Blue Ray Rips [Archive] - Doom9's Forum

hello_hello

26th December 2011, 18:42

Yes. Many hardware players including most Bluray players these days, will play AVI, MP4 or MKV files etc. from a USB stick or USB hard drive.
In fact only today I went shopping with someone to help pick a TV as a birthday present. Times are changing very quickly. It's almost hard to find a TV these days which doesn't have it's own built in media player capable of playing those sort of files. Whether they all support the same formats is another thing, but I imagine it won't be long before they do. The days of being restricted to watching encoded video on a PC or a limited number of hardware devices are well and truly over. My Sony Bluray player will happily read and play the contents of a 2TB USB hard drive, although admittedly I have my PC hooked up to my TV and mainly use it for playing video as it seems the average Bluray player can't compete with the PC for picture quality, especially when it comes to upscaling standard definition video.

Many people (myself included) also reduce the resolution from 1080p to 720p when encoding to keep the file size down as depending on your TV size and viewing distance you may not see any difference. Even using a fairly high quality setting most x264, 720p movie encodes would easily fit on a DVD5. Mine probably average around 2.5GB to 3GB per movie.

six13

26th December 2011, 21:22

thanks, I wondered if the blue ray had the ability to read a mpeg4 .mkv file at 720p, the PC conected to the TV is a great way like you say so you could use VLC or whatever app you want.

I just thought if someone is making a ISO of a Blue ray and then puting it on a blank Blue ray they have a pretty expensive back up, and it would pay to be very cautious with your original blue ray so you don't need to them back up.

setarip_old

1st January 2012, 19:49

@six13

Hi!

Try the easy to use "BD Rebuilder" if you'd like to make fully functional (WILL play on standalone Blu-ray players and software players), extremely high quality, backup copies of your original Blu-ray discs on DVD5 or DVD9 media (referred to as "BD5" and "BD9" when used for Blu-ray backups)...

Keiyakusha

1st January 2012, 21:16

If you start with a ~25GB original you cut quite a few corners to bring it down to one tenth the size.
let's not forget that blurays are that big not because this amount of information is needed to preserve good quality, but because they need to fill more space on the discs so they can earn more money selling 2 discs instead of one (or it won't looks like they can put 3 movies on 1 disc) and because settings that used to encode are quite low compared to what you can specify by yourself (+restrictions applied by standard). If you take movie from 1 bluray, leave only one audio stream and encode 1080p dvd9 with right processing and encoding settings - you won't notice the difference.

diogen

1st January 2012, 23:20

Sorry, but based on my experience nothing in your post seems either logical or remotely accurate to me.You are missing the point entirely.
Blu-ray specs have been frozen in time somewhere around 2007.
But the development of codecs - like x264 as the best example - hasn't stopped.
For example, QPel can't be handled by many (most?) hardware decoders. But can be very useful in encoding.

You want to cater to 2007 state of art - be my guest.
I don't. And using an HTPC as the only playback device since 2003, I'm very much interested in the today's state of art.

Also, 2.5GB is about the size you can compress a DVD version of a movie without loosing quality.
If you don't see any difference between the 25GB original and 2.5GB encode, you need either a better TV or better glasses.

Diogen.

diogen

1st January 2012, 23:25

let's not forget that blurays are that big not because this amount of information is needed to preserve good quality, but because they need to fill more space on the discs...And that was the reason I said 25GB and not 50GB - what a dual-layer BD is capable of storing.

Video plus one lossless audio track uses about 25GB.
Whether it can be done better, is a different question altogether.
And will never be answered since you will never have access to the original.

Diogen.

diogen

1st January 2012, 23:41

Just a clarification: the encoding scene has its own forum, here (http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=17)on doom9.
You have a chance to talk to those in the business and/or developers of the latest and greatest codecs.

Just browse it.

Diogen.

Guest

2nd January 2012, 00:33

Posts violating rule 6 have been removed.

six13

2nd January 2012, 02:44

thanks but I don't have a blu ray player or blu ray in my PC, I was just curious as to how it was done.

@six13

Hi!

Try the easy to use "BD Rebuilder" if you'd like to make fully functional (WILL play on standalone Blu-ray players and software players), extremely high quality, backup copies of your original Blu-ray discs on DVD5 or DVD9 media (referred to as "BD5" and "BD9" when used for Blu-ray backups)...

hello_hello

2nd January 2012, 07:40

You are missing the point entirely.
Blu-ray specs have been frozen in time somewhere around 2007.
But the development of codecs - like x264 as the best example - hasn't stopped.
For example, QPel can't be handled by many (most?) hardware decoders. But can be very useful in encoding.

I'm not missing the point at all. You however seem to be ignoring the facts. While I pretty much always use a PC for playback myself, between the Bluray players and TVs in this house there's five different media players and each and every one of them play my encodes using the latest version of x264 and it's default settings with a level of 4.1.

You want to cater to 2007 state of art - be my guest.
I don't. And using an HTPC as the only playback device since 2003, I'm very much interested in the today's state of art.

It seems to me you need to use something else other than a HTPC as a playback device before offering generalizations as to what today's media players will and won't play. I'm not catering to 2007, none of the hardware players in this house is more than two years old. And that's what I was referring to in my original post when I said "these days". I wasn't referring to 2007 even though your opinion of hardware players seems to be stuck there. Having said that, my other half owns a three year old Bluray player which happily plays all my encodes, albeit only via a disc.
The Bluray specs may not have changed since 2007 but that doesn't mean a modern Bluray player is limited to those specifications. In 2007 it was probably impossible to find a Bluray player which could play MKV/MP4 files via USB. These days it's hard to even find a TV which doesn't. My Bluray player will happily read and play the contents of a 2TB, NTFS USB hard drive, so you're correct about one thing, it's not 2007 any more.

Also, 2.5GB is about the size you can compress a DVD version of a movie without loosing quality.
If you don't see any difference between the 25GB original and 2.5GB encode, you need either a better TV or better glasses.

If your argument regarding quality is going to remain simply one of file size then it's not worth trying to discuss it with you, but I'll expand on what I said earlier so you can ignore the facts again. I encode everything at 720p, generally using a CRF value of 20 and x264's default settings. Aside from resizing I generally encode "as-is"... no filters at all. The size of my average encode is probably around 2.5 to 3GB. So far the largest has been 4.8GB. I don't control the file size, I just set the quality. If an encode comes out at 2.5GB it's because that's the size it needs to be. Currently I'm encoding a movie at 720p using CRF 19 and it looks like the file size will end up around 3.5GB.
If you want to explain to me how my encoding process is robbing me of quality I'm more than willing to listen, but anything else is just noise.

Ghitulescu

2nd January 2012, 11:05

I just thought if someone is making a ISO of a Blue ray and then puting it on a blank Blue ray they have a pretty expensive back up, and it would pay to be very cautious with your original blue ray so you don't need to them back up.
The very first DVD-R cost at least twice as much as the very first BD-R (same shop, but the inflation was not yet calculated - with inflation probably at least 3x more), and the very first CD-R cost some 6x more (probably 10-12x more with inflation).
Those prices definitively urged for MP3/Divx backups, even if those were not playable anywhere else than on a PC.

Today the things got a lot improved, there are portables that play most of "former-PC-only" formats, there are standalones that do the same thing, there are NMTs, SAT, mediaplayers that can play them, practically there is no gear sold today that cannot play at least AVI/MKV, even if with several restrictions.

However, as long as a not so new movie (I don't watch a movie merely because it's new - the next month it will be already old, and since this was its only merit I think that I paid 30€ for nothing) costs about twice the price of a good BDR in jewel case (8-9-10€ vs. some 4-5€) and as long as a backup with reencoding may take an entire night on my laptop (which has an ATI that doesn't provide HW acceleration for SW) I would rather buy a new original, unless it's infected with unskippable trailers and commercials (very rare in Europe). Alternatively, I would rip it to my HDD and transfer the reedited BD (main movie only, I hate the menus anyway) to the HDD of my NMT.

A pure BD-rip with a few editing steps (select main movie, select off the unneeded audio tracks and subtitles) takes some 30 minutes upto one hour. I still think that the alternative of a NMT with internal HDD (like Popcorn Hour, Dune HD max WD TV live etc) is kinderproof, dog- and catproof (for those those cats scratched and/or dog bate the discs ;)) and idiotensicher and still can hold some 20-30 maybe more movies depending on its capacity (I hope people packing 1000 movies on a 1TB HDD are young enough to live to see them all :p).

Concerning the size issue: I did once a reencoding of one of my BBC Life blu-rays to the size of a DVDRDL and compared them side by side in my BDplayer (all improvements OFF) and in my PCH-200. There was a difference, even if one needed a side-by-side comparizon to notice it. Since I paid a premium price for the BD (namely I paid for the quality) a reencoding to DVD5/9 is a no-go since then. I never did a BD50->BD25 conversion though ...

hello_hello

2nd January 2012, 16:19

Today the things got a lot improved, there are portables that play most of "former-PC-only" formats, there are standalones that do the same thing, there are NMTs, SAT, mediaplayers that can play them, practically there is no gear sold today that cannot play at least AVI/MKV, even if with several restrictions.

Toto..... it seems we're not in Kansas any more....

Only a week or so ago we were all huddled around a computer monitor in order to watch video using PC-only formats, and/or risking having to re-encode our video every time we replaced a standalone device.

A lot must have happened over Xmas.

Ghitulescu

2nd January 2012, 16:58

... we were all huddled around a computer monitor in order to watch video using PC-only formats, and/or risking having to re-encode our video every time we replaced a standalone device.

... practically there is no gear sold today that cannot play at least AVI/MKV, even if with several restrictions.

Those restrictions cause a particular media file to be played exclusively on a PC - there are people that do not care about anything else than playback on PC and therefore they use settings/presets compatible with PC codecs only.

But one needs to make an effort to read my messages as a whole, not to cherry pick unrelated statements ...

diogen

2nd January 2012, 18:48

I'm not missing the point at all.So, you can take a BD movie and encode it into ~3GB and not see a difference between those two on a 720 set.

Good for you.

Now, go read the 264 forums (http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77). You might learn something.

Take care.

Diogen.

hello_hello

2nd January 2012, 22:35

So, you can take a BD movie and encode it into ~3GB and not see a difference between those two on a 720 set.
Good for you.

Actually, it's a 51", 1080p TV.

Now, go read the 264 forums (http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77). You might learn something.
Diogen.

Such as?? You'll have to be a little more specific to be taken seriously, although I guess it's my only option, given apparently I'm not going to learn anything from you.
Would you like me to post some before and after screen shots so you can point out all the quality differences I'm not seeing? I can do that later if you like.

For the record, if I can see a difference it's generally due to the upscaler used when playing the 720p encode. If I use a Bilinear upscaler there's sometimes a very minor lack of sharpness compared to the original 1080p video, but it's generally only something I can see when pausing on identical frames and switching between them. While the video is playing and at a normal viewing distance I'd seriously struggle to see any difference. If I use a Bicubic resizer, even when pausing the video on identical frames for comparison I'd have to use my imagination to pick differences.
Of course my experimenting was done using a PC. I'm yet to do the same thing using a standalone device because I prefer the computer and it's a lot harder to "A/B" video using a standalone player, and if I do it I want to make sure if there's a difference I'm seeing it because there is one and not because I've come to a predetermined conclusion. I've been planning to try it using two identical players so I can switch between 1080p and 720p by changing the TV input but haven't got around to it yet.

So yes, using a PC I've done a fair bit of experimenting with encoding and playback in order to determine whether there's a perceivable quality drop. I don't need a meaningless link from someone who obviously hasn't to tell me what I can see and what I can't.

hello_hello

2nd January 2012, 23:05

Those restrictions cause a particular media file to be played exclusively on a PC - there are people that do not care about anything else than playback on PC and therefore they use settings/presets compatible with PC codecs only.

But one needs to make an effort to read my messages as a whole, not to cherry pick unrelated statements ...

While I'd agree one needs to make an effort to read your messages as a whole, which part of your statement did I cherry pick? My quote of your post included the part which you then re-quoted yourself and highlighted in red while accusing me of cherry picking. Unbelievable!

Yes we all know some players have certain restrictions, and I didn't argue with it because it's obviously true, yet irrelevant to my point. Let me clarify things for you....

"Today the things got a lot improved, there are portables that play most of "former-PC-only" formats"

I was referring to the same "former" PC only formats which you now admit many standalone devices can play, while only a week or so ago you were pontificating about industry standard formats and the likelihood of being huddled around a PC monitor if you used anything else.

Ghitulescu

3rd January 2012, 07:49

I don't wanna get (again) into such a debate, but I felt the need to explain some things to people that oscillates between alternatives.

One: that "digital copying" is not that what is advertised (a sort of COPY/PASTE ;)), but it will incur quality losses, that are more or less visible, depending on the gear, eyes and brain used. Quality is personal, so the expectations. Quality comes at a price. One can squeeze a BD50 onto a DVD5 with "minimal" loss of perceived quality, but this is only because the pros behind BD did their job properly. With the exception of a few enthusiastics (the same in various thematic fora) few other people are able to obtain similar quality when doing their own recordings - recompressing their masterwork with the same ratio (or final bitrate) will certainly show these limits.
Two: the ability to play non standardised media files was a bonus, a marketing strategy that aimed at gaining a bigger market share, a bonus. Why would be needed for a TV to access youtube.com? Or for a SAT-receiver to play AVIs? Or a Holden Commodore to be able to fly?
Corolar 1: there are many examples but I will stop at one that is more familiar to me: a HDTV-SAT-Receiver that is able to play MP3 and other few multimedia files. The manufactureres' web page is full of complains about eg its inability to play VBR MP3 and several FW revisions have been made available to solve this burning issue, however one of the SAT main functions, the EPG, which was faulty from day 1, is still unsolved, because of all that "demands", and it will never be, now that the product has been replaced.
Corolar 2: The craze of the early nineties to convert audio CDs into MP3s, partly due to lack of space, partly due to lack of a recording medium, made the music stores to offer only MP3 for a long time (now there are several songs available as FLAC as well, but it's a tiny minority). To this end contributed also the lack of space on mobile players (memory was expensive then, it is today, too) which dropped the support for WAV or other lossless formats, and last but not least, the ABx tests that allegedly equivalated an 128kbps MP3 with the original CD (few years ago the limit was set to 192, now it's 320 which is the maximum MP3 allows).

I wonder how many people will still consider converting a commercial movie to MKV/H.264 if the studios will distribute it as a DivX-encoded one, and not as the usual DVD/BD one? You know, following the early claims that DivX/700MB is perceptual equal to the original DVD/4.7GB ;) ... They already started this, see the Digital copy initiative or the various legal movie download stores....

Chetwood

3rd January 2012, 08:53

c't listening tests came out with 160-192 kbit/s for transparency. That hasn't changed and since this apparently holds true for the majority of people, FLAC hasn't take off cause MP3 is simply good enough for most people. The studios' digital copy initiative OTOH is just another one of this failed attempts to just do something while still ignoring the demands of the customer base.

smok3

3rd January 2012, 09:09

Reading in between the lines and following HA from time to time, i'd say transparency-bitrate is probably much lower this days. However since disk space is measured in Terabytes today, it doesn't really matter, so the FLAC problem is mostly with portable devices i'd guess. What/which/how did ct test?

Ghitulescu

3rd January 2012, 09:35

The policy of big companies since end of nineties can be expressed as "teaching the customer" (see also some known words of Steve Jobs: the customer doesn't know what he wants, so we show him what he wants - freely quoted from memory). It simply doesn't matter what the customer wants, as long as his purchasing decision is directioned through price policies (or colour policies, for ladies).

One of the reasons free formats did not catch is not that the customer couldn't express his choice (actually, he wasn't listened to) but because of the legal and technical incertitudes surrounding them. Technical - because the free formats being developed according to the community needs, ie they could change anytime and this is not what a company wants when designing a device to play them, and legal - because some of them overlap protected subject-matter (remember, it might be free to break a patent for yourself at home, but when one tries to sell something, well, this is another story ;)) and some of the free formats were released under GPL/GPL2/LGPL which in turn would require the release of the source code - that's the last thing a company wants.

hello_hello

3rd January 2012, 15:16

I don't wanna get (again) into such a debate, but I felt the need to explain some things to people that oscillates between alternatives.

I don't think there's a single person in this thread who needs to have it explained to him that re-encoding video results in some quality loss, whether it be perceivable or not. It's that quality loss which the original poster asked about and which we've been discussing.
Likewise I've no idea how references to the compressibility of home videos might be relevant to the topic of how compressible professional Bluray discs might be.

Whether you happen to consider a player's ability to play non-standard files as a bonus or not has no effect an a standalone device's ability to play them, and it doesn't change the fact it's pretty much become a standard feature. I could just as easily argue that a DVD players ability to play CDs is a bonus but it doesn't change the fact pretty much all DVD players can play them.

How a HDTV-SAT-Receiver's ability to play VBR MP3s relates to encoding Bluray discs is beyond me, and claiming consumer demand to fix MP3 playback stopped the manufacturer from fixing the EPG is fairly odd speculation, but it certainly seems to be in contrary to your later claim that the customer doesn't know what they want or can't express their choice.

You'll have to explain what ABX listening tests and MP3 transparency has to do with the topic of re-encoding Bluray discs. I guess you're implying people had to learn to hear the difference between MP3 and CD and the bitrates considered to be transparent increased accordingly, but I'm not sure how that relates to Bluray encoding. Did everyone's ears "reset" with the introduction of AAC forcing us to learn to listen for differences all over again. Do our brains forget all about compression artifacts the moment we stop using Xvid and start using x264?

I'd imagine if studios distributed movies in a DivX-encoded format and the quality was just as good as the "normal" version while the file size was reasonable and they could simply be copied, nobody would bother re-encoding them to H264/MKV. Why would you, unless you wanted to squeeze it down further for playing on a portable device etc? What point are you actually trying to make there?

Which free formats didn't catch on because the consumer was too busy demanding VBR on their HDTV-SAT-Receiver to express their choice, or because they weren't listened to? Sure there's a few formats such as ogg or monkey which aren't widely supported, but I can certainly think of many free formats which are.

All your arguments, which I assume are offered as "reasons not to re-encode your discs", seem to ignore the real reasons people do so. Granted it might have some purpose when it comes to making a backup copy, but in reality for people who encode their discs the original becomes the backup copy. The remaining reasons are generally based on convenience. More portability, easier storage, that sort of thing. The original discs aren't thrown away the minute they're encoded. It doesn't really matter if there are minor differences I might be able to see under extremely close scrutiny or when performing the perfect ABX test, if under normal viewing/listening conditions I can't see any. Perfection is desirable, but it's not the reason people re-encode their discs.

Ghitulescu

3rd January 2012, 16:59

All your arguments, which I assume are offered as "reasons not to re-encode your discs", seem to ignore the real reasons people do so. Granted it might have some purpose when it comes to making a backup copy, but in reality for people who encode their discs the original becomes the backup copy. The remaining reasons are generally based on convenience. More portability, easier storage, that sort of thing. The original discs aren't thrown away the minute they're encoded. It doesn't really matter if there are minor differences I might be able to see under extremely close scrutiny or when performing the perfect ABX test, if under normal viewing/listening conditions I can't any. Perfection is desirable, but it's not the reason people re-encode their discs.
Indeed, I see no reason why people prefer to spend their time (ireplaceable, as they'll find out later) reencoding their discs. There is no real lack of space (as it was in the early '90ies when a CD was some 3-4x bigger than the largest available HDD), there is no increase in "portability" (unless one reencodes for his/her cellphone or for that matter iPad or Android-based ones, which cannot play native DVDs, but who watches videos on his/her cellphone cannot consider this as a "backup") and also no increase in quality, unless one fiddles with filters and stuff, an issue hard to be done repetitively for the whole collection. I find it almost masochistic to pay for a good quality DVD/BD a premium price but to watch it in a reduced quality for whatever obscure reason ;) (Warner, Sony Pics and Fox will kiss you dearly for this idea).

However, if one thinks only in terms of MB/GB and has a lower perception of the quality, sure, the compression of a BD downto a 5/9GB is perfectly possible, the H.264 algorithm really has this resiliency, especially when the resolution is downscaled to 720p (as a short search in internet for brrip 720p shows).

hello_hello

3rd January 2012, 22:25

I find it almost masochistic to pay for a good quality DVD/BD a premium price but to watch it in a reduced quality for whatever obscure reason.
However, if one thinks only in terms of MB/GB and has a lower perception of the quality, sure, the compression of a BD downto a 5/9GB is perfectly possible, the H.264 algorithm really has this resiliency, especially when the resolution is downscaled to 720p (as a short search in internet for brrip 720p shows).

Which all assumes there's a perceivable drop in quality, or that you've got a superior perception of quality to us mere mortals, but I doubt either is true. It also assumes every Bluray disc you buy is perfect quality, and obviously that's far from being true. Some seem to be nothing more than upscaled standard definition copies and often done badly (google "40 Year Old Virgin quality").
You even said yourself you re-encoded one of your BBC Life series discs down to DVD9 size and needed a side by side comparison to notice any difference, which is hardly a masochistic drop in quality.

You failed to provide any details regarding the amount of video on each disc or even how you cropped/compressed it, so we're supposed to assume compressing a Life series Bluray disc equates to compressing the average movie.
Plus I'd seriously question the validity of trying to compare two versions of a movie using a Bluray player anyway, especially when as you admitted you need a side by side comparison to notice any differences, because that's exactly what you can't do using a Bluray player. By the time you've watched one section of video, changed the discs and then navigated to the same spot again, you're out of "A-B" testing territory and pretty much into "what you want to see" territory, so I'd hardly take the results of using a Bluray player to compare video as gospel.
On the other hand, using my PC I can run multiple instances of the video simultaneously, sync them together and switch between them seamlessly using my TV to display them, which even allows me to determine the effect of different resizers accurately.

Personally I think it's far more masochistic to spend my days in a forum dedicated to DVD/Bluray conversion, repeating in thread after thread that people shouldn't encode their discs, than it is to actually convert them. You do realize the description of this forum reads "THE in-place to be for everyone interested in DVD conversion."? Obviously most of us are here for that reason, but I'm not sure why you're here when your advice is consistently not to do it.

I see you only chose to reply to the part of my last post which wasn't actually a question, but I was hoping to at least learn which free formats haven't caught on. Given you wrote a mini essay on why they haven't it shouldn't be too hard to at least enlighten us as to which free formats you were referring to.

Chetwood

4th January 2012, 07:45

Ghitulescu

4th January 2012, 10:37

Which all assumes there's a perceivable drop in quality, or that you've got a superior perception of quality to us mere mortals, but I doubt either is true.
Same here. And I also doubt he has the hardware to see a difference between 720p and 1080p (no 56" flat is not enough).
Like for MP3 I know what to look for. And experiences upon my friends showed my that once people become aware of the defects they can't overlook them anymore.
It also assumes every Bluray disc you buy is perfect quality, and obviously that's far from being true. Some seem to be nothing more than upscaled standard definition copies and often done badly (google "40 Year Old Virgin quality").
No, I only know the BD/DVD one mortal buys is the best source of video that mortal has access to. Unless it happens that mortal to be the producer of the movie. Upscaled or not, DVD or BD, this is the only source you, the big defenders of the "quality reencodes with huge size reduction", may use to perform this magical act.
You even said yourself you re-encoded one of your BBC Life series discs down to DVD9 size and needed a side by side comparison to notice any difference, which is hardly a masochistic drop in quality.
It is when one considers the price paid; unlike the colonies, the prices in Germany for documentaries are extremely high (some 60 European € vs. 30 Australian $). And yes I know the BBC series are upscaled from 720p (you may want to search within my posts to see it for yourself). For me I paid for premium content, I'd very much like, thank you, to see that premium content.
Plus I'd seriously question the validity of trying to compare two versions of a movie using a Bluray player anyway, especially when as you admitted you need a side by side comparison to notice any differences, because that's exactly what you can't do using a Bluray player. By the time you've watched one section of video, changed the discs and then navigated to the same spot again, you're out of "A-B" testing territory and pretty much into "what you want to see" territory, so I'd hardly take the results of using a Bluray player to compare video as gospel.
I don't think I need to comment such a statement.
...and compared them side by side in my BDplayer (all improvements OFF) and in my PCH-200...
To cultivate you, I have to add that the PCH-200 is based on SMP8642 which has no video "improvers" and my Pio has a "Source direct" option - so I don't have to switch discs, or to take the video alterations into account, in order to compare the two versions. I have only to wait those 2 seconds, until the HDCP handshake is established. The human visual memory is a bit longer than 2 seconds ;)
Personally I think it's far more masochistic to spend my days in a forum dedicated to DVD/Bluray conversion, repeating in thread after thread that people shouldn't encode their discs, than it is to actually convert them. You do realize the description of this forum reads "THE in-place to be for everyone interested in DVD conversion."? Obviously most of us are here for that reason, but I'm not sure why you're here when your advice is consistently not to do it.Well, I am with this forum since its first days, just not a member for some reasons, and I remember that the title given then was the expression of those times (a DVD-burner cost some 2000DM or more, a medium more than 100DM) and therefore the conversions to DivX were more than adequate.

Besides I only give opinions, not directives. I have no doubts, you have no doubts, but there are people that have, thus these questions, and it's ethically not fair to receive only answers from one side.

hello_hello

4th January 2012, 14:40

Like for MP3 I know what to look for. And experiences upon my friends showed my that once people become aware of the defects they can't overlook them anymore.

I guess many of us, despite having encoded a countless number of videos, must still be unaware of what to look for.

It is when one considers the price paid; unlike the colonies, the prices in Germany for documentaries are extremely high (some 60 European € vs. 30 Australian $). And yes I know the BBC series are upscaled from 720p (you may want to search within my posts to see it for yourself). For me I paid for premium content, I'd very much like, thank you, to see that premium content.

You're welcome.
So on one hand you know what to look for, while on the other hand you stated your one experience re-encoding a Bluray disc required a side by side comparison before you could see any differences. Okay....

I don't think I need to comment such a statement, which proves once more that you didn't care to read the whole message, as usual, or you simply don't understand its content.
To cultivate you, I have to add that the PCH-200 is based on SMP8642 which has no video "improvers" and my Pio has a "Source direct" option - so I don't have to switch discs, or to take the video alterations into account, in order to compare the two versions. I have only to wait those 2 seconds, until the HDCP handshake is established. The human visual memory is a bit longer than 2 seconds

Well I read your post and as usual understood it completely, but I'll admit I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you wouldn't consider playing two versions of a video on two different devices in order to compare them and consider it a valid A-B test.
I also have serious doubts the human visual memory is longer than 2 seconds, especially when it comes to comparing video which is so similar it requires a side by side comparison to see any differences.
As you've still failed to provide any further details regarding the amount of video on the Life series disc you were trying to re-encode, or how your were cropping/compressing it etc, without any specific information there's no way to tell if your one and only attempt at encoding a Bluray disc is even a valid comparison to the results obtainable when re-encoding the average movie.

Well, I am with this forum since its first days, just not a member for some reasons, and I remember that the title given then was the expression of those times (a DVD-burner cost some 2000DM or more, a medium more than 100DM) and therefore the conversions to DivX were more than adequate.

What's "just not a member for some reasons" mean exactly? Does it mean if you joined in the early days you did so without having a reason?
The forum title hasn't changed. The forum's still here for those interested in converting their discs. The title doesn't mention anything about the purpose of the forum changing according to the price of DVD burners.

Well you quoted most of my previous post except for the last paragraph where I once again asked you which free formats you were referring to when you claimed free formats haven't caught on. I guess after asking the question at least twice and having it ignored each time I'm forced to come to my own conclusions regarding the validity of that claim. Unless of course you'd like to finally answer the question?

hello_hello

4th January 2012, 14:51

I was thinking as I wrote my last post, since the subject of 1080p vs 720p and perceived quality comes up reasonably often, I might start a new thread in the near future to see if I can test it and if everyone can easily perceive a quality difference and how much of a difference they see etc.
I probably won't get a chance to do it for a few days, but I thought I could encode a section of video a few times and post some screenshots of the original video, the video re-encoded at 1080p, and then re-encoded at 720p and upscaled to 1080p again.

Can anyone think of valid reason why this wouldn't work as a type of test of perceived quality? Even if it's far from being scientific would the result still be interesting all the same? Obviously it can't take motion into account but it should be a good indication of how much detail is lost. I could even post the screenshots in a random order to see how reliably people can pick the original and which encode is which etc.