BD3D2MK3D v1.17: Convert 3D BDs or MKV to 3D SBS, T&B or Frame-sequential MKV

[r0lZ]

Well, it's not so simple to do. If doing the work manually seems simple, it is much more hard to adapt the GUI to be able to open and deal with the two sources at the same time.

Furthermore, it is much more difficult to properly demux a 2DBD, as it can contain streams and especially audio in recent formats (like Atmos) that are prohibited in a 3DBD. Therefore, the tools that BD3D2MK3D uses currently are probably not well adapted to the 2D streams.

I add that if it is true that the streams from the 2D and 3D versions of the same movie from the same package are usually compatible, it's not necessarily the case if the 3D and 2D BDs have been bought separately. It is not rare that the movies begin with different studio logos with different lengths. There is no easy way to verify that, and I don't want to deal with the numerous sync problems that will certainly happen.

Finally, BD3D2MK3D is complex enough for the casual user. It will be difficult and probably not well understood if I add a new tab to open a 2DBD.

Anyway, BD3D2MK3D has been designed to make it as simple as possible to add external audio or subtitle tracks to the final MKV. You have just to demux them, and edit the __MUX_3D_OPTIONS file to add the new streams. Or you can use your method with MakeMKV. (Very good method BTW. However, I think the method can be even faster if you simply rip the audio alone, without the useless 2D AVC video stream, but I don't know if it's feasible with MakeMKV.)

Honestly, what you want to do is very specific to your needs, and I don't think it is worth implementing a complex method to do it automatically with BD3D2MK3D. Sorry.

[sfatula]

r0ltZ, can I humbly suggest a feature for your to-do list? A lot of 3D movies seem to get the shaft when it comes to audio. For example an ATMOS track is available for a movie, but only on the 2D disc. I don't really understand this, as both discs are typically included in the same case together, and looking at file sizes there is room on the 3D disc.

I think it would be great in BD3D2MK3D to be able to open two sources, one for the 3D video source, and the other for the same movie but with better audio such as ATMOS, then merge the two into a 3D MKV file with ATMOS.




I never looked, this is a great idea though, thanks. I’ll make sure to check all my 3d again and update as needed.

[mparade]

Hello r0lZ,

First of all, thank you very much for this astonishing software.
This is what I have been looking for for a long time now. Currently, for play back of my movies (both 2DBD mkv-s, 3DBD mkv-s UHD HDR mkv-s, and DVD mkv-s made by makemkv), I am using JRiver and madVR as the video renderer. Recently, I have decided to reencode my movie collection using StaxRip and BD3D2MK3D to save a lot of space for my NAS while maintaining some "visual transparency". But now I have met an "issue" at the forum of madVR. madVR simply doesn't want to treat any 3D formats as input correctly excluding MVC-3D streams. Currently, via JRiver, I can choose if I want to play only the 2D part or both the 2D and 3D part of a BD3D mkv. According to my choice madVR does the rendering job correctly. So, I really do not want to make two versions of a BD3D to be playable both in 2D and 3D (do not want to lose functionality by converting to an other format while saving a lot in size). Is it possible?

Your help would be appreciated.

Thanks again for your great software.

[r0lZ]

I'm not sure I understand. BD3D2MK3D generates only the 3D version of the movie in Half or Full SBS, TAB or FS (although you can use it to encode also a 2D version of the same 3D movie). A good player should be able to play only a single view of the 3D MKV, but of course if you encode in Half-SBS or Half-TAB, you will have only the half resolution in one direction. (On my Samsung TV, I have to go to the options to select the 2D playback of a 3D movie. It's not really easy, but it's possible.)

In the other hand, if you want something to re-encode a BD50 and compress it enough to burn a BD25 or buils an AVC+MVC 3D MKV, and keep the possibility to play it in 2D or 3D, you have to use a tool that can encode in MVC. BD3D2MK3D cannot do that. See the tools associated with the FRIM encoder, based on the Intel libraries, the only free MVC encoder. The quality of the encoding is somewhat leak, certainly less good than the encodings made with x264 or x265, but it can encode in MVC, and therefore keep the original BD3D format.

Personally, I prefer an half resolution well encoded, but it's a matter of taste.

[Actionable Mango]

Anyway, BD3D2MK3D has been designed to make it as simple as possible to add external audio or subtitle tracks to the final MKV. You have just to demux them, and edit the __MUX_3D_OPTIONS file to add the new streams.

Thanks for your consideration and response. I'll look into this.

[mparade]

Personally, I prefer an half resolution well encoded, but it's a matter of taste

I am still thinking about a (HTAB + 2D version)/3DBD as well as a solution. I have an LG C6V, anyway.Comparing e.g. HTAB to FTAB I have half of the horizontal resolution for the TV to begin with. It will then upscale both of the images to it's native resolution (4K in this case) then be throwing away half of the horizontal resolution for each eye (passive technology). Am I right? Based on this method I would assume FTAB should give somewhat better result (assuming identical encoding settings) but maybe I would not even sense any of the difference.

I do not want to store 3DBD-s, they are just too huge if you are a 3D fan with a big collection of movies. :) Reserving an average capacity of ~35-40GB on a HDD/3D movie in the magical world of x264/x265 and "powerful" processors, is a nonsense and maybe totally irrational as well. :)

[r0lZ]

Am I right?
I'm not sure. I have an active Samsung TV, and it doesn't work like a passive LG. In my case, the full resolution is used anyway, so indeed FTAB (or FSBS) is better, as nothing is thrown away. In the case of a passive LG, I think that the even lines of the TV are used for one eye (with a specific polarization), and the odd lines for the other eye (with the opposite polarization). That means that theoretically, you don't need the full vertical resolution, as only one every two lines are really displayed. (It's also why HSBS is not recommended for LG, as the horizontal resolution is divided by 2 during the encoding, and the vertical during the playback.)

Of course, if you want to play the 3D movie in 2D, FTAB is preferable, as you will watch the 2D movie in its original resolution.

Honestly, I don't know if the LG begins by upscaling the image, or if it is smart enough to understand that it's useless. But anyway, even if it does it, the gain in quality will be minimal, or even null. But with a 4K YV, all original lines of a Full-HD 3D movie can be displayed, so the problem depends of the resolution of the TV.

For 2D+3D playback of the same MKV, you can perhaps also include TWO video streams in the same MKV. A 3D HTAB and a full-res 2D. Something similar to what Actionable Mango does with the audio streams, but for the video. It's technically possible with Mkvtoolnix. But I don't think that many players will let you chose what video stream to play. They will probably just pick the first one. And if you encode in FTAB, that will be a waste of disc space.

I agree that storing BD ISOs or physical burned BD25 is not a good idea. With a good h265 encoding, you can have an almost as good quality for 1/10 of the file size. But on the other hand, the SBS, TAB and FS frame packing methods are not well defined, and suffer several problems that the 3DBD do not have (such as the problem of the correct aspect ratio to adopt, discussed previously in this thread).

[mparade]

Thank you very much for the explanation.

I am going to choose FTAB played via Kodi v17 as for 3D with a 3D subtitle track (forced subs) burnt in in my language and with 1pc of audio track using your magical software. The usefulness of a 2D version of the same film is still a question for me because of the drastic expansion of UHD HDR movies.
I do not want both a HD and an UHD version of the same movie on my NAS.

Again, thank you very much!

[dm9656]

Sure. In all cases (SBS/TAB/FS) I can select subtitle streams directly in the Plex TV app with no warning about the video mode. However, the actual results are mixed:

For SBS and TAB, it is completely unusable because the TV does one or both of the following (it is inconsistent): Automatically drops out of 3D mode, and/or loses the correct ratio, becoming half-size. Additionally, it always shows the subtitles in either only the left or only the right view only (can't remember which).

For FS, it is substantially different. The subtitles come on and they look pretty decent. There can be some depth problems with the movie content in the area immediately in and around the letters. So it's slightly wonky but still very, very usable. I believe these are the 2D subtitles (as you stated earlier), because I encoded this three times with three different added depths (-10, 0, +10) and they all looked roughly the same to me. (I assume if they were 3D subtitles then there would have been very obvious differences). With no notification or action on my part, the server silently switches from Plex streaming to transcoding, but there is no apparent change in picture quality. *

* There is one big caveat here. My little Mac Mini could not keep up with transcoding the movie + subtitles. So although the PQ was still perfect, the framerate was like a slide show. My positive description above is based on a temporary addition of a second Plex server installed on a powerful gaming machine that had no problems with transcoding.

* There is also one small caveat. If I flip subtitles on and off too rapidly/frequently in FS files, it will occasionally show the poor symptoms I described for TAB/SBS. That's not really a valid use case though.

I have the same LG E6 TV and here are my observations after many tests:
- you can encode a Full TAB or SBS 3D movie which will not loose its aspect ratio with subtitles, when you select the following option : "Full SBS/..." / "Use 32:9..." and "use respectively 1:2 and 2:1..." AND you manually edit the aspect ratio in file "__MUX_3D_OPTIONS.txt" to "16/9" instead of the value you'll find there
- however, the subtitles will have problems: in FTAB, they will display both up and down of the picture; in FSBS, they will display only in one side (left). The reason is that the subtitles pictures are generated in a format that has not the same size as the FTAB or FSBS encoded picture (ex: 1920x1080 instead of 1920x2160); and I think the TV needs the 3D subtitle picture to be the same size as the FTAB picture to display it correctly along the movie picture.

So, my guess for a solution to this problem is to have options to generate the 3D subtitle pictures with the same resolution & aspect ration as the FTAB or FSBS frame instead of the target (2D) size.

As for Frame Sequence, I could not make it work properly, there are too few players out there able to play it correctly.

Meanwhile, if somebody could give me some hints for generating the 3D subtitles at the desired resolution? Is there a way to tweak BD3D2MK3D ?

[r0lZ]

Welcome to the Doom9 forums, dm9656.
[...] option : "Full SBS/..." / "Use respectively 32:9..." [...] AND you manually edit the aspect ratio in file "__MUX_3D_OPTIONS.txt" to "16/9" instead of the value you'll find thereIt's a contradiction. If you DON'T tick the option "Use respectively 32:9 or 16:18 AR", then the aspect ratio in __MUX_3D_OPTIONS.txt will be 16:9. It's the only thing that is changed with that option.

The 2:1 or 1:2 SAR is different, as it is used by x264 or x265 during the encoding and is included in the video stream itself.

So, if I understand correctly, for your LG, you should set the AR to 16:9 and the SAR to 1:2 / 2:1, and it should not be necessary to manually edit any file.

- however, the subtitles will have problems: in FTAB, they will display both up and down of the picture; in FSBS, they will display only in one side (left). The reason is that the subtitles pictures are generated in a format that has not the same size as the FTAB or FSBS encoded picture (ex: 1920x1080 instead of 1920x2160); and I think the TV needs the 3D subtitle picture to be the same size as the FTAB picture to display it correctly along the movie picture.
Correct. Unfortunately, currently, the free tools that are able to edit the SUP files are made for the standard resolutions, SD (PAL or NTSC), "small-HD" (720p) and Full-HD (1080p). The other formats (UHD and 3D) are currently not supported.

Note also that currently, it is not possible to generate the 3D subtitles for Full-SBS or Full-TAB, as they require a larger resolution (in one direction only) than Full-HD.

Some players are able to display the 2D subtitles correctly, including PotPlayer, my preferred video player for Windows. It has an option to display the subtitles before or after the rendering of the video. For the 3D movies, that means that it can display the subtitles over the whole SBS/TAB video, before the cut of the two views, and that leads to the problem you have described. But it can also display the 2D subtitle after the cut of the two views, and in that case, the 2D subtitles are perfectly centered on screen, like in the original BD. (It's the first mode that is required to display properly the 3D subtitles for Half-SBS/TAB, as they have the same resolution and dual view as the 3D video format, and the second mode must be used to display the 2D subtitles over any 3D video.) Perhaps your TV or player has a similar option?

Otherwise, many players have also an option to ignore the position of the subtitles encoded in the SUP file and display them anyway somewhere in the bottom-center of the screen, or in the black bars of a Cinemascope movie. Such option can help too.

Unfortunately, the hardware players (TVs, projectors, BD-players and other multimedia boxes) have often only a very basic player with very few options, and it is not possible to modify the subtitles for proper playback of 3D material.
So, my guess for a solution to this problem is to have options to generate the 3D subtitle pictures with the same resolution & aspect ration as the FTAB or FSBS frame instead of the target (2D) size.
Correct, but as I wrote above, the current tools are not able to do it. Otherwise, I would have implemented that option.

As for Frame Sequence, I could not make it work properly, there are too few players out there able to play it correctly.
FS is indeed not well supported, but it is necessary for some old "3D ready" projectors that cannot handle the (relatively new) SBS and TAB formats.

Meanwhile, if somebody could give me some hints for generating the 3D subtitles at the desired resolution? Is there a way to tweak BD3D2MK3D ?
As I wrote above, there is currently no way to generate 3D subtitles for Full-SBS or Full-TAB. Try to play with the options of your player, or connect your PC to your TV and use a good software player that can handle the subtitles correctly to send a correctly decoded video stream with the subtitles (@23.976x2 fps) to the TV via HDMI.

In the future, perhaps a better tool to edit UHD SUP files will be available. I am currently helping someone to write an app that should be able to produce UHD 3D subtitles, but it is not ready yet...

[Actionable Mango]

As for Frame Sequence, I could not make it work properly, there are too few players out there able to play it correctly.

It worked for me using Plex client installed on the TV itself.

[Relight]

I use this great program for all of my 3D Blu-rays, with the MKV mode. Never had a problem until now.

I finally got a copy of Avatar that kind of seems to work, after trying 3 US copies I gave up and imported a UK copy.

Like the US copies, MakeMKV had no problem with creating a backup but ran into "trying to work around" issues when making the MKV. However, it did complete apparently successfully.

Watching the MKV out of MakeMKV, it seems okay and plays without problems. There is a subtitle track with both all subtitles and Na'vi subtitles, and a separate subtitle track for the forced-only Na'vi subtitles.

Now we get to BD3D2MK3D - it seems to work fine for the subtitle track with ALL subtitles, but it doesn't work for the forced-only Na'vi subtitles, which is what I want.

It completes the process and the resulting SBS MKV looks fine, but it gives errors during the process, which show that it fails the track containing the forced-only Na'vi subtitles.

I've attached the error message that popped up during the "Generating project" stage, as well as the log file. (The attachments are pending approval.)

Any help would be much appreciated!

[r0lZ]

The Avatar subtitles are known to be problematic, probably because they are included two times (in the AVC and MVC M2TS files), and that confuses the demuxers. I'm not sure why it doesn't work with the MKV source, but it is possible to extract them properly from the (decrypted) BD. Anyway, if I remember correctly, there is only one subtitle stream for a specific language, and the Navi forced subtitles are simply included in the complete stream and tagged as forced. So, if BD3D2MK3D has properly demuxed the whole stream, you can normally simply extract the forced subtitles from the full stream, with BDSup2Sub. Just launch BDSup2Sub (with Subtitles Tools -> Open Subtitle Stream in BDSup2Sub), and export a new SUP file with the forced subtitles only. You can then use Subtitle Tools -> Convert Subtitles to 3D with the right 3D-Plane (see the 3D-Planes numbers in tab 1 of BD3D2MK3D - Do not trust tsMuxeR!). That works perfectly with the subtitles directly extracted from the (properly decrypted) original European BD. If that's not possible with the MKV created by MakeMKV, then there is a bug in MakeMKV, and you should contact its authors.

[r0lZ]

I see now the approved attached images. I can only tell you that the "index out of bounds" error happens usually when a stream is created, but it contains no subtitles at all, or just pointers to non-existing bitmaps. Therefore, I guess that MakeMKV has created a bad forced stream. Try to do what I have explained in my previous post. It should be easy to extract the forced subtitles from the full stream.

Since the first time I have converted Avatar, that was from the 3DBD, I've just converted it again, but this time I have decrypted it with MakeMKV and converted the 3D MKV, with the English and French subtitles, to verify if I can reproduce your problem. Everything went fine, including the forced subtitles. I may have another version than yours, but AFAIK, the current version of BD3D2MK3D has no problem with the subtitles. However, it includes 3 subtitles at the very beginning (up to 30 seconds in the movie) with a full-screen text "Please turn on your 3D glasses and put them on now". English subs 1475 to 1607 (from 2:36:43 to 2:41:40) are identical. They are the subtitles taken from the MVC M2TS. These subtitles are useless but are present only in the output streams with all subtitles. The forced streams are not affected. Unfortunately, BD3D2MK3D has no way to understand that these subtitles should be removed, and therefore they appear in the full stream. Of course, for a better result, it is better to remove them manually with BDSup2Sub, and remux the movie with __MUX_3D.cmd.

I don't remember if that strange subtitles were also present in the streams generated from the BD during my first encode of Avatar, but I remember that I have had many problems with the Avatar subtitles, and I've added some workarounds in BD3D2MK3D to be able to handle them. Currently, it seems that BD3D2MK3D can convert the streams successfully, but at least when converting the 3D MKV, it cannot avoid the "3D glasses" full-screen subtitles. IMO, it's the job of MakeMKV to try to export only the subtitles from the AVC M2TS and ignore the subtitles from the MVC M2TS. Since in the 3D MKV, they have been merged, BD3D2MK3D cannot distinguish them, and therefore cannot ignore them.

Anyway, on my side, I cannot do something to avoid your problems. You will have to create the forced stream manually.

[Relight]

Thanks for the step-by-step instructions! I have successfully used BDSup2Sub and then BD3D2MK3D's Convert Subtitle tool. Thanks!

[r0lZ]

OK, so you can confirm that it is possible to extract the forced subs from the complete stream ? That confirm that MakeMKV has probably a bug, perhaps only with the "difficult" Avatar subtitles.

[Relight]

As you probably know, the way MakeMKV shows subtitles is as 1 track with a nested forced track. It then puts 2 subtitle tracks into the MKV file. If there are no forced subtitles, then of course it doesn't make a second track.

I took the path of least resistance and used BDSup2Sub with the already-extracted full subtitle track from the BD3D2MK3D working project directory (which BD3D2MK3D took from the original MakeMKV MKV file). From that full subtitle track, it successfully made me a new forced-only track - it had some errors (I think related to subtitle end times), but none were critical and I guess it fixed them. And then BD3D2MK3D successfully took that new forced-only track and made the 3D subtitle as sub/ipx, which again seemed the quickest path of least resistance for playback with MPV.

Only watched half the movie so far but everything seems to be working correctly.

I did see that "3d glasses" message in BDSup2Sub, but I never saw it when I started watching the movie.

When I have some more time I will look at muxing the new subtitles into my final SBS file.

[r0lZ]

OK, thanks for the precisions.

[r0lZ]

This is an important version. The format of the input and output of the mkvtoolnix tools has radically changed in mkvtoolnix v20. Previously, it used a text format, relatively easy to parse and create. Since v20, that text format has been dropped and replaced by the JSON format. As a consequence, it was impossible to use the new version of mkvmerge with the __MUX_3D_OPTIONS.txt file produced by BD3D2MK3D. (Same thing for the two 2D versions.) And it was impossible to use the output of mkvinfo to analyse the content of the 3D MKV files created by MakeMKV. So, everything was broken, and especially the possibility to open a 3D MKV created by MakeMKV.

I have had to rewrite almost from scratch two parts of the program to make it compatible with mkvmerge and mkvinfo v20. Currently, it seems that the new BD3D2MK3D v1.7 works perfectly with mkvtoolnix v21 and v22, and should work also with future versions. (Note that mkvtoolnix v20 requires already the JSON format, but it doesn't support comments and therefore is not compatible with BD3D2MK3D v1.7.) Therefore, v1.7 is NOT compatible any more with mkvtoolnix v20 or lower. Also, although I have tested v1.7 as far as possible, I cannot be absolutely sure that the format change has not introduced new bugs. If, for any reason, you want to use v1.6 with the old mkvtoolnix exes, you can still download it here (http://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/BD3D2AVS/BD3D2MK3D_v1.6.7z). Of course, you should preferably use the latest version, and report here if you find a bug.

This version fixes also two bugs (including an important bug introduced in v1.5), and I have added a tool to check any external audio file for Cinavia (requires the free CinDe (http://cinexhd3.com) Cinavia detector installed on your computer).


v1.7 (April 24, 2018)
- Adapted the format of the _MUX_*_OPTIONS files to the new JSON input format necessary for MkvMerge v21+.
- Adapted the way the informations are retrieved from the input MKV due to the new JSON output of MkvInfo v21+.
- Bug introduced in v1.5: The complete 2D subtitle stream was muxed instead of the forced-only stream.
- Fix for new tool Combine two XMP/PNG Streams Together: The values in the <Description> section of the XML were sometimes wrong
- Added the option "Attach some project files as doc" to enable or disable the attachments in the final MKV.
- Added Tools -> Check an audio file for Cinavia (Requires CinDe.exe. See the Help menu.)
- Updated the MkvToolnix exes to the latest version (v22). ATTENTION: BD3D2MK3D REQUIRES now MkvMerge v21 or greater!
- Updated x264 to the latest version (v0.155.2901). x264 is now the same exe for 8 and 10-bit colour depth encoding.
- Updated x265 to the latest version (2.7+3)

Download latest version: BD3D2MK3D.7z (http://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/BD3D2AVS/BD3D2MK3D.7z)

[konikpolny]

Hi r0lZ,
can I ask where you get your x264 exes from?
The ones at http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/x264/binaries/ seem to be different from yours
:confused:

[r0lZ]

https://www.videohelp.com/software/x264-Encoder
There is a lot of different builds of x264 and x265, with different compilers and optimization options. It is not always easy to grab the best one, but currently, I trust VideoHelp. It links to download.videolan.org anyway.

BTW, you can easily open the download page of any external tool distributed with BD3D2MK3D with Help menu -> "[toolname] version".

[konikpolny]

:thanks:

[Actionable Mango]

I'm looking for troubleshooting advice. I imported the region locked Terminator 2 3D disc from the UK. I ran it through MakeMKV and BD3D2MK3D, then play back through Plex on the LG TV.

The problem I'm having is that the sound is wonky. Dialog and front L/R channels are very quiet and subdued. If I crank up the volume to compensate, I can hear what people are saying but there is very poor dynamic range. Almost everything sounds very damped and muted.

I say "almost" because on rare occasion there is a rear channel audio effect, and that sounds like it has normal dynamic range. And with the volume cranked way up, it is tremendously loud in relation to everything else.

So the opening battle scene in the Skynet future sounds like this:

Laser, laser, laser, gun, explosion, truck driving by, killer robots, REAR LASER BEHIND YOU, laser, laser, laser, gun, etc.

Because the disc is region locked, I cannot simply pop in the disc and see how it is natively. I did look up a review of this UK disc just to see if there was any mention of poor audio mastering, but audio actually gets high marks.

I've read before that certain HD or lossless audio types are not really supported by one or more tools in my process, and also not supported by my TV's audio return channel (ARC) to the receiver. So I tried BD3D2MK3D's audio conversion option to AAC 5.1, which I know is supported by Plex on my TV (in fact Plex even shows an AAC logo for the ripped title).

But, converted to AAC 5.1 it sounds exactly the same to me, with exactly the same problems. And the theory doesn't make much sense because other titles with HD/lossless audio sound great, or at the very least they sound adequate.

FWIW, I'm having the same or similar problem with my Dredd 3D disc rip, but other titles seem fine. I cannot figure out the difference between Dredd/Terminator 2 and all of my other 3D rips.

Any ideas?

[r0lZ]

Hum, it's the first time I hear about that problem.

Have you tried to mux the original audio (without any conversion to AAC or AC3)? You don't tell what format it is, but normally, BD3D2MK3D is able to just mux it without conversion or channel remapping. If the problem persists, then it's probably your audio decoder or the ARC that has a problem.

Anyway, I have never encountered that problem, and I can't help much more.

[tebasuna51]

Conversion between audio formats only can produce volume changes if:

1) There are a downmix between number of channels 7.1 -> 5.1 -> 2.0
Do you listen the audio with only stereo speakers?
To avoid the problem maybe you need another downmix instead the default.

2) There are differences between decoders in your audio chain.
Try muxing the original audio like r0lZ say.

[von Suppé]

Because the disc is region locked, I cannot simply pop in the disc and see how it is natively.Maybe it's in the ripping. You can try to rip the bluray to your hardrive with AnyDVD HD and than check the audio channels. AnyDVD HD will decrypt your BD and can remove region codes also.
You can download a free trial version here:
https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html

[Actionable Mango]

Thanks everyone, I am grateful to see people trying to help me.


Have you tried to mux the original audio (without any conversion to AAC or AC3)? You don't tell what format it is, but normally, BD3D2MK3D is able to just mux it without conversion or channel remapping. If the problem persists, then it's probably your audio decoder or the ARC that has a problem.

Yes, I originally ran BD3D2MK3D leaving all the streams alone (at default) like I usually do. I only ran it again a second time with AAC 5.1 conversion in BD3D2MK3D because of the bad results from the first run.


1) There are a downmix between number of channels 7.1 -> 5.1 -> 2.0
Do you listen the audio with only stereo speakers?

2) There are differences between decoders in your audio chain.
Try muxing the original audio like r0lZ say.

Thanks for some ideas.

1) The English sound track on the disc is DTS-HDMA 5.1 and I have 5.1 system.

2) I think that's definitely true of the AAC, but I did try the original audio first.

Maybe it's in the ripping. You can try to rip the bluray to your hardrive with AnyDVD HD and than check the audio channels. AnyDVD HD will decrypt your BD and can remove region codes also.
You can download a free trial version here:
https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html

Thanks for that I will give this a try this weekend.

[r0lZ]

Maybe it's in the ripping.
I don't think so. The ripping can fail, but normally, it has no way to change the volume of some channels only within an audio track. As far as I know, nothing is modified during the decrypting and demux processes.
Anyway, I agree that doing a test with AnyDVD worth it.

[von Suppé]

Normally both AnyDVD and MakeMKV do a perfect job. I think highly of both.
Though, I do remember having issues with one (of both of them) where the other tool helped me out.

[Ant Man]

Hello, rOIZ...

First, let me say how much I appreciate your work on this program and your dedication to the community of folks who use and enjoy it!

I have been using BD3D2MK3D for a couple of years and have never had any problems getting it to work until now. After I downloaded version 1.7 I've been getting the error message: "H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) encoder has stopped working". This happens when I try to run BD3D2MK3D on an MVC 3D file created by MakeMKV. Can you offer any suggestions about things I may be doing wrong to cause this to happen?

Thank you very much.

Ant Man

[r0lZ]

Welcome to the Doom 9 forums, Ant Man.

Unfortunately, I have never seen this error myself, although some other users have has similar problems (see here (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1826483#post1826483) and here (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1836360#post1836360)). Since I can't reproduce the crash, I don't know how to solve it.

Perhaps it's something wrong with the version of x264 distributed with BD3D2MK3D. Try to download an older version (here (https://www.videohelp.com/software/x264-Encoder)) or the very latest one. Overwrite the x264_x64.exe in the toolset folder with the version you have just downloaded and relaunch __ENCODE_3D_LAUNCHER.cmd.

If that doesn't work, perhaps there is a bug in the current version of MakeMKV. I have already received some complains about MakeMKV not working correctly any more, but it is difficult for me to verify if it is really the culprit. Anyway, if a new version is available, try it.

You can also try to change the settings of the MVC decoder to check if the same problem happens when using DGMVCSource instead of FRIMSource (or the opposite). Try also to disable the hardware acceleration of the MVC decoder. (See the Settings -> MVC Decoder menu.) You will have to relaunch the creation of the project to check the new settings. Try to do some tests with a short clip.

Disabling the hw acceleration has been sufficient to solve the problem for at least one person (see here (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1827655#post1827655)), so try that anyway. If disabling it solved the problem, that may mean that your Intel CPU drivers are outdated. Check if an update is available.

Good luck! In the meantime, I will do some tests here, but I think that everything will be fine. Of course, if you find the origin of the problem, please report it here. Thanks in advance.

BTW, I will be in holidays during June, and I will probably be unable to reply here. Sorry in advance if I can't help you during that period.

[r0lZ]

Just some hints to facilitate your tests with the other MVC decoder or with hardware acceleration enabled or disabled, without having to relaunch the creation of the whole project each times.

Edit the file __ENCODE_3D_MOVIE.avs with any text editor. You will see lines similar to this:

#LoadPlugin("D:\Tcl\work\BD3D2MK3D\toolset\FRIMSource.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\Tcl\work\BD3D2MK3D\toolset\DGMVCDecode.dll")

[...]

# Load the two video streams (114391 frames per stream)
#interleaved = FRIMSource("mvc", "01001.track_4113.264", "01001.track_4114.mvc", num_frames = 114391, cache = 2, platform = "")
interleaved = DGMVCSource("01001.track_4113.264", "01001.track_4114.mvc", view = 0, frames = 114391, mode = "auto") # Old syntax for mode: hw = 0


The code above uses DGMVCSource as the MVC decoder. To check with FRIMSource, just comment out the two lines with "DGMVC" and uncomment the two lines with "FRIM", like this:

LoadPlugin("D:\Tcl\work\BD3D2MK3D\toolset\FRIMSource.dll")
#LoadPlugin("D:\Tcl\work\BD3D2MK3D\toolset\DGMVCDecode.dll")

[...]

# Load the two video streams (114391 frames per stream)
interleaved = FRIMSource("mvc", "01001.track_4113.264", "01001.track_4114.mvc", num_frames = 114391, cache = 2, platform = "")
#interleaved = DGMVCSource("01001.track_4113.264", "01001.track_4114.mvc", view = 0, frames = 114391, mode = "auto") # Old syntax for mode: hw = 0

To turn off the hardware acceleration for DGMVCSource, you have to change the mode = "auto" or mode = "hw" parameter to mode = "sw".

For FRIMSource, change platform = "" or platform = "hw" to platform = "sw".

Then, relaunch __ENCODE_3D_LAUNCHER.cmd. If that works, don't forget to change the setting in the BD3D2MK3D GUI, and let me know...

[Ant Man]

Thanks very much for these suggestions, rOIZ. I will give them a try.

Ant Man

[Ant Man]

Hello again, rOIZ...

Well I feel very embarrassed. After trying a few of your suggestions I decided to take a look at my AviSynth installation and it turned out I had been trying to make BD3D2MK3D work with AviSynth 2.5.8. I uninstalled 2.5.8 and installed 2.6 and all returned to normal.

Thanks again for trying to help me, I really appreciate it.

I hope you have a great time on your vacation!

Ant Man

[r0lZ]

No problem. And it is good to know that old versions of avisynth are not compatible. I did not know that.

Have nice encodings!

[ggtop]

Hi r0lZ,

first time user here. I read about the requirement to have Java installed for certain functions.
Now my question if there is a way to point BD3D2MK3D to a portable Java version. Maybe through editing an ini file as it surely won't be detected automatically.

Hope this hasn't been asked and answered several times...

Thanks,
ggtop

[r0lZ]

It's possible, yes.
Be sure to close BD3D2MK3D. Then, open BD3D2MK3D.cfg (in the program's directory) and edit the following line:

set ::config(javapath) {C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_171\bin\java.exe}

Paste your path to java.exe between the {}.
That should work.

[ggtop]

Thank you. It works. First I re-enabled the Java check through setting:
set ::config(nojavawarning) false
and then entered the path:
set ::config(javapath) K:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\Java\bin\java.exe}

Hope I can try the final file on the weekend.

Thanks,
ggtop

[r0lZ]

set ::config(javapath) K:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\Java\bin\java.exe}

Take care. The opening { is missing. Without it, BD3D2MK3D may not start, and the path will not be taken into account anyway.

[ggtop]

Eagle eye :-)
Obviously I missed it when pasting into the code block. "{" is there. Thank you for looking into it.

ggtop

[WhoIsRich]

First, thank you for making this tool, it's been very helpful converting my 3D blurays to a format that works on VR headsets.

As other seem to have experienced, occasionally I would find encoding failed from X264 crashing.
By repeatedly running and closing the launcher bat, I could trigger this randomly but frequent enough to test.
So I went through the parameters to see if changing them made a difference, and this was what I found:

In __ENCODE_3D_MOVIE.avs there is a line generated that looks like this:


interleaved = FRIMSource("mvc", "00800.track_4113.264", "00800.track_4114.mvc", num_frames = 137995, cache = 2, platform = "")


According to the 'FRIMSource_readme.pdf' when MVC is used, the layout parameter is mandatory, so I changed the line:


interleaved = FRIMSource("mvc", "00800.track_4113.264", "00800.track_4114.mvc", num_frames = 137995, cache = 2, platform = "", layout = "alt")


After this the crashing stopped, and more importantly, removing it caused the crashing to return!
It would be great if you could make a version that includes layout for further testing.
Another minor observation, in the Help, About, it says use Avisynth 2.5 instead of 2.6.0

[Pino72]

Hi,

I manage to convert 3D Bluray no problem but would like to crop in my case the roque one video from 1920x1080 to 1920x800 (2.40 AR). When I use the crop paramter for x.264 it takes away 140 from top and bottom of entire 3D file which would normally be with a 100% TAB 1902x2160. I want 1920x1600 but not cropped from top and bottom but top and bottom from both pictures. I hope I made myself clear.

Normally I use dvdfab but it does not work properly with this 3D Bluray and gives me a skip in video/audio after a couple of seconds.

So how can I crop from left and right eye picture the black bars and not from the whole TAB Picture?

Otherwise working really good inlcuding rendering forced subs into video, I like alot! Thanks.

Cheers

[r0lZ]

Welcome to the Doom9 forums, WhoIsRich, and sorry for replying so late. I have not been notified of your post.

It would be great if you could make a version that includes layout for further testing.
Not sure why the layout argument is mandatory, but I can easily add it. Thanks for the suggestion.
[EDIT] I did some tests with layout = "alt" and it works well. But I have never experienced crashes without that argument, so I can't judge its usefulness.
According to the doc, it is necessary only to properly synchronize the audio and video, but since the avisynth script generated by BD3D2MK3D drops the audio, it should be useless. I added it in my code anyway, because it doesn't hurt, and it is possible that it fixes some random crashes, although I don't understand why (since the default layout is alt anyway).


Another minor observation, in the Help, About, it says use Avisynth 2.5 instead of 2.6.0
Oops, yes, I will fix that too.

Thanks!

[r0lZ]

Welcome to the Doom9 forums, Pino72!
So how can I crop from left and right eye picture the black bars and not from the whole TAB Picture?
Sorry. I have already explained several times why it's a very, VERY bad idea to crop a 3D movie. I will not repeat the 1000 arguments against cropping again (see here (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1754710#post1754710) and here (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1697804#post1697804) for some), but take in mind that the de-facto standard for 3D REQUIRES a 16:9 picture. Dot. Everything else should be prohibited.

So, sorry, but although it is possible to add a crop in the avisynth script (and modify a couple of other files to take it into account), I will not explain how to do it, because I don't want to encourage you (and possibly other peoples) to do it. And if DVDFab lets you crop 3D videos, stop using it!

[Pino72]

Fine for me, never had any problems with 2.40 AR 3D Full TAB mkv's in PowerDVD or Kodi etc. If it's too much of a hassle to crop I will leave it uncropped when using your tool no prob.

[r0lZ]

Thanks for understanding.

I agree that most software players can play cropped 3D movies without too many problems. But most 3D TVs (including probably all Samsung TVs) need the full 16:9 picture, as otherwise they stretch it to occupy the whole screen, and of course, the image is terribly deformed. Perhaps you will buy later a 3D TV that will be incompatible with your cropped movies. Too bad!

Also, the 3D subtitles are positioned for the native 16:9 image, and if you crop it, the player doesn't know where they should be positioned. As a consequence, they are usually shown at a wrong position, and it's terrible for 3D subtitles, as they may be "inside" an object in the foreground of the scene. (And if I implement cropping in BD3D2MK3D, I will be forced to add the code to compute the new positions of all subtitles and to modify the subtitle streams accordingly. Useless and tedious job for me.)

Another argument is that displaying 3D is relatively difficult with the cheap processors of most 3D TVs, and 3D requires precise timings, especially for active 3D glasses. The 3D TVs are optimized for a full 16:9 picture, and are often unable to synchronize correctly the two views when the video has been cropped.

There are many other arguments, and last but not least, it is useless to crop the black borders, as they are extremely easy to compress and do not consume much disc space.

[Pino72]

Since 3D for new TV's is more or less dead it is a non issue for the future. I always render forced subs into video so no positioning problems :)

The information of having a 21:9 AR is important if you have an automatic screen masking when using a projector e.g. Otherwise of course no need to crop it.

In terms of encoding speed or getting smaller file sizes the black bars are really not making any sort of difference worth mentioning in my view.

[WhoIsRich]

Welcome to the Doom9 forums, WhoIsRich, and sorry for replying so late. I have not been notified of your post.

Thank you :) I also didn't get notified of your reply, but did for the people before and after.

I can only speculate that the PDF mentions the param doubles an internal cache, which may only affect certain systems.

But I have a stack of blurays to convert, so will give them a go when you release a new version and see what happens...

[vadlerg]

In your example, the HD full-T&B 3D movie MUST have the resolution 1920x2160. Everything else is wrong. Dot.

Note also that BD3D2MK3D sets the correct aspect ratio in the video stream (SAR) and in the MKV container (PAR). But most TVs do not take them into account.

Excuse me r0lZ to coming back to this question but made some tests again with this amazing BD3D2MK3D tool creating Half-T&B 1920x1080 movies playing nice 60 fps according to my 4K passive 3D TV set. Creating encode with StackVertical(Left,Right) and SAR 1:2 I get an 1920:2160 encode which is playing 24 fps according to the TV info displayed.
I'm not fully convinced about the Full-T&B's superior quality. Is the displayed fps per eye or per full frame to understand in this case? Full-T&B encode is nearly double size. May Full-T&B inferior in quality in this case?

[r0lZ]

There are two things to consider: Half vs Full and SBS vs T&B.

Obviously, the Full resolution is better than Half, as there are no "lost pixels" during the encoding. But as you have noticed, the rendering may be slower, depending of your TV set. I suppose that it's because the TV needs more memory for its image buffers when handling Full-SBS/T&B. As a consequence, it cannot show the images at the same frame rate, and it cannot interpolate them. You may see a slight flickering when you watch the movie. In the other hand, the resolution is better. You have to decide what you prefer.

Theoretically, Full-SBS and Full-T&B (and Frame Sequential) are strictly identical in term of quality and resolution. The TV must split the combined image in two views anyway, and dividing the original image vertically or horizontally doesn't matter.

For Half-SBS and Half-T&B, the resolution is divided by two in one direction only, and that direction may have an effect on certain TVs. It is often recommended to use Half-SBS for active TVs and Half-T&B for passive TVs. Personally, I prefer Half-SBS for my active Samsung TV, mainly because horizontal lines with high contrast (like the horizon of a landscape under the sun or the baseline of the text of the credits) are more frequent than contrasted vertical lines, and the less good vertical resolution of Half-T&B may make that horizontal lines flicker somewhat. I have never noticed that problem with Half-SBS.

If Half-T&B is often recommended for passive TVs, I think it's because the LG TVs use all even lines with a specific polarization for one view, and all odd lines with the opposite polarisation for the other view. As a consequence, the LG TVs are forced to divide the vertical resolution by 2 anyway, and if you encode in Half-SBS, the resolution is cut by 2 during the encoding and again by 2 during the projection. With Half-T&B, the problem is less important. But I've read somewhere that LG has released expensive TVs that can display all lines in both polarization. Of course, with that TVs, no resolution is lost during the rendering, and Half-SBS and Half-T&B should be equivalent. It's probably also the case for UHD TVs, where there are two times the number of lines and columns anyway.

So, IMO, there is no absolute truth. You may prefer Half or Full and SBS or T&B depending of your equipment, the context (the ambiant light is very important to minimize the flickering effect), and your eyes. I can only recommend to do some tests with a short movie, and watch them without prejudice. It's why BD3D2MK3D has the possibility to encode in that 4 modes (plus Frame Sequential, necessary mainly for some old projectors).