BD-Rebuilder, Feature Requests

[jdobbs]

BD-RB allows to define custom .avs filters in the setup.
Apparently the custom filters are applied before the resizing when resizing is selected.
Would it make sense to introduce a control prefix (similar as in DVD-RB) in order to select the position of the filter, like
pre: <this filter script is applied before the resizing>
post: <this filter is script is applied after the resizing>
(Default should remain as is).
For example, a slight sharpening for 720p after the resizing brings the backup visually closer to the 1080p original. I'll look at it.

[Ch3vr0n]

Jdobbs; i was hoping you could add another type of movie only backup output. Namely an mpeg2 stream (*.mpg) I had a disc a few days back that just kept on loading without ever going to the menu to play. so i was forced to do a dvd9 output, but since i only wanted to watch it and don't waste a blank dvd on it i had to do an extra step and use cloneDVDMobile to create an mpeg2 stream out of it. I know i could have easily selected one of the current output formats but neither of them are supported by DLNA. Wich is something i use frequently (to stream from my pc to blu-ray to show it on TV)

So to make it short, could you add the mpeg2 movie only backup option ?

[jdobbs]

Jdobbs; i was hoping you could add another type of movie only backup output. Namely an mpeg2 stream (*.mpg) I had a disc a few days back that just kept on loading without ever going to the menu to play. so i was forced to do a dvd9 output, but since i only wanted to watch it and don't waste a blank dvd on it i had to do an extra step and use cloneDVDMobile to create an mpeg2 stream out of it. I know i could have easily selected one of the current output formats but neither of them are supported by DLNA. Wich is something i use frequently (to stream from my pc to blu-ray to show it on TV)

So to make it short, could you add the mpeg2 movie only backup option ? Interesting. My Samsung player supports M2TS, MKV, and MP4 formats over DLNA.

[Added] If you output to M2TS there is software out there that will convert TS/M2TS to MPG without reencoding...

[Ch3vr0n]

mine is a panasonic, gotta admit i havent tried the other formats. all i know is that it doesnt support avi. It can see them but the duration is -:-- (meaning no duration/unplayable) Now this will be a little offtopic but ya don't know wich audio types are supported do ya, can't seem to have my player do mp3.

[jdobbs]

mine is a panasonic, gotta admit i havent tried the other formats. all i know is that it doesnt support avi. It can see them but the duration is -:-- (meaning no duration/unplayable) Now this will be a little offtopic but ya don't know wich audio types are supported do ya, can't seem to have my player do mp3. It depends on the format. Here's what mine says it supports via network/DLNA:

[Ch3vr0n]

I finally found a site that may shed some light on my supported formats. My player is the Panasonic DMP-BD85, according to this post http://forum.bigpicturebigsound.com/showthread.php?t=3168&p=5858#post5858 it only supports streaming in the following formats.

PS Video: MPEG2; Audio:AC3, LPCM, MPEG AUDIO
TS Video: MPEG2, H.264; Audio: AAC, AC3, EAC3, HE-AAC, LPCM, MPEG AUDIO

My Panasonic contact said that Divx is not officially supported by current DLNA standard, but the Windows7 DLNA server may be able to transcode to another format, in which case a Divx source file on a Windows7 PC could be played from a Panasonic player.

In terms of the actual file extensions/file types, these shouldn't be relevant as the player should detect the underlying codec, regardless of filetype, but these are a few of the file types one would normally see for compatible video files:

TS Video: *.mts, *.m2ts, *.tts, *.mpeg, *.mpg
PS Video: *.mpeg, *.mpg

So i'd be very gratefull if you add this/these output files. I'd be happy with mpg and/or m2ts movie only.

Reason is that although the video from my clonedvdmobile rip was excellent, the subtitles had turned from yellow to marineblue :s and it would save me a lot of time too. Could you consider it please :)

Also: http://bluray-players.net/panasonic/panasonic-dmp-bd85-review/ sais Supported Digital Video Standards : AVCHD, MPEG-2, MPEG-4

I suppose thats the dlna streams. If i use a USB stick, avi files etc play just fine, it even loads the srt subtitle streams automatically if they have the same name.

You'd make me a very happy camper if you could add these output options

[jdobbs]

I don't know how that would help if your player will only decode MPEG-2 from DLNA. That's odd and extremely limited for a blu-ray player that has virtually all its HD encoded in AVC or VC-1.

Time for a new player.

[Ch3vr0n]

Its barely a year old, kinda soon to get a new one just because it only supports mpeg2, don't have the funds for it either. I tried mkv but that ones a no go, currently trying the ipad hd one, i'll let you know how that one turns out. If it doesnt work either i'd be very gratefull if you could add the mpeg2 option.

so far its as follows

mkv: found but invalid duration > -:--
m2ts: found but (in)valid duration > 0:00 or valid time however >> playback error
mpg: found and played

[omegaman7]

My blu ray player(Samsung BD-P1590) is over 1yr old. Closer to 1.5. It does not play MKV's or anything of the likes. It does however like Taiyo Yuden LTH Bd's. Excellent burn quality from what I can tell too. I was very close to getting rid of that player, because it began sticking its nose up at Ritek, Optical quantum, and verbatim discs. But it likes the TY discs. Go figure...
We also have a Western digital HD media player. VERY nice little unit! It plays any file type from what I can tell. Its only had problems with very few. I bought that little unit for my folks. Myself, I'd rather stick with PC's/HTPC's.

[jdobbs]

Its barely a year old, kinda soon to get a new one just because it only supports mpeg2, don't have the funds for it either. I tried mkv but that ones a no go, currently trying the ipad hd one, i'll let you know how that one turns out. If it doesnt work either i'd be very gratefull if you could add the mpeg2 option.

so far its as follows

mkv: found but invalid duration > -:--
m2ts: found but (in)valid duration > 0:00 or valid time however >> playback error
mpg: found and played Yeah, I looked up the DLNA standard and it's really meant for MPEG-2 sources. I guess my system works with all those formats because I'm using the Samsung PC Server software with a Samsung player.

You'd have to reencode using HC Encoder in order to get an HD MPEG-2 source (assuming that post was correct in what your player will support) and then mux that into a .MPG container. You'd have to use a lot higher bitrate in order to get the same quality -- as H.264 is much more efficient than MPEG-2.

[Ch3vr0n]

So you'd be willing to add mpeg 2 output ? Preferrably with embedded (or selectable but i doubt selectable will be possible) subtitles, even if only 1 stream. Cause i tried the ipad mp4 option, and it doesnt work either. So mpeg2 is my only option. My computer is the server and i'm using WMP11's embedded server as the streamer, (also have TVersity installed as a backup, but usually go for the wmp one as it lets you pause, ff, rw etc, ...)

[jdobbs]

So you'd be willing to add mpeg 2 output ? Preferrably with embedded (or selectable but i doubt selectable will be possible) subtitles, even if only 1 stream. Cause i tried the ipad mp4 option, and it doesnt work either. So mpeg2 is my only option. My computer is the server and i'm using WMP11's embedded server as the streamer, (also have TVersity installed as a backup, but usually go for the wmp one as it lets you pause, ff, rw etc, ...) Try downloading the Samsung PC Server software from the Samsung site and see if it works with your player. It may not, but you never know...

I'm not sure I want to start adding extraneous types of encoding... but if there is a demand I guess I can look at it. I already have HC Encoder and MPLEX included in the distribution zip for DVD encoding.

[Ch3vr0n]

Tried and failed, my player can see the computer's samsung server ap, but can't make a connection to it, the other 2 options (WMP 11 and TVersity) work fine, so its definitely samsung app related. Since as you said you already have the proper tools includes for DVD (and from what i can make of it DVD Vob files are actually mpeg 2 streams) it shouldnt be too difficult (i hope) to add this option.

I don't need much, i'd be happy already with a simple mpeg2 stream with 1 embedded subtitle stream. Would save me a lot of trouble by first having to output to DVD then fire up CDVDM to create the mpeg2 stream and risc the subtitles going different color :|

Hope you're willing to look into it / add it. Nevertheless thx for a great piece of software

[jdobbs]

Tried and failed, my player can see the computer's samsung server ap, but can't make a connection to it, the other 2 options (WMP 11 and TVersity) work fine, so its definitely samsung app related. Since as you said you already have the proper tools includes for DVD (and from what i can make of it DVD Vob files are actually mpeg 2 streams) it shouldnt be too difficult (i hope) to add this option.

I don't need much, i'd be happy already with a simple mpeg2 stream with 1 embedded subtitle stream. Would save me a lot of trouble by first having to output to DVD then fire up CDVDM to create the mpeg2 stream and risc the subtitles going different color :|

Hope you're willing to look into it / add it. Nevertheless thx for a great piece of software Subtitles aren't very likely to happen. To work with any of these types of players they'd have to be text based. Blu-rays are almost exclusively graphics subs. OCR is just too much work and too inaccurate. I could probably embed subs as a part of the video using overlays (where you can't turn them off) but that's about it.

[Ch3vr0n]

You probably missed this part in my post you quoted. i'd be happy already with a simple mpeg2 stream with 1 embedded subtitle stream.

I'd have no problem whatsoever with embedded subtitles, on the contrairy that would be very nice. Embedded subs are no issue to me, and if this option gets added and the user doesnt want subs well all we/they have to do then is disable all sub streams in the start window. So if you're willing to add the mpeg2 stream option i would be very gratefull

[RobertM]

Hi all.... first time posting to the forum.

First things first... kudos to JDobbs for a job well done. I've completed a number of backups now, and I'm settling into a rhythm that gives consistent, excellent results. And I've put my money where my mouth is ;)

I didn't get to this position, however, without some head-scratching and back-steps, so I thought I would offer three particular observations about my learning process. Some small feature changes could have smoothed over the rougher parts of my learning curve.

1: My very first attempt started well but failed after about 80% of the video was re-encoded. I retried a couple of times with the exact same results. It was a stupid error: my "working" drive was running out of storage space -- not having worked with BluRay files before I didn't have a feel for how quickly they could fill up a drive. My observation here is that BD-Rebuilder could have checked available target space before starting (or offered a better error message when the re-encoding fails).

2: Now I was able to get the process to run to completion with no error messages, and everything looked good. Not so fast... it LOOKED good (great, actually) but there was no audio when I played the resultant m2ts files. Again, I retried a couple of times with the same results. Eventually, by searching these forums and then running "Inspect.exe", I figured out that my version of AVISynth was causing the trouble. I had version 2.5.8 (installed with some other software) which I thought should be OK since it was newer than version 2.5.7 mentioned in the "readme.txt" file. My observation here is that perhaps the "readme" should make a stronger statement about using ONLY the recommended version. Also, "Inspect.exe" could be mentioned in the "readme", or maybe it could just auto-run upon the first execution of BD-RB.

3: Now everything was working perfectly and I was happy. Until, that is, I got to a movie where the resulting m2ts file wasn't what I wanted; it was longer than expected, including a lot of "extra" content (directorial stuff, comments, etc.) interspersed amongst the normal parts of the movie. It took me a little while to figure out that the "movie-only backup" option just picks the longest playlist, and that I had to choose "Other movie-only playlist" to manually select from a list of all available playlists. BD-RB doesn't seem to remember this preference, so I must remember to manually choose "Other movie-only playlist" every time or I'll just get the longest playlist by default. My observation here: If "Movie_only" is selected AND there are multiple playlists then perhaps it would be better to ALWAYS present the playlist selection box.

So that's it.

I'll freely admit that all of these problems were my own fault. I could have read the instructions more thoroughly, I could have prepared my system better, etc., etc., but we all take short-cuts now and then. I was able to work through these problems and figure out where I was going wrong, but others might just get frustrated and give up -- especially if each failed attempt took many hours. I figure that anything a developer can do to eliminate stupid user (Me!) errors will pay off in less support time, and a larger potential customer base once the app is released.

Anyway, just some ramblings from a very happy BD-RB user.

Thanks, again, for a great Application.

Regards,
Bob

[proxpilot]

i would like the ability to get rid of Cinavia protection

[omegaman7]

LOL! Don't hold your breath. Decryption, isn't what this program is about. And cinavia is hardly considered an encryption. We'd all like it to disappear, but I don't think rebuilder will be the software that implements this ability. Anydvd probably won't be either...

PS3? Be patient. I'm sure somebody will find a way.

[proxpilot]

LOL! Don't hold your breath. Decryption, isn't what this program is about. And cinavia is hardly considered an encryption. We'd all like it to disappear, but I don't think rebuilder will be the software that implements this ability. Anydvd probably won't be either...

PS3? Be patient. I'm sure somebody will find a way.

DVDfab does it, i just dont have the $60 to spend on the program at the moment

[jdobbs]

DVDfab does it, i just dont have the $60 to spend on the program at the moment Well... not really. If I understand it correctly the Cinavia is still there.

[Ch3vr0n]

DVDfab does it, i just dont have the $60 to spend on the program at the moment

DVDFab doesnt do crap, it doesnt remove anything. The only thing it does is leave the AACS folder intact and as such "fools" the cinavia stream into thinking its a "trusted source", wich it isnt. Another thing is that it requires special blanks being BDMV-REC's, wich arent really available on the normal market.

The cinavia watermark isnt removed from the audio stream at all by DVDCrap.

[Rich86]

DVDFab doesnt do crap, it doesnt remove anything. The only thing it does is leave the AACS folder intact and as such "fools" the cinavia stream into thinking its a "trusted source", wich it isnt. Another thing is that it requires special blanks being BDMV-REC's, wich arent really available on the normal market.

The cinavia watermark isnt removed from the audio stream at all by DVDCrap.

Just to throw my understanding and $.02 in here.
I have been a user of DVDFab for many years. It is a fine software package and works great.
Your comments about DVDFab and Cinavia are mostly correct, as far as I know. However, BDMV-REC is NOT a special blank media of any kind. It is a recording format used on a blank BD-R to create what appears to be an AACS protected media, thus considered a "trusted source" by the cinavia processing code in the player firmware.
The issue here is that:
1. you must have a blu-ray burner capable of making one of these "protected" discs - there are many, but not all. I have a Lite-On burner which is not capable of this. I believe the capability is referred to as "binding nonce".
2. you must have a blu-ray player capable of playing back a BDMV-REC format disc. Most standalone players are incapable of this. The PS3 IS capable of playing one of these (which is a good thing since the PS3 was the first ce device Sony targeted for imposing cinavia into the firmware - what a nice gift to their customers, eh?). One also has to believe Sony could implement a firmware change in the PS3 to get around what DVDFab has implemented to bypass cinavia at some point down the road.
3. Fengtao (DVDFab) is supposedly working on implementing an AACS protected BDAV-REC format on BD-R. This format is apparently supported by many more standalone players.

One can only hope at some point some clever soul identifies the specifics of this cinavia pollution in our precious lossless audio tracks, and elminiates it for good. In the meantime, as folks have already said, the best solution is to have and use blu-ray players that have no clue what cinavia is (which eliminates the PS3, of course). One must be selective and careful about what firmware updates you apply, ensuring cinavia processing code isn't lurking under the covers somewhere, like Sony did to their PS3 customer community.

[Ch3vr0n]

@jdobbs: i apologise in advance as this post will go a little offtopic.

well even if dvdcrap beats cinavia before slysoft, i refuse to use it. For multiple reasons.

Its currently "advertising" that it has "beaten" cinavia. It didnt beat anything, the cinavia signal is still there
Its compression algorithm sucks ass compared to anydvd & bd-rebuilder.
and last but not least it uses stolen code & software created by users here on doom9 and made available for free, but fengtao throws his own gui on it, calls it "his own software" and charges you bucketloads for it.

Oh and dont forget that the ripper, decrypter, shrinker, ... are all seperate tools, each their own license and outrageous prices.

Take this for example, all prices mentioned are for lifetime. Slysoft AnyDVD HD & BD-Rebuilder & IMGBurn vs DVDCrap
If you want to be able to rip&burn dvd's , blu-rays (either 1:1 or with compression) and convert either of them to a mobile format

SLYSOFT DVDCrap way
Rip blu-rays: AnyDVD HD for decrypting € 119 & ripping DVDFab blu-ray copy: € 73.32
burn blu-ray's: IMGBurn Price > FREE burn blu-rays: either built in burner or IMGBurn so i'll give em that: also free
Rip dvd's: FREE > already included in anydvd HD. Still totals € 119 NOT FREE (not included in blu-ray mode). Adds another € 52.47 totals € 125.79
Convert to mobile format:
DVD's: cloneDVD mobile € 55 for a total of € 174 DVD's: DVDfab dvd ripper another € 52.47 totals 178.26
Blu-ray's: BD-Rebuilder Price > FREE Blu-ray's: DVDFab blu-ray ripper: another € 73.29
----------------------------------- Total € 174 -------------------------------------------------------- Total 251.55


Now who's the winner, add to that the following
slysoft in 99% of the cases cracks protections before DVDFab
slysoft doesnt use stolen code
compression rates for CloneDVD and BD-rebuilder are WAY better then DVDCrap.
and probably other things i've forgotton

i'm safe with slysoft

[Rich86]

@jdobbs: i apologise in advance as this post will go a little offtopic.

well even if dvdcrap beats cinavia before slysoft, i refuse to use it. For multiple reasons.

Its currently "advertising" that it has "beaten" cinavia. It didnt beat anything, the cinavia signal is still there
Its compression algorithm sucks ass compared to anydvd & bd-rebuilder.
and last but not least it uses stolen code & software created by users here on doom9 and made available for free, but fengtao throws his own gui on it, calls it "his own software" and charges you bucketloads for it.

Oh and dont forget that the ripper, decrypter, shrinker, ... are all seperate tools, each their own license and outrageous prices.

Take this for example, all prices mentioned are for lifetime. Slysoft AnyDVD HD & BD-Rebuilder & IMGBurn vs DVDCrap
If you want to be able to rip&burn dvd's , blu-rays (either 1:1 or with compression) and convert either of them to a mobile format

SLYSOFT DVDCrap way
Rip blu-rays: AnyDVD HD for decrypting € 119 & ripping DVDFab blu-ray copy: € 73.32
burn blu-ray's: IMGBurn Price > FREE burn blu-rays: either built in burner or IMGBurn so i'll give em that: also free
Rip dvd's: FREE > already included in anydvd HD. Still totals € 119 NOT FREE (not included in blu-ray mode). Adds another € 52.47 totals € 125.79
Convert to mobile format:
DVD's: cloneDVD mobile € 55 for a total of € 174 DVD's: DVDfab dvd ripper another € 52.47 totals 178.26
Blu-ray's: BD-Rebuilder Price > FREE Blu-ray's: DVDFab blu-ray ripper: another € 73.29
----------------------------------- Total € 174 -------------------------------------------------------- Total 251.55


Now who's the winner, add to that the following
slysoft in 99% of the cases cracks protections before DVDFab
slysoft doesnt use stolen code
compression rates for CloneDVD and BD-rebuilder are WAY better then DVDCrap.
and probably other things i've forgotton

i'm safe with slysoft

I have no allegiance to either software developer/marketing firm (Elby/Slysoft or Fengtao). It is irrelevant to this topic.
If you dislike Fengtao/DVDFab for whatever reasons - then by all means do not purchase their products. No one cares.
Just make sure you know what you are talking about before posting your version of the details of what DVDFab actually does to bypass cinavia audio track pollution.
And calling either of them adolescent names serves no purpose for anyone.
We are all in here to learn and contribute with our fellow forum members.

[Ch3vr0n]

DVDFab actually does to bypass cinavia audio track pollution

Thats just it, it only bypasses cinavia and as such is not a fix, sony can fix that loophole on the ps3 just as fast like they did with the whole "multi-out" thing. Yes, with BDMV-REC's it won't trigger cinavia, thats because the AACS folder is still present and as such its not a fix. A REAL fix would be to remove the signal, wich DVDFAB doesnt. It's a workarround, not a fix. Plain and simple.

[Rich86]

Thats just it, it only bypasses cinavia and as such is not a fix, sony can fix that loophole on the ps3 just as fast like they did with the whole "multi-out" thing. Yes, with BDMV-REC's it won't trigger cinavia, thats because the AACS folder is still present and as such its not a fix. A REAL fix would be to remove the signal, wich DVDFAB doesnt. It's a workarround, not a fix. Plain and simple.

All true (except I believe your explanation for making a disc meet the definition of "protected" is far more simplistic than reality) - but for now - it is all that is available, and DVDFab is the only product to offer it. Hopefully better solutions will be developed down the road by someone.

[omegaman7]

How about the ability to limit/allocate how much Memory/Ram Bdrebuilder/X264 can use??? I've hit 97% more than once, and I've got 4Gb(Windows 7 64 Bit). I have to try pretty hard to get photoshop up there(Never more than 80%). When this happens, it appears that windows begins using my main hard drive for more temporary storage. In which even browsing the internet is slowed, and my hard drive gets somewhat noisy. I would love to experiment with such a feature. I don't believe there is a hidden option, unless I overlooked it :S

Should I just double my Ram? Or would Rebuilder simply use that much too? You see my dilemma here. The ability to control this would be wonderful :D

[jdobbs]

How about the ability to limit/allocate how much Memory/Ram Bdrebuilder/X264 can use??? I've hit 97% more than once, and I've got 4Gb(Windows 7 64 Bit). I have to try pretty hard to get photoshop up there(Never more than 80%). When this happens, it appears that windows begins using my main hard drive for more temporary storage. In which even browsing the internet is slowed, and my hard drive gets somewhat noisy. I would love to experiment with such a feature. I don't believe there is a hidden option, unless I overlooked it :S

Should I just double my Ram? Or would Rebuilder simply use that much too? You see my dilemma here. The ability to control this would be wonderful :D It has to be some setting on your computer (probably related to cacheing). On both of my systems (32 bit and 64 bit) it never uses more than a couple of gigabytes.

[omegaman7]

It seems to happen mainly during the first pass of the main title. Guess I'll have to do some research about this "Caching". So you've never seen the kind of usage I'm seeing eh? Might I inquire as to how much Ram you use? I really don't see the need in 8Gb of Ram, though I can think of ways of using that much.
I guess I'll only allow windows to use the minimum 16Mb of Pagefile, and see what happens. I generally don't play with settings like this though :S

[jdobbs]

It seems to happen mainly during the first pass of the main title. Guess I'll have to do some research about this "Caching". So you've never seen the kind of usage I'm seeing eh? Might I inquire as to how much Ram you use? I really don't see the need in 8Gb of Ram, though I can think of ways of using that much.
I guess I'll only allow windows to use the minimum 16Mb of Pagefile, and see what happens. I generally don't play with settings like this though :S I have 8GB on one system and 4GB on the other. But I've run the 64 bit computer on 4GB too -- and it runs just as fast. So 8GB isn't necessary.

[Hobojobo]

@jdobbs
Are you planing at some point a second audio and maybe subtitles for the alternate movie only-output for the mkv-container?

That would make the BD-Rebuilder perfect for me. :)

Thank you anyway for the soft.

[jdobbs]

@jdobbs
Are you planing at some point a second audio and maybe subtitles for the alternate movie only-output for the mkv-container?

That would make the BD-Rebuilder perfect for me. :)

Thank you anyway for the soft. You can do multiple audio tracks to MKV now. But subtitles aren't likely anytime soon. Blu-ray uses graphic subtitles (PGS) and currently there are no players (that I know of) that will play them. Creating text based subtitles from graphics would require OCR and that needs a lot of user interaction (OCR software isn't very robust).

[MilesAhead]

BDSup2Sub is open source. Free even for commercial purposes. If someone were adept in Java perhaps they could come up with a cli Windows native executable that just converted PGS to idx/sub in various resolutions. Here's the page with login info and link to the source if anyone wants to take a crack at it. It's been a very long time since I looked at Java code:

http://bdsup2sub.javaforge.com/help.htm#Source_Code

edit: only other solution may be an exe wrapper that has bundled jre and passes command line args to BDSup2Sub. To feed in a .sup and output an idx/sub pair with language string seems easy afa the params go. Here's one wrapper app that claims support for bundled jre avoiding a download trigger:

http://launch4j.sourceforge.net/

[Hobojobo]

You can do multiple audio tracks to MKV now.

:)

How do I let BD-Rebuilder know to take 2 audio streams (to mux into mkv)?
Can it leave the first audio stream untouched and transcode the second to ac3 for example?

:thanks:

[jdobbs]

:)

How do I let BD-Rebuilder know to take 2 audio streams (to mux into mkv)?
Can it leave the first audio stream untouched and transcode the second to ac3 for example?

:thanks: It uses the same selections from the streams list that would be used for a "regular" backup. The question then becomes: "Does your player allow you to select another audio stream?"

[Hobojobo]

I started BD-RB, selected two audio streams, chose alternate movie only and further mkv output, crf 20 and started it up.
MPC played the mkv, there is only one audio stream present.
:confused:

[jdobbs]

I started BD-RB, selected two audio streams, chose alternate movie only and further mkv output, crf 20 and started it up.
MPC played the mkv, there is only one audio stream present.
:confused: Can MPC select audio streams in MKVs?

I'll do some testing.

[Giljorak]

Can MPC select audio streams in MKVs?

I'll do some testing.

If MPC = Media Player Classic then yes MPC can select audio streams in MKVs.

[Hobojobo]

mkvmerge GUI only shows the video and the first audio stream.
And in the workfile folder I found only one demuxed audio stream.

So I guess there is only one audio stream processed.

[jdobbs]

mkvmerge GUI only shows the video and the first audio stream.
And in the workfile folder I found only one demuxed audio stream.

So I guess there is only one audio stream processed. It's entirely possible that something I've changed in one of the recent versions has caused it to revert back to one audio track. I've done quite a bit of work in that area of code. If it has, I'll fix it.

[A.Fenderson]

I keep encountering absolutely retarded authoring mistakes/idiosyncrasies in some of my Blu-rays. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=160533)But one that pops up far more often than I'd like is multiple duplicate audio tracks that eat bandwidth for no good reason. I always set BD-RB to default to retain all English tracks, as I like to keep the main audio and the commentaries. Many, many Blu-rays with a THD track have a completely idiotic duplicate Dolby Digital (only) audio track with the exact same content, bitrate, bit-depth, sampling rate, and # of channels as the compatibility stream that's tacked onto the THD track--while retarded to anyone in the know, since it's utterly unnecessary, I can almost understand this.

What I do not understand is having 1 audio track bit-duplicated another 5+ times on one stream. Granted, most of the time, this is easy enough to correct for manually (though time-consuming): I open the m2ts file in MPC-HC, toggle between each of the tracks, and confirm they are all identical, then back in BD-RB I kill all but the first entry from the rebuild list.

Now, though, this retardation has been taken to the next level: I've found a disc with 12 audio tracks per segment, and there are actually two unique tracks, each having 5 duplicates. Whereas before I could be confident that eliminating the duplicates from the rebuild list would not affect playback, that's no longer the case--I'm not 100% sure that simply deleting, for instance, all tracks but numbers 1 and 7 will actually allow proper playback of the remaining streams based on the differing choices offered in the BD's menu (with or without commentary, etc). The most recent culprit is The Notebook, btw, and I have done the math and confirmed that the duplicate tracks are not mere mirage, but actual bitrate- and space-consuming duplicate information. In fact, on the m2ts files from The Notebook which have 10 duplicate tracks each, this means that bandwidth of 10x192kbps=1.92Mbps is being completely wasted. That's 2 Megabits per second that could be put to far better use elsewhere.

The point of this tirade is this:
1. Is it possible (and for jdobbs desirable) to have BD-RB check for bit-identical duplicate audio tracks and report/disallow/etc based on this? If not, is there some way I can examine the structure of the menus on the disc to see which audio tracks are actually referenced via the menu choices, so as to delete the other ones?
2. Is it possible to have BD-RB detect m2ts files on a disc that have absolutely no playlists associated with them and report/disallow/etc based on this?

Thanks.

[jdobbs]

Are you positive they physically exist? For example, when BD Rebuilder reauthors a disc in "full backup" mode and audio tracks are deselected to save space -- you still have to have a "place-holder" for all those removed tracks to keep the menuing etc. working correctly. So, for example if you had 12 choices in language but only kept one -- you would end up with 12 menu choices, and 12 language pointers -- that all point to the same physical track (all using the same PID in the MPLS).

Are these discs you've found originals -- or are they, perhaps, somthing that has been previously processed?

[laserfan]

I dunno "The Notebook" but my Apocalypse Now BD box set includes duplicate DTS-MA audiotracks (along with other audiotrack dupes maybe, I forget exactly). I'd read complaints about this and was skeptical, but looked myself and sure enough, dupes with no reason to exist. Some have lamented that the extra bits lost on these tracks could/should have been used on the video feature itself, which of course sets-off a debate about "would it have looked better if the video had been encoded using another 4400kbps of bitrate".

I was appalled by this myself when I confirmed it, but then the movie looks great so I (and others) can't say if it was possible to make it look better.

[jdobbs]

I dunno "The Notebook" but my Apocalypse Now BD box set includes duplicate DTS-MA audiotracks (along with other audiotrack dupes maybe, I forget exactly). I'd read complaints about this and was skeptical, but looked myself and sure enough, dupes with no reason to exist. Some have lamented that the extra bits lost on these tracks could/should have been used on the video feature itself, which of course sets-off a debate about "would it have looked better if the video had been encoded using another 4400kbps of bitrate".

I was appalled by this myself when I confirmed it, but then the movie looks great so I (and others) can't say if it was possible to make it look better. A guess might be that the authors did this purposely to make it large enough to become a dual layer disc. That makes simple "duplication" programs require an expensive dual layer blank -- and discourages backups for those who use that software.

[laserfan]

Hmmm that's an interesting thought indeed, and one that had never occurred to me, although while it makes sense for "The Notebook" I think there was no way to fit AN onto a 25Gb disc with-or-without duplicate tracks.

[jdobbs]

Hmmm that's an interesting thought indeed, and one that had never occurred to me, although while it makes sense for "The Notebook" I think there was no way to fit AN onto a 25Gb disc with-or-without duplicate tracks. I can tell you that something similar was employed in certain DVDs, presumably to prevent backups.

[omegaman7]

I can tell you that something similar was employed in certain DVDs, presumably to prevent backups.
Disney!!! I've seen it more than once! LOL!

How Ironic! We talk about duplicate/triplicate/etc audio tracks, and now I'm encoding a Dvd(IP man 2) that has multiple copies of the same audio track.

[A.Fenderson]

Are you positive they physically exist?
...
Are these discs you've found originals -- or are they, perhaps, somthing that has been previously processed?

The Notebook, 00024.m2ts:

file-size of ripped file: 311 MB (326,983,680 bytes)

MediaInfo for this file (to my knowledge, MediaInfo actually scans only the file you point it to, and doesn't take context into account, meaning the 12 audio tracks appearing below were found in the actual m2ts file, not in any playlist file that I never told it to scan):


Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L3
Codec ID : 234
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate : 13.7 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.276
Stream size : 257 MiB (82%)

Audio #1
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #2
ID : 4353 (0x1101)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #3
ID : 4354 (0x1102)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #4
ID : 4355 (0x1103)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #5
ID : 4356 (0x1104)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #6
ID : 4357 (0x1105)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #7
ID : 4358 (0x1106)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #8
ID : 4359 (0x1107)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #9
ID : 4360 (0x1108)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #10
ID : 4361 (0x1109)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #11
ID : 4362 (0x110A)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Audio #12
ID : 4363 (0x110B)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 2mn 37s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.60 MiB (1%)

Text #1
ID : 4608 (0x1200)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Delay relative to video : 1s 1ms

Text #2
ID : 4609 (0x1201)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 2mn 26s
Delay relative to video : 3s 795ms

Text #3
ID : 4610 (0x1202)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Delay relative to video : 1s 1ms

Text #4
ID : 4611 (0x1203)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 2mn 26s
Delay relative to video : 4s 170ms


tsMuxeR demux of all streams (17 files: video/audio/text) aggregate size: 288 MB (302,624,153 bytes). (Again, as with MediaInfo, tsMuxeR is only scanning and pulling data from the individual m2ts file I drop into it, not the BD structure in which it resides.)

By my math, that's 92.5% the size of the original .m2ts file, allowing for 7.5% muxing overhead.
The aggregate size of 10 of the 12 audio tracks (all same size) is 37,731,840, or, put another way, the aggregate size of all demuxed tracks minus 10 of the audio tracks is 264,892,313. This would mean, if the duplicate tracks don't physically exist on the disc, the actual streams that do exist only account for 81.0% of the size of the m2ts file, meaning there is 19.0% muxing overhead: I'm not incredibly familiar with typical muxing overhead percentages, so I'll allow someone with more experience in that area to comment on which muxing overhead percentage sounds more typical, etc.

md5 sums of all 12 audio tracks demuxed via tsMuxer:

638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4352.ac3
638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4353.ac3
638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4354.ac3
638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4355.ac3
638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4356.ac3
638198DDF2FBF8A7BDE9B6EE21B91685 *00024.track_4357.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4358.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4359.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4360.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4361.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4362.ac3
0C2FF3FC1CAC87BC3107D0389AD05BAC *00024.track_4363.ac3


There has been no pre-processing of any kind, other than ripping the entire disc to HDD via AnyDVD-HD.

Thanks.

[jdobbs]

The PID is the number that is labeled "ID" -- so, yes, it appears they are all there since they each have unique PIDs.

Muxing overhead varies, but TS muxing isn't greatly efficient. Generally it averages about 5% for video -- but some types of content are hugely different depending upon their format. Average audio overhead hangs around 14%, but I've seen True HD take as much as 30% overhead. A lot depends on bitrate and how the resulting audio frames fit neatly into M2TS packets. For example, a 224Kbs DD audio stream takes about the same amount of space as a 192Kbs audio stream after M2TS muxing. This is one of the things that make output size estimation so difficult in BD authoring.

[Hobojobo]

Can MPC select audio streams in MKVs?

I'll do some testing.

Any success on that one?