Split a BD50 "without new encoding" into 2 BD25?

[The_Unknown]

Hello,

is it somehow possible to split an existing BD50 without quality loss into 2 BD25? The first one should contain the menu, the extras and 50% of the movie. The second one should contain only the other 50% of the movie.

Is this possible (with BD-RB or not)?

Thanks in forward.

Bye The_Unknown

[jdobbs]

Not with BD-RB, but maybe with DeanK's MultiAVCHD... not sure.

I would debate the "quality loss" though... if you can see the difference I'd be extremely surprised.

[The_Unknown]

That sounds interesting. But will I be able with MultiAVCHD to keep the original menu and extras within disc 1?

[jdobbs]

That sounds interesting. But will I be able with MultiAVCHD to keep the original menu and extras within disc 1? I doubt it.

[deank]

multiAVCHD can split up to 1000 volumes/discs but only with its own output and menus (using blu-ray/camcoder playlists or files as input). This function doesn't work in re-author mode.

And what you're asking is not quite right. You'll need to have the menu on both discs, otherwise you won't be able to start the second disc, nor you will be able to change any settings during playback (using a pop-up menu or navigating to the main menu) like language/subtitles/etc.

[Ghitulescu]

is it somehow possible to split an existing BD50 without quality loss into 2 BD25? The first one should contain the menu, the extras and 50% of the movie. The second one should contain only the other 50% of the movie.

Why do you create more problems than solutions? A BDR-50 is only 1-2€ more than a BDR-25 ....

[The_Unknown]

Why do you create more problems than solutions? A BDR-50 is only 1-2€ more than a BDR-25 ....

:confused:
BD25: starting with EUR 1,324 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_25)
BD50: starting with EUR 8,495 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_50)

So please tell me where you can find BD50s for 3 EUR and I'll use them (without any conversion) :eek:

[Ghitulescu]

:confused:
BD25: starting with EUR 1,324 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_25)
BD50: starting with EUR 8,495 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_50)

So please tell me where you can find BD50s for 3 EUR and I'll use them (without any conversion) :eek:

Do not compare a price/unit of a spindle BDR-25 with a boxed BDR-50, and don't forget that LTH cost less than HTL! In Germany GEMA asks for ~3.5€ apiece, if you have found BDRs costing less then they are illegal here. In MediaMarkt, which is expensive, a BDR-25 was some 7-9€, a BDR-50 was 9-13€ (Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, Verbatim, not Platinum or other Chinese junk), both items boxed. "Your cheap prices" are Luxembourg prices!!!!!

BTW, you're an earlier adopter :) so you implicitly agreed to pay more than its worth. In max. 1 year from now the prices will half for both drives and media. And then you'll look how to combine those 2 BDR-25s back into a BDR-50. Like it happened in the past with many DVD users.

My advice is to store the movies meanwhile on a HDD, at least until BDR-50 would become more accessible in terms of price.

[The_Unknown]

Yes, I think you're right. I'll do the disks onto HDD until BD50's are affordable.

BTW: LTH-disks by Verbatim are cheaper. Aren't they as high quality as the "normal" Verbatim BD25's? What exactly is LTH (also in comparison to HTL)?

PS: Du kannst auch Deutsch schreiben, aber dann kann das hier nicht mehr jeder lesen ;)

[Ghitulescu]

I know I can write in German, but I am not allowed to, not in this thread (Rule 13).

LTH is cheaper because, leaving all details apart, has a similar manufacturing process as the DVD, which means the old facilities may be reused for BDRs (less money spent on new investments), but requires an adaptation of the drives to the new medium. More in wikipedia or at Verbatims' page.

[The_Unknown]

Sorry to ask again, but wthat about the quality (I won't find that kind of information on Verbatim's site and in Wikipedia I cannot find anything about it :()? Is LTH less quality than the normal ones?

[Ghitulescu]

Dunno

[jdobbs]

Do not compare a price/unit of a spindle BDR-25 with a boxed BDR-50, and don't forget that LTH cost less than HTL! In Germany GEMA asks for ~3.5€ apiece, if you have found BDRs costing less then they are illegal here. In MediaMarkt, which is expensive, a BDR-25 was some 7-9€, a BDR-50 was 9-13€ (Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, Verbatim, not Platinum or other Chinese junk), both items boxed. "Your cheap prices" are Luxembourg prices!!!!!

BTW, you're an earlier adopter :) so you implicitly agreed to pay more than its worth. In max. 1 year from now the prices will half for both drives and media. And then you'll look how to combine those 2 BDR-25s back into a BDR-50. Like it happened in the past with many DVD users.

My advice is to store the movies meanwhile on a HDD, at least until BDR-50 would become more accessible in terms of price. That doesn't seem to match history (i.e. DVD). While you can expect single layer to drop like a rock over the next year -- I wouldn't expect dual layers to follow along. Dual layer DVD price drops lagged behind single layer by several years. Here in the US dual layer BD-R costs about 5-6x more than a similar single layer. The prices you are quoting are exceptionally high for a single layer. You can get 25GB discs for a little over $2 (US) now. They're just a lot cheaper/easier to manufacture. DL BD-R are still hanging upwards of $12 per disc even on a fairly large spindle.

I hope the DL prices come down too -- I'd love it. I just don't think they will -- and why would a person want to spend 6x the $$$ when they can get equal quality out of a BD-25?

[The_Unknown]

Yes, you're right, but at the moment blu-ray discs have very bad quality (error rate, jitter, ...).

The ones which are, according to a German test, quiet good are Verbatim's BD25s. They are available in a 1,5 EUR - type (Verbatim BD25 LTH type) and in a 3,5 EUR type (normal Verbatim BD25).

When the LTH type would be as good as the normal ones (which were the winner of the test) I'd really think of buying a BD burner right now. But I think they aren't but you cannot find any information on this on the net :(

[Ghitulescu]

The prices you are quoting are exceptionally high for a single layer. You can get 25GB discs for a little over $2 (US) now.
A legal BDR in Germany cannot cost less than ~3.5€, because this is the "piracy tax" GEMA wants to have. Manufacturing, shipping, handling, storing etc. costs come on top. What costs less is grayware. Besides, everything is more expensive in EU than in the US.
That doesn't seem to match history (i.e. DVD).
Well, not now, but also not too long ago, there have been a lot of threads here (and in similar fora) how can one join back a DVD split on 2 DVDRs while preserving the menu (or getting back the original one) etc.

This will happen sooner or later to the BDR too. I think that if they don't drop the prices, the whole BD industry will fail (funny is that they know this). But this is the normal end when the engineers are replaced by attorneys, and the industry is no longer driven by the will of meeting the customers' needs but of skinning him alive. They invented also a nice sintagm: "Teaching the customer", in other words, seducing him to buy things he doesn't want.

[jdobbs]

A legal BDR in Germany cannot cost less than ~3.5€, because this is the "piracy tax" GEMA wants to have. Manufacturing, shipping, handling, storing etc. costs come on top. What costs less is grayware. Besides, everything is more expensive in EU than in the US.

Well, not now, but also not too long ago, there have been a lot of threads here (and in similar fora) how can one join back a DVD split on 2 DVDRs while preserving the menu (or getting back the original one) etc.

This will happen sooner or later to the BDR too. I think that if they don't drop the prices, the whole BD industry will fail (funny is that they know this). But this is the normal end when the engineers are replaced by attorneys, and the industry is no longer driven by the will of meeting the customers' needs but of skinning him alive. They invented also a nice sintagm: "Teaching the customer", in other words, seducing him to buy things he doesn't want. You don't have to join it because you don't need to split it. You just reencode the entire BD for BD-25. H.264 is very powerful -- and you simply don't need 50GB in almost all circumstances. It's simply a ploy to make people "think" they need it. Back up the disc to BD-25... and forget about it. You're done.

[Sophocles]

You don't have to join it because you don't need to split it. You just reencode the entire BD for BD-25. H.264 is very powerful -- and you simply don't need 50GB in almost all circumstances. It's simply a ploy to make people "think" they need it.

I agree entirely with that line of reasoning. I've re-encoded movies to BD 5, BD 9, and BD 25 with 1080P sometimes resulting in drastically lowered bitrate that can be greater than 50%; and thanks to H/x264 I still couldn't visually tell the difference between them. All these super large BD movie encodes seems me to be another type of physical copy protection that serves little other purpose other than thwarting out attempts to back them up. My advice is experiment a little by targeting different disc sizes, and don't be afraid if needed to downgrade your audio a bit to say 448kbs or 640kbs. You just might be surprised to discover that a BD 25 is more than enough to backup any single disc even if the original sits on a BD 50. Good luck!

[x400]

:confused:
BD25: starting with EUR 1,324 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_25)
BD50: starting with EUR 8,495 (http://geizhals.at/deutschland/?cat=blumedbdr&sort=r&xf=1184_50)

So please tell me where you can find BD50s for 3 EUR and I'll use them (without any conversion) :eek:

ebay

buy them from Japan.. they're cheaper than that (especially the bd-50 €4.80), free shipping, are verbatim and come with a printable surface

[Ghitulescu]

I agree entirely with that line of reasoning. I've re-encoded movies to BD 5, BD 9, and BD 25 with 1080P sometimes resulting in drastically lowered bitrate that can be greater than 50%; and thanks to H/x264 I still couldn't visually tell the difference between them.
I fully agree, especially when one removes the extra languages and all the "filling stuff" (trailers, etc.) to save the precious bits for the essential parts.

ebay
buy them from Japan.. they're cheaper than that (especially the bd-50 €4.80), free shipping, are verbatim and come with a printable surface

I wish, but all imports (ie from outside EU, which includes CH as well) are subjected to customs (and this is really an expensive game), unless used, but who's gonna buy used BDRs?

[x400]

^^^^ ah i see, well the japanese sellers remove the cases and wrap the discs in cardboard/bubble wrap (each disc is in a envelope)

so maybe you won't get customs cuz they'll think its used :D

[djmasturbeat]

(answer to OP)
if it is a series, you can do this easily* in ClownBD BD Copier
it really simplifies this compared to things requiring bouncing things thru several softwares.
i think you just need to just be sure to pay attention to mpls files grouped together (BDInfo tells this info in top box -- they have the same number in the column "Group" ) indicating things like PiP and what have you; have them together on same disc ... some of these items will also have same length of time as similar one from the group.

run it once for each half (BD25) obviously, with the different parts checked/ unchecked for each half

a main movie and menu that are =<smaller than BD25 can also use this method, and extras can be saved separately, might even fit DVDs.

if the main movie/ main movie+menu is bigger than BD25, then you need to re-encode if you want it on BD25. i use BDRB for something like this (some might use a combo megui / avs /eac3to/ tsmuxer or w/e to reencode the video and get it back to BD structure).

if the main movie is able to fit a BD25 w/o menu, and you don't care about menu, just remux in ts muxer (drop in the corresponding main movie mpls), output as BD (input new path too)

hope this is easy enough. if anyone can correct me, feel free to, tho i don't need any attitude with it. I am certainly no expert and don't pretend to be :P
i just wanted to help the OP out if possible.

*by easily i should note that some won't be so easy. trying to back up my BSG complete series i came to realize that the discs are mostly lopsided (miniseries is not lopsided, and o/c this leaves movies discs off topic of series) , meaning there are usually for instance 5 episodes per BD50... 2 eps fit nicely on each BD25, 3 eps won't. so now i have a choice of fitting them on 3 eps/ 2 eps + reencoding the 3 eps discs (bouncing the out put from copier over to BDRB) , or a choice of using 3 BD25s with 2,2, and 1 eps., but that's obscene. just a warning tho that this could easily be a scenario you face doing this sort of backing up.

[int1422]

Looks like we have plenty Dum of Yoyos in this Forum.
Ofcourse you can split a BD50 in to 2 BD25
Just buy OpenCloner Blu-Cloner 3.0 and you can do whatever you want. BD50 to BD25 with menus or without menus.
Movie alone.
It split the BD50 into 2 BD25 keeping the menu for both.
About the price of BD50 ofcourse it's expensive.
I never and ever will buy a single BD50 as long I get my BD25 for $1 each, RIDATA printable BD25 for $1 each. BD50 will cost me $6
each and that is to much,so I rather wait untill the prices drops and that will be very soon cause the BD-R of 12x prices goes down in March 2012. That means 4x will go down too.

[JJB]

Looks like we have plenty Dum of Yoyos in this Forum.
Ofcourse you can split a BD50 in to 2 BD25
Just buy OpenCloner Blu-Cloner 3.0 and you can do whatever you want. BD50 to BD25 with menus or without menus.
Movie alone.
It split the BD50 into 2 BD25 keeping the menu for both.
About the price of BD50 ofcourse it's expensive.
I never and ever will buy a single BD50 as long I get my BD25 for $1 each, RIDATA printable BD25 for $1 each. BD50 will cost me $6
each and that is to much,so I rather wait untill the prices drops and that will be very soon cause the BD-R of 12x prices goes down in March 2012. That means 4x will go down too.

Check your spelling and grammar first then re-evaluate who is "Dum"

[jdobbs]

Check your spelling and grammar first then re-evaluate who is "Dum" Snickering... ;) And of course there's that whole thing of having to switch discs halfway through a movie for the 90% of discs that are too large to fit even in movie-only mode -- even though the quality difference is indistinguishable if you shrink it to BD-25.