Little help with Blu ray authoring

[al4x]

ok im confused when it comes to blu rays

for dvds i just used handbrake to make an mp4 out of the dvd

now ive bought myself a blu ray reader drive and a i7 920 machine i want to put all my blu rays onto my TB hard drive

i already have anydvd HD and have the blu ray full image [inc everything] on my hard disk.. but its getting full with 40GB discs

what i want is to ideally keep the menus, any essential subs [ie district 9] full HD sound, Full picture quality [or unoticable loss, i used 80% in dvd compression].. remove everything else

ive tried BD rebuilder but its lack of options seem limiting, ive looked at multiAVCHD.. but havent got any further because the options are mind boggling to me!

is there a better program out there? or is it better just to produce a bare mp4 [or whatever format] file?

what do you experts think?

[Guest]

ive tried BD rebuilder but its lack of options seem limiting In what way is it limiting? What are you trying to do that it (apparently) won't let you do?

is there a better program out there? Not possible to answer without clarification of your requirements (see above).

[laserfan]

If you are doing this in order to play-back the movies while sitting at your computer, or perhaps over-the-network from your PC to a media player, than consider ToNMT (NMT-Networked Media Tank) (http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/ToNMT_UI). IIRC it converts to a .ts or m2ts (haven't used it in a while myself).

I think RipBot264 (right here at Doom9 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127611)) might also do what you want (it certainly is simple/easy).

There are lots of GUIs. Look around the MPEG-4 Encoder GUIs section of this forum for more.

[rik1138]

A couple of things you can try:
Quick-and-dirty: If you can identify the M2TS file that is the movie, and anything the disc needs to play before it gets to the movie (warnings, trailers, Menu video loop, etc), you can manually just delete everything else in the STREAM folder... (Move it to another folder and try to play the disc of course, just in case).

You can usually delete a lot of the bonus content this way and free up space...

Now, if you just want the movie itself, why do you care about the menus? The best thing to do for movie-only storage is use tsMuxer (or some other tool) and just re-mux the feature itself with the languages and subtitles you want into a new Blu-ray structure. This removes EVERYTHING except the feature and whatever audio/subs you want (including PiP bonus material, which can save a lot of space). That's as small as you can make it without re-encoding the video. You can even reduce lossless audio (like DTS-HD MA) to the lossy DTS and save several GBs, if you aren't concerned about lossless audio (whatever your preference).

This also keeps the Blu-ray structure so you can use your software Blu-ray player and select subtitles, etc. You can even burn this back to a disc and play it in a normal Blu-ray player...

And then, if you really want to save space, you can start re-encoding... Some movies (like 3-D animation) can compress REALLY well... I've got movies like Wall-E down to under 5gb, and you really can't tell there's any quality loss unless you really stare for it. I can fit 6 or 7 3-D animated movies on one Blu-ray disc, and no one in my family can tell the difference, and even videophile friends are damn impressed... :cool:

[al4x]

id like to keep the top menu if possible because if i ever do get a blu ray burner and use them on a external player the menu is useful to have, but if its not worth the hassle then its fine not to have it and just have the movie itself.

i posed the question as im not sure of the best end result.. whether it be the original blu ray format, ie an iso file, or just a generic container.. ie MP4..

id prefer to have what ever is smallest, ie the best image quality and sound with the smallest size.

eventually i plan to run a tv from a media pc so whatever format is kind of irrelavent

on bd rebuilder, there just isnt any where near as many settings as with multiavchd, it must be missing [or auto selecting] many options

if i do end up with the original structure, i will still want to compress a little, i dont want hundreds of hard drives lol,

is 80% an always safe compression ratio? obv some movies as mentioned above can go way further

[mrr19121970]

You can try this:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154574

[setarip_old]

@al4x

Hi!

on bd rebuilder, there just isnt any where near as many settings as with multiavchd, it must be missing [or auto selecting] many options

Your statement is obviously (as you indicated) based on a lack of knowledge of the two tools - both of which I avidly use and adore:

1) BD Rebuilder can do EXACTLY what you desire to accomplish - and produce extremely high quality video and audio quality results

2) MANY of the settings available from within multiAVCHD are pertinent to creating custom menus (It cannot presently fully preserve original menus) and converting to non-BluRay-related formats (HD-DVD, Standard DVD, experimental 3D)

[deank]

I'd add that multiAVCHD allows one to keep the menus while removing certain unwanted tracks (audio/subtitles/PIP). And - yes - most of the options are not applied (nor make sense) when you process a structure in re-author mode.

[al4x]

I'd add that multiAVCHD allows one to keep the menus while removing certain unwanted tracks (audio/subtitles/PIP). And - yes - most of the options are not applied (nor make sense) when you process a structure in re-author mode.

So are you saying it can take out all the junk and leave the menu and main movie?

Ie, I load the ISO onto a virtual drive.. play with power dvd..... and the first thing that appears is the top menu?

If so that's exactly what I'm after (if it can shrink the file size too :) )

[deank]

Yes. At least you can give it a try.

[Capsbackup]

So are you saying it can take out all the junk and leave the menu and main movie?

Ie, I load the ISO onto a virtual drive.. play with power dvd..... and the first thing that appears is the top menu?

If so that's exactly what I'm after (if it can shrink the file size too :) )

I have done this several times, so it definately works.

[al4x]

am i right in thinking it cannot actually REMOVe extras, just hide them? is that what blanking is?

[Capsbackup]

am i right in thinking it cannot actually REMOVe extras, just hide them? is that what blanking is?

Blanking removes and replaces the .m2ts with a short blank file. This way you can reduce the size of the backup too, depending on what you blank.

[al4x]

ok ive removed everything except the main movie, english subs and english sound track

the trans code time is 3-4 hours, but i dont necessarily want to transcode, but what is it transcoding into?

also i dont want to alter the HD sound for fear of loosing quality

Im nearly there!! :)

edt
ive found the transcode menu..

x264
ive left everything as it is, except changed quality to 2 pass VHQ.. is this the best to use?
the bitrate is 19892, can i change this down and not loose quality, its an estimate of 30GB left like this

ive put AVIsynth to 1920x1080 [like the actual vid is]

am i good to go?

[Capsbackup]

If you want to keep the original bitrate and just reduce the size by blanking, you do not need to transcode at all. This would be for BD-R/RE media or PC playback. If you are wanting BD5/9 size, for DVD media, you will need to transcode all files you keep. I believe 17,000 is safe. 2 pass VHQ is fine too, it's all about encoding time to complete. At bitrates above 6000, I think you can get away with a lower, faster setting.
I would not change resolution, let multiAVCHD take care of automatically!

[al4x]

ok

ive taken out extras etc

40gb -> 30GB

ive reduced the bitrate to 15000 [for a test]

down to 20GB

ive pressed go, hopefully all original menus are intact

im not using all my pcs potential, all cores only working at about 50% :/ thats annoying.. can this program use 100% of CPU core potential?

[Capsbackup]

al4x;
I would suggest try once with blanking only the files you do not want, keeping the menu files and main movie. Do not transcode anything. Only blanking. It's pretty fast, you will have the original resolution with no change in bitrate.
Then when it is complete, check the file size. If it is to your liking, your done. If not, then you can transcode to a smaller file size.
EDIT: remember not to blank menu files. :)

[al4x]

ok, yeah that sounds sensible..

was also wondering why when i did start the transcode [stopped it now] the quad core doesnt go to 100% utilisation?

evry other encoding program seems to at the coding phase

thanks, i didnt blank any of the menu files :)

thanks for this help btw

[Capsbackup]

im not using all my pcs potential, all cores only working at about 50% :/ thats annoying.. can this program use 100% of CPU core potential?

If you are driving a Ferrari, you don't need to press the gas peddle to the floor to go real fast! :p
On a first pass transcode with x264, you will not use 100% cpu, but pass 2 will be much closer and more processor demanding.

[al4x]

ok thanks, was hoping with this CPU i would get quick encode times..

are we talking hours for an actual transcode? most programs seem to take that long

[Capsbackup]

It really depends on the settings for x264. With high bitrates, say 8000 to 15,000, you can choose a fast preset and the encode will be pretty fast, depending on the overall movie length. Quality will still be great!
I have an I7, 920 too, and can do backups in 2 - 4 hours. Try a few tests with different presets for x264, and your eyes will be the judge of what is acceptable for you. :)

[al4x]

id rather not loose quality for speed, was just curious as why the program doesnt max the cpu out for the duration of the encode.. all things being the same wouldnt using 50% take twice as long as 100% usage, but quality wouldnt suffer as the same number of bytes would be processed, just quicker?

i picked my i920 for this purpose really, its overclocked to 3.8GHz

[al4x]

anyway, set to shut down after encode, im off to bed :) will post with my findings and if i need more help

thank you very much so far

[al4x]

ok im having more trouble, cant seem to find menus in any films ive ripped.. may just give up on multiavchd, menus just dont seem to appear

back to bd reuilder? :/

[Capsbackup]

If you blank them they will not appear! You need to be selective at what you blank, and never blank menu mpls/m2ts files. ;)

[al4x]

If you blank them they will not appear! You need to be selective at what you blank, and never blank menu mpls/m2ts files. ;)

the problem is i cant find any menus at all in the list, i looke at them all too

[Capsbackup]

the problem is i cant find any menus at all in the list, i looke at them all too

They are definately there. Try this, though it is more time consuming, very accurate.
Open the BDMV folder of the ripped Blu ray on your hard drive, and with multiAVCHD open to the blanking option, view each mpls/m2ts file, and with Media Player Classic, open each one and play its contents. You should know if it can be blanked or not, if it is a menu or extra. If you are not sure, don't blank it!
You can use Mplayer too, which is included with multiAVCHD, by clicking in the video viewing window for each mpls/m2ts to open the file. MPC seems to work better for me, but you can choose which one works better for you.

[al4x]

ok so just play the mpls file in MPC [i use MPC], the menu will just show play with its sequence?
and check it against multiAVCHD and keep once i find the menu?

that right? sounds good,

ive just tried a different blu ray and it was easier to find, so some may just take longer than others.

2 more questions...

sometimes multi finds more than one main movie mpls.. why is this.. they obviously cant be separate as the capacity of the discs are too low, so i currently only pick the first one and blank the rest.. curious on this

2, some blu rays have an initial language selection menu, can this be blanked and only keep the main menu.. or must you keep both?

thanks capsbackup i really am almost there, wouldve given up without this help!

[Capsbackup]

Download BDInfo, if you don't already have it. http://www.digital-digest.com/software/BDInfo.html
This will show you all playlists and their associated .m2ts files for your movies. Some movies have multiple playlists for the same m2ts files, and you need to keep all of them. ( if it is the main movie! :) )
curious on this2, some blu rays have an initial language selection menu, can this be blanked and only keep the main menu.. or must you keep both?
I am not sure, but it is probably very small in size so blanking will not save much. Probably safer to keep. If you blank it, it may break playback capabilities! You could try it, then test the backup and see what happens. I do not have any with such a feature. PC playback can be more forgiving than optical media for a standalone.
If you are burning to disc, buy some BD-RE's for testing.