar results as you mention. At the other hand I found that my mpeg2 => h.264 => mpeg2 approach has some optimization potential regarding the level of compression applied in the h.264 encoding pass. Anyway, as the future will bring more affordable BD players the second step (re-encoding back to mpeg2) will become obsolete.

[jdobbs]

I guess what I'm saying is that the second MPEG-2 pass can't really benefit from the h.264 pass (except maybe in its filtering). It isn't compressing the h.264 data, it is compressing the rendered image pulled from h.264. So it really looks more like this:

mpeg-2->raw picture->h.264->raw picture->mpeg-2

I will say, though, that I did an AVCHD encode of a DVD yesterday (MPEG-2->raw picture->h.264) and wrote it to a DVD-5 (movie-only, of course). The picture was perfect... not just good... to my eyes it was a perfect reproduction of the original MPEG-2 stream. So for backing up a movie-only DVD for playback on a BluRay standalone -- this method is really exciting. It definitely is slower than what many of us are used to, though.

BTW, just did a couple more backups of BD over the weekend. It really looks good. I did them at 1280x720 in h.264 with DD 5.1 @ 448Kbs. It looks fantastic on a DVD-5. Each one took 9 hours (for 2 passes) on my quad-core Phenom 9500 system, though.

[ron spencer]

that sounds cool....9 hours is not so back....just an "overnighter"

[Sharc]

.... The picture was perfect... not just good... to my eyes it was a perfect reproduction of the original MPEG-2 stream. So for backing up a movie-only DVD for playback on a BluRay standalone -- this method is really exciting.....
Cool. I continue watching the price development of BluRay standalones ...

[jdobbs]

Got mine (Sony BDP-S301) for $377 at Sam's Club.

[Boulder]

Or get a PS3 and you'll get a Blu-Ray player and some other entertainment too :)

Provided the bitrate is high enough (for example one DVD for one movie), x264 should be able to retain the original grain which makes it look very good..Sharc's observation with his x264->MPEG2 probably was due to the fact that x264 tends to lose the grain at lower bitrates, and then this provides very good compressibility when re-encoding to MPEG2, not to mention the standard deblocking feature x264 utilizes.

[jikchung]

Got mine (Sony BDP-S301) for $377 at Sam's Club.

I lucked into one from Amazon in December - $200 + 10 free titles.

[~bT~]

I lucked into one from Amazon in December - $200 + 10 free titles.
u must be on about hd-dvd players.

[Sharc]

Once we have the movie from a DVD or BD re-encoded in h.264/mp4 format it should also produce nice results when playing it back with MPC or VLC on a HD-projector, isn't it?

[Boulder]

Yep :)

[jikchung]

u must be on about hd-dvd players.
No, Sony Blu-Ray - had Spiderman 3 in the box. They had a similar special on the Toshiba HD-DVD players too.

[~bT~]

^ wow! that is so cheap. it would cost us £250 in the UK which is $500 :(