Ltooz
Building, Fixing and Improving Stuff...
BLU-RAY & HD-DVD & AVCHD FOR HTPC
It's December 08, I have some spare time to learn how to back up Blu-ray/Hd DVDs and create AVCHD for my HTPC.
In order for the HTPC to play hi-definition 720p, 1080i, or 1080p movies, the graphic card must be able to display 1920x1080 resolution and has something called HDCP (high bandwidth content protection) compliance. So, my stellar 2 year old ATI XT850XT platinum doesn't seem to fit the requirements with POWERDVD 7.3 but it works with WINDVD9. Since there are only Blu-ray DVDs on the market now, we will concentrate on blu-ray and MKV. Mkv is the format for smaller hd video files which can be burned to blu-ray/avchd profile dvd9/5 to play in blu-ray DVD players? BTW when you watch HD movies already, you don't want to even watch regular DVD. If we plan to do blu-ray shrinking, we do need a very fast computer. It can do 20gb m2ts to mkv 7.7gb 1920x1080 in less than 5 hours compared to AMD(x2 6000+) or Core 2 duo e4300 (3ghz) @ minimum of 10-14 hours.
1. Play 1920x1080 or 1280x720 movies from my HTPC.
2. Back-up my Blu-ray, HD-DVD to hard drive or SL,DL DVD-R. Shrink & recode off resolutions MKVs to DVD5 and standard HD using Handbrake9.3 with subtitles.
3. Create home AVCHD, Blu-ray movies from PICTURES & AVCHD movie camera using Corel Studio 11.5 Plus (old version).
4. Create OTA (over the air) HD shows & movies in AVCHD or Blu-ray.
* PLUS TV PCI card for $29.99 @ Fry's electronics and it's HD OTA recordable. It's easy to use, easy to install and it's better than the HDTV wonder from ATI. I recorded shows and make AVCHD & blu-ray disc. They look great.
*I got the LG blu-ray, Hd-DVD player for $100 at Fry's electronics. It came with POWERDVD7.3 which plays Blu-ray & HD-dvd & AVCHD discs. Don't upgrade to any newer version or patch because the newer one doesn't read the blu-ray or AVCHD disc we make later. I found out after a few trials and errors. Windvd9 is better but it doesn't have plugins to use with REMOTE WONDER, the POWERDVD has.
To make home HD movies, we need hardware and software. Since the AVCHD video camera are still in the $600, I got a digital camera with HD movie capability for $239 from Amazon which is amazing Panasonic DMC-FZ28k. This is a great camera and HD movie recorder. Software needed for making/remaking Blu-ray or AVCHD discs are:
Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 plus (Old version) that only sold in Amazon for $29.99 which is a great software and it came with WINDVD8 which plays (shrunk) blu-ray movies nicely.
AVCHD USING STUDIO 11.5 PLUS
Using Studio 11.5 Plus to make AVCHD with 1280x720 *.mov & pictures from Panasonic FZ18K (this is a great camera with HD video capability).
Load all pictures and movie .mov from SD card to a local folder in a local hard drive. Edit all the pictures if necessary.
Open studio 11.5 plus
Uncheck 16:9 and select VideoStudio Editor
Edit the preference for pictures and transitions as default for all project.
Select Video tap, right click and select insert video to select all *.mov files.
]
Browse to movie folder and select all
All the clips thumbnails will show on the working panel. Select the clip that begins the movie or select all, press control and click on the video thumb nails to select multiple files.
then right click, select insert to "video track".
All Clips will be displayed on the video track with random transition as in preference.
Click the time view (next to the audio icon) to display all tracks.
To add title to the project, make sure the cursor is in the beginning of the movie, select title tap and the title design
To cut unwanted clip inside the video, move the cursor to the beginning of the unwanted frame and click the cut icon (scissors)
Now the cut split the video into 2 parts, move the cursor up to the end of the unwanted frame and click the cut icon to split the video again.
Now click the clip in the middle which is the one that we don't want and hit delete button or right click and select delete, the part that is selected will be yellow.
Now the unwanted clip is gone and we have the wanted front, joint with wanted back.
Wow, how easy can that be to edit video clip in this program. In case we delete the wrong clip, click edit and undo cut a few times until the original one comes back
After editing the Video and we want to add some high resolution pictures with this movie, select the image tap, and do the same as video section: right click the panel -->insert image -> browse the pictures folder and select all the pictures we want. Make sure the cursor is at the end of the video track, select all the pictures and insert to video
Now we have video and pictures and all the transitions, we want to add music to the video. Select audio tap and again browse to the audio folder, select all the songs we want and start insert into the music track.
Choose the songs to fit the length of the movie and when everything is done, we should have all tracks.
If we don't want the music is to loud over powered the original audio recorded, we can lower the volume of the music track at any position by adjusting the volume % until we're happy with the total sound of the movie.
When Video, Pictures, Title, Audio is done, we need to output this to AVCHD, Click Share, Create video file, select hdv720 for pc
Save file and let it to render the movie.
MAKING AVCHD DISC to play in blu-ray players.
After making all these HD movies in mpg format. These files are very inefficient, they're big and wasteful. We need to covert them to MKV and use Tsmuxer to make AVCHD structure to burn to DVD5/9. We can use MKVtoolnix to merge many movies together or we can use AVCHDdecode for menu.
We can use ripbot264 or Handbrake9.3 to do this. If we want to have one with menu, then use this software AVCHDdecode (free) which is every efficient although beta and we can't name the titles in the menu.
Start the program
When done, just burn the ISO to DVD using ImgBurn
Cheers,
Load all pictures and movie .mov from SD card to a local folder in a local hard drive. Edit all the pictures if necessary.
Open studio 11.5 plus
Uncheck 16:9 and select VideoStudio EditorEdit the preference for pictures and transitions as default for all project.
Select Video tap, right click and select insert video to select all *.mov files.
]Browse to movie folder and select all
All the clips thumbnails will show on the working panel. Select the clip that begins the movie or select all, press control and click on the video thumb nails to select multiple files.
then right click, select insert to "video track".
All Clips will be displayed on the video track with random transition as in preference.
Click the time view (next to the audio icon) to display all tracks.
To add title to the project, make sure the cursor is in the beginning of the movie, select title tap and the title design
To cut unwanted clip inside the video, move the cursor to the beginning of the unwanted frame and click the cut icon (scissors)
Now the cut split the video into 2 parts, move the cursor up to the end of the unwanted frame and click the cut icon to split the video again.
Now click the clip in the middle which is the one that we don't want and hit delete button or right click and select delete, the part that is selected will be yellow.
Now the unwanted clip is gone and we have the wanted front, joint with wanted back.
Wow, how easy can that be to edit video clip in this program. In case we delete the wrong clip, click edit and undo cut a few times until the original one comes back
After editing the Video and we want to add some high resolution pictures with this movie, select the image tap, and do the same as video section: right click the panel -->insert image -> browse the pictures folder and select all the pictures we want. Make sure the cursor is at the end of the video track, select all the pictures and insert to video
Now we have video and pictures and all the transitions, we want to add music to the video. Select audio tap and again browse to the audio folder, select all the songs we want and start insert into the music track.
Choose the songs to fit the length of the movie and when everything is done, we should have all tracks.
If we don't want the music is to loud over powered the original audio recorded, we can lower the volume of the music track at any position by adjusting the volume % until we're happy with the total sound of the movie.
When Video, Pictures, Title, Audio is done, we need to output this to AVCHD, Click Share, Create video file, select hdv720 for pc
Save file and let it to render the movie.
MAKING AVCHD DISC to play in blu-ray players.
After making all these HD movies in mpg format. These files are very inefficient, they're big and wasteful. We need to covert them to MKV and use Tsmuxer to make AVCHD structure to burn to DVD5/9. We can use MKVtoolnix to merge many movies together or we can use AVCHDdecode for menu.
We can use ripbot264 or Handbrake9.3 to do this. If we want to have one with menu, then use this software AVCHDdecode (free) which is every efficient although beta and we can't name the titles in the menu.
Start the program
When done, just burn the ISO to DVD using ImgBurn
Cheers,
KWORLD PLUS TV HD120
This is the easiest HD TV tuner I've installed in PC. Just install the card in one of the empty PCI slot, connect the OTA (over the air) HD antenna, load the software from the CD, follow the instruction and you're watching and recording TV shows in HD without hanging up or tuning unlike ATI HDTV WONDER. Although it comes with a functional remote but it doesn't have many features like the REMOTE WONDER which I've been using for years. Its remote will play the recorded shows and automatically insert chapters at the commercials so you can skip them which I think very convenient.
The recorded shows are in MPEG-2 format .mpg which is ready to be converted to Blu-ray, AVCHD discs using TSremux or can be edited with VideoStudio 11.5 plus and burn into AVCHD SL or DL DVD to watch in Blu-ray players. I do like to use VideoStudio 11.5 plus to cut out the commercials before making it into a AVCHD.
The recorded shows are in MPEG-2 format .mpg which is ready to be converted to Blu-ray, AVCHD discs using TSremux or can be edited with VideoStudio 11.5 plus and burn into AVCHD SL or DL DVD to watch in Blu-ray players. I do like to use VideoStudio 11.5 plus to cut out the commercials before making it into a AVCHD.
BACK UP BLU RAY N HD TO MKV & AVCHD DVD5/9
After a few months of trials and errors, I came up with a simple way of shrinking Blu-ray/HD dvds to DVD9/5 which can play in Blu-Ray players for faster loading and playing (compared to the original discs); and MKV files for PC and HD DVDs to play with regular PC DVD players. To get a blu-ray drive, we recommend our GL H20L. model. This model has a patch to read most of the blu-ray discs. To simplify the Blu-ray Backup/Shinking process, here are the steps:
1. Transfer video from disc to hard drive (AnyDvd) or (Decryption).
2. Identify the M2TS main movie: single file or fragmented files (need BDedit to find the playlist and Tsmuxer to mux them).
3. Eliminate Tracks that we don't need (audio, subtitles) using Tsmuxer.
4. If back up blu-ray then use Tsmuxer to create blu-ray disc and burn, the file now should be less than 25GB.
5. If shrinking then use ripbot264 or Handbrake to shrink video/audio. Use Tsmuxer to extract subtitles or default Eng in ripbot264.
6. Subtitle for MKV only in SRT. Use suprip to get this SRT from SUP.
7. MKV: use MKVtoolnix to merge SRT & MKV.
8. AVCHD: use Tsmuxer to create AVCHD structure folder from MKV & SUP (not SRT although it would work also) and burn using ImgBurn. This DVD5/9 will load and play faster in blu-ray player due to the size and still keep the great resolution. The Tsmuxer only work with MKV with correct resolution 1920x1080 or 1280x720, it doesn't seem to work with 1280 x528 or anything less than 720. Anyhow, these resolutions we only see exist in MKVs that people downloaded from the internet. If we want to burn to AVCHD dvd, we need to convert to 1280 x 720 using Handbrake9.3 (read the section).
Must have software:
1. AnyDVD(demo then pay): We need this software to transfer Blu-ray dvd contents to hard drives.
2. Tsmuxer(Free): We need this software to choose the track options in the blu-ray movies like English audio, subtitles and discard all the ones we don't need to have a smaller size HD movies.
3. Ripbot264(Free): We need this software to convert M2TS to MKV (shrink HD movies).
Handbrake 9.3(Free): This software is faster than Ripbot264, but it doesn't work on some formats and DTS. We use this one most of the time now.
4. Suprip(Free): We need this software to convert blu-ray subtitle .sup to SRT subtitle .srt to merge with MKV and DVDs.
5. meGUI(Free): We need this to convert DTS audio to AC3 for smaller audio file and still 5.1 .
6. eac3to(Free) & EAC3toGUI(Free): We need this software to convert DTS+TruHD audio which meGUI can't do to convert Audio to AC3 5.1.
7. MKVtoolnix(Free): We need this software to merge MKV + SRT (subtitle).
8. ImgBurn(Free): We need this software to burn MKV to DVD9(8.5GB) or DVD5(4.7GB) to play in blu-ray players with UDF2.5.
9. VSOconvertxtoDVD: We want this software to convert M2TS or MKV HD to HD DVD5/9 (720x480).
10. Blu-ray Players:
PowerDVD7.3 : We need this to play blu-ray structured format DVD like our burned HD DVD9/5 and ISO.
WINDVD8 or 9: We need this to play blu-ray structured format DVD same as POWERDVD7.3.
11. MKV players:
BSplayer (Free): We need this to play MKV files.
SMPLAYER(Free): We need this to play MKV files.
GOM Player(Free): Good player for MKV.
VLC Player(Free): Plays MKV files.
ZOOM player: We need this to play MKV files.
12. 7-Zip(Free): We need this to unzip some downloaded files.
13. DaemonTool: We need this to have virtual blu-ray drive to mount ISO blu-ray to play on PC (we prefer this one).
14. Virtual Clone Drive: We need this to have virtual blu-ray drive on the PC (this one doesn't work in Winxp64).
15. UDF 2.5 driver. I don't know how I stumbled into one, but you need it to see the content of the blu-ray. Without this, you can only see blu-ray drive as a cd drive with unsupported format in it.
1 ANYDVD 6.5.2.2 (MKBv12) This program is to transfer the contents of DVD to hard drive.Right click on the systray icon and select DVD to Harddisk, chose the folder where the files will be transferred to. Anydvd default @ my document.
2. TsMUXER: This program to mux/demux all the streams. We use this to eliminate all the unwanted streams in the movie file. First we need to locate the main movie file in the BDMV/STREAM folder (normally the biggest file). Sometimes, the movie is splitted into many smaller m2ts files, we need to use BDedit to find the play list and the TsMuxer can open that list to merge them all together into a final m2ts file (Ratatouille).
In this case, we only select the VIDEO, AC3 640 (NOT TRUE-HD) and subtitle (ENG) only.
In case of Ratatouille, BDedit found the playlist and TsMuxer opens the playlist and loads all video files.
If we have the new version of TSMUXER, we should use AVCHD profile and we can adjust the display of the subtitle. Set to 0 or 15 from bottom so the subtitle doesn't interfere too much with the screen. I noticed the difference between blu-ray and AVCHD discs is the movie M2TS = 00000.m2ts instead of 00001.m2ts. Some of the blu-ray players and the powerdvd7.3 (upgrade) or 8 may not play the blu-ray (DVD) but will play the AVCHD (DVD).
So we can remux to 1 m2ts file or 1 blu-ray disk structure to burn into a Blu-ray disc or ISO in PC. In case we want to shrink the HD movie to a smaller file to burn to DVD5/9 and still keep great video resolutions 1080 or 720 then we remux to m2ts file. Actually, we don't even have to remux to anything, just use the original m2ts file in its folder if we want to shrink it (unless it's like Ratatouille fragmented files).
3. Now we have M2TS main movie file and we want to shink it down to DVD5/9 or make MKV movie out of it. The software we preferred is RIPBOT264. Ripbot264 is a very easy GUI type software that converts M2TS file to MKV in 1 step. We must have at a fast and potent computer to shrink M2TS from 20GB to 5-7GB. We recommend at least core 2 duo @ 3GHZ or Quad core 2 duo. AMD is too slow for this type. Yes, we use AMD x2 to run HTPC because ATI has great graphic chips, but we use core 2 duo E4300 OC to 3GHZ to shrink the movie. We're thinking about upgrade this to Q9400 or I7, but I7 doesn't OC well as we speak. It does take longer for RIPBOT to demux the M2TS: video, audio (down convert) & sup than if we demux them. The only problem is that RIPBOT can't read VC1 video stream that some of the blu-ray movies have. The best is to check with Tsmuxer, if it's H264 video format, then we can demux it first, convert DTS or Tru-HD audio to 640kb AC3, then load them in the RIPBOT. This will save a few hours. Normally, this process will take at least 10 hours for 94minutes movies.If we don't want to save time, we can just use RIPBOT264 to load the original M2TS file and let it demux the stream and down convert the audio automatically, it would take a good 20minutes to demux all these streams into default folder c:\temp\ripbot264\job1. We need to go here to get the .sup (subtitle) file to convert it to SRT before the program finishes. When it finishes, all content of temp folder is removed automatically.
DEMUX streams VIDEO, AUDIO, SUP with Tsmuxer:
CONVERT DTS audio to 640KB 5.1 AC3 using EAC3TO GUI & PROGRAM
Now we have a smaller file which is 5.1 @640KB will play with all players.
Now we can load .264 video, 640ac3 into RIPBOT. Use the add button to add file and make sure we select MKV.
It does take a good 5-15minutes to index the video file, be patient. Select 2pass, since the time to render from 6M to 8M is not much different, I always use 8192KBPS and make sure the size is not over 7500MB (dvd9). With movies that are 2hr or longer, we may have to lock the size to 7500MB and it will automatically reduce the KBPS to 6M-7M. Like in this case 1:37 long = 6165MB @ 8192. The resolution is 1920x1080 and the pictures will come out as good as the original 20GB. We can resize it to 720P if we want, but why use the same time to have lower resolution movie? Between 6Mbs & 8Mbs for real actors/actresses movies, it's very hard to tell the difference in quality, if setting 6M to get 4.1GB to fit in a DVD5, we would do it. And make sure we lock the size at 4.1GB, because after muxing it to a blu-ray structure with SUP (subtitle), it would come up to about 4.3GB (barely fit in DVD5).
When we are happy with all the settings, then just check the shutdown when done and hits start and go to sleep or something.
HANDBRAKE 9.3. This is a great program to encode M2TS to MKV if it can read the file. The only problem is that if we want DTS audio, this one doesn't produce it and it doesn't even transcode DTS to AC3. We use ripbot264 to extract and transcode audio DTS and True-HD and subtitle (SUP), all these files will be in C:\temp\ripbot264\job1 after it analyzed the M2TS (copy them to the movie folder for future use).
Open Handbrake program.
Load Video file = M2TS (main movie from Tsmuxer)
Select the output folder and the file name, make sure extension .MKV is selected.
On Picture Settings, either select Anamorphic "strict" = the same as source or "NONE" to any resolution we want. We set default to NONE 1920x1080.
Video section, the higher Avg Bitrate the better the quality. For 1920x1080 (8000 is optimal) but we can set the target size if the movie is 2hours long. For DVD9 without audio 6.5GB (look at the audio file in ripbot264 size add with this to be about 7.7GB max to be safe in DVD9 8.5GB) or 4.1GB (total video+audio) DVD5.
If the movie has DTS or True-HD audio and NONE AC3, then select NONE because we will use the Audio extracted from Ripbot264 to merge with our MKV.
We DON'T select subtitle because it will be hard coded into the MKV. We will merge with SRT when this is done so we can select or deselect subtitle. After everything is done, click start and CLI window will pop up and just wait for the program to do its thing. When the CLI window closes, that's when the encoding is done.
For those downloaded PAL mkv from the internet with resolution of 1280 x 528 or some cropped resolutions, if you want to resize (DVD5) with subtitle, you need to recode the movie to 1280 x 720 for the subtitle to display properly, otherwise, you will have an AVCHD DVD without subtitle even the DVD has subtitle in it.
To fit into DVD5 you need to set the target size of 4200MB.
Select the Audio to make sure.
When done, just use Tsmuxer to merge the SRT to AVCHD.
Set font to 48 to make it smaller and offset from bottom to 0
When done just burn to DVD5 and blu-ray player will have subtitle.
So, how fast is Handbrake compares to Ripbot264. We tested a 830Mb M2TS 1920x1080.
Handbrake9.3 (5minutes48seconds) Ripbot264(6minutes43seconds)
The difference is only 1 minute, but with 20GB movie, we will save approximately 1 to 1.5 hours although we have to merge MKV and audio to Handbrake when needed, but merging is about 3-5 minutes max.
While we're waiting for the ripbo264 or Handbrake to do their things, we can use suprip (su"p" not su"b") to convert .sup to .srt for MKV movie.
Click OCR and suprip will show which word it can't detect and we have to manually type it in. In this case "f" is not recognized.
This will take a while to manually replacing the unknown characters, but when it's done, it will be nice in your MKV movie after muxing.Special characters can be found in the character map, just find it, select it, copy and past into the replacement window and hit OK.
Make sure they finished before saving it. We make a habit of checking it twice before saving.
After everything is done. We will have MKV file + .srt file. To merge them together, we need MKVtoolnix = MKVmerge. Every stream, we should select the language so when it's played, the streams are defined as "engligh" or any language we chose at the time of merging.
Now we have a full blown 1080p MKV file with subtitle embedded to play with all the player listed above. One good thing about this MKV file is that we can use this file to create AVCHD version DVD9/5 of the movie to play in most of blu-ray players out there. We can also make the blu-ray structure files to burn ISO and we can play with POWERDVD7.3 or WINDVD8 or 9 in the PC. By using the Tsmuxer, we can create blu-ray disk with chapter for every 5 minutes or whatever we want with subtitle. The subtitle for blu-ray will be the original ".sup" file that we demuxed from the beginning. If we're lazy we can just use the ".srt" already embedded in the MKV we just did. Open the Tsmuxer, add the MKV file, add the .sup file, make sure we select the language "eng" and select create blu-ray, chose a folder name and start muxing. When it's done, we should have a folder with all the necessary files to burn to DVD9/5 or ISO. The next software needed is the IMGburn (system UDF 2.5) to burn ISO or DVD9/5 blu-ray.
IMGBURN HOW TO
Set the speed lower to burn better. DVD9 is 8x, set it at 6x. DVD5 @18x set it at x12.
Select folders and set UDF 2.5
SO, with this DVD9/5 blu-ray, we can also make MKV out of it too in case later our hard drive died and we have no back up. Instead of losing hours of making the original 20GB back to smaller5-7GB, we can just put these DVD9/5 blu-ray in our DVD drive, demux the streams into VIDEO (m2ts),Audio (AC3), SRT, SUP, then use MKVmerge and merge the 3 files together VIDEO (m2ts),Audio(AC3), SRT. When you open the m2ts file, MKVmerge may not be able to detect the fps and will default it to 24fps, we need to select 24000/1001 to get 23.973fps, other than that, we will have our MKV movie with subtitle again. Isn't that nice????
Now, since blu-ray DVD9/5 can't be used in portable DVD player that our kids use on trips, we need to convert this MKV with subtitle to DVD 720x480 format, but amazingly, their pictures are much better than the regular DVDs. We need to use
VSO-CONVERTXtoDVD program.
Use High quality, if the movie is less than 100 minutes, DVD5 will have excellent quality, if longer use DVD9. But the software will notify if the quality is excellent or GOOD. Always use excellent settings.
If we used the MKV file that has subtitle built in, it will show as 1 subtitle
We want subtitle to display to the bottom of the screen, we can edit here using safe area. Click Subtitle text settings
We use 49 is the best location.
Unclick the burn option. It doesn't do very well. After the movie is done, use IMGburn or NERO to burn to DVD.
Set up all settings once and use it over and over.
When it's done, just go to working folder and burn the VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS to DVD using NERO or IMGBURN, the structure will be different and so the system file will NOT be UDF 2.5.
Cheers,
3/12/09
1. Transfer video from disc to hard drive (AnyDvd) or (Decryption).
2. Identify the M2TS main movie: single file or fragmented files (need BDedit to find the playlist and Tsmuxer to mux them).
3. Eliminate Tracks that we don't need (audio, subtitles) using Tsmuxer.
4. If back up blu-ray then use Tsmuxer to create blu-ray disc and burn, the file now should be less than 25GB.
5. If shrinking then use ripbot264 or Handbrake to shrink video/audio. Use Tsmuxer to extract subtitles or default Eng in ripbot264.
6. Subtitle for MKV only in SRT. Use suprip to get this SRT from SUP.
7. MKV: use MKVtoolnix to merge SRT & MKV.
8. AVCHD: use Tsmuxer to create AVCHD structure folder from MKV & SUP (not SRT although it would work also) and burn using ImgBurn. This DVD5/9 will load and play faster in blu-ray player due to the size and still keep the great resolution. The Tsmuxer only work with MKV with correct resolution 1920x1080 or 1280x720, it doesn't seem to work with 1280 x528 or anything less than 720. Anyhow, these resolutions we only see exist in MKVs that people downloaded from the internet. If we want to burn to AVCHD dvd, we need to convert to 1280 x 720 using Handbrake9.3 (read the section).
Must have software:
1. AnyDVD(demo then pay): We need this software to transfer Blu-ray dvd contents to hard drives.
2. Tsmuxer(Free): We need this software to choose the track options in the blu-ray movies like English audio, subtitles and discard all the ones we don't need to have a smaller size HD movies.
3. Ripbot264(Free): We need this software to convert M2TS to MKV (shrink HD movies).
Handbrake 9.3(Free): This software is faster than Ripbot264, but it doesn't work on some formats and DTS. We use this one most of the time now.
4. Suprip(Free): We need this software to convert blu-ray subtitle .sup to SRT subtitle .srt to merge with MKV and DVDs.
5. meGUI(Free): We need this to convert DTS audio to AC3 for smaller audio file and still 5.1 .
6. eac3to(Free) & EAC3toGUI(Free): We need this software to convert DTS+TruHD audio which meGUI can't do to convert Audio to AC3 5.1.
7. MKVtoolnix(Free): We need this software to merge MKV + SRT (subtitle).
8. ImgBurn(Free): We need this software to burn MKV to DVD9(8.5GB) or DVD5(4.7GB) to play in blu-ray players with UDF2.5.
9. VSOconvertxtoDVD: We want this software to convert M2TS or MKV HD to HD DVD5/9 (720x480).
10. Blu-ray Players:
PowerDVD7.3 : We need this to play blu-ray structured format DVD like our burned HD DVD9/5 and ISO.
WINDVD8 or 9: We need this to play blu-ray structured format DVD same as POWERDVD7.3.
11. MKV players:
BSplayer (Free): We need this to play MKV files.
SMPLAYER(Free): We need this to play MKV files.
GOM Player(Free): Good player for MKV.
VLC Player(Free): Plays MKV files.
ZOOM player: We need this to play MKV files.
12. 7-Zip(Free): We need this to unzip some downloaded files.
13. DaemonTool: We need this to have virtual blu-ray drive to mount ISO blu-ray to play on PC (we prefer this one).
14. Virtual Clone Drive: We need this to have virtual blu-ray drive on the PC (this one doesn't work in Winxp64).
15. UDF 2.5 driver. I don't know how I stumbled into one, but you need it to see the content of the blu-ray. Without this, you can only see blu-ray drive as a cd drive with unsupported format in it.
1 ANYDVD 6.5.2.2 (MKBv12) This program is to transfer the contents of DVD to hard drive.Right click on the systray icon and select DVD to Harddisk, chose the folder where the files will be transferred to. Anydvd default @ my document.
2. TsMUXER: This program to mux/demux all the streams. We use this to eliminate all the unwanted streams in the movie file. First we need to locate the main movie file in the BDMV/STREAM folder (normally the biggest file). Sometimes, the movie is splitted into many smaller m2ts files, we need to use BDedit to find the play list and the TsMuxer can open that list to merge them all together into a final m2ts file (Ratatouille).
In this case, we only select the VIDEO, AC3 640 (NOT TRUE-HD) and subtitle (ENG) only.
In case of Ratatouille, BDedit found the playlist and TsMuxer opens the playlist and loads all video files.
If we have the new version of TSMUXER, we should use AVCHD profile and we can adjust the display of the subtitle. Set to 0 or 15 from bottom so the subtitle doesn't interfere too much with the screen. I noticed the difference between blu-ray and AVCHD discs is the movie M2TS = 00000.m2ts instead of 00001.m2ts. Some of the blu-ray players and the powerdvd7.3 (upgrade) or 8 may not play the blu-ray (DVD) but will play the AVCHD (DVD).
So we can remux to 1 m2ts file or 1 blu-ray disk structure to burn into a Blu-ray disc or ISO in PC. In case we want to shrink the HD movie to a smaller file to burn to DVD5/9 and still keep great video resolutions 1080 or 720 then we remux to m2ts file. Actually, we don't even have to remux to anything, just use the original m2ts file in its folder if we want to shrink it (unless it's like Ratatouille fragmented files).
3. Now we have M2TS main movie file and we want to shink it down to DVD5/9 or make MKV movie out of it. The software we preferred is RIPBOT264. Ripbot264 is a very easy GUI type software that converts M2TS file to MKV in 1 step. We must have at a fast and potent computer to shrink M2TS from 20GB to 5-7GB. We recommend at least core 2 duo @ 3GHZ or Quad core 2 duo. AMD is too slow for this type. Yes, we use AMD x2 to run HTPC because ATI has great graphic chips, but we use core 2 duo E4300 OC to 3GHZ to shrink the movie. We're thinking about upgrade this to Q9400 or I7, but I7 doesn't OC well as we speak. It does take longer for RIPBOT to demux the M2TS: video, audio (down convert) & sup than if we demux them. The only problem is that RIPBOT can't read VC1 video stream that some of the blu-ray movies have. The best is to check with Tsmuxer, if it's H264 video format, then we can demux it first, convert DTS or Tru-HD audio to 640kb AC3, then load them in the RIPBOT. This will save a few hours. Normally, this process will take at least 10 hours for 94minutes movies.If we don't want to save time, we can just use RIPBOT264 to load the original M2TS file and let it demux the stream and down convert the audio automatically, it would take a good 20minutes to demux all these streams into default folder c:\temp\ripbot264\job1. We need to go here to get the .sup (subtitle) file to convert it to SRT before the program finishes. When it finishes, all content of temp folder is removed automatically.
DEMUX streams VIDEO, AUDIO, SUP with Tsmuxer:
CONVERT DTS audio to 640KB 5.1 AC3 using EAC3TO GUI & PROGRAM
Now we have a smaller file which is 5.1 @640KB will play with all players.
Now we can load .264 video, 640ac3 into RIPBOT. Use the add button to add file and make sure we select MKV.
It does take a good 5-15minutes to index the video file, be patient. Select 2pass, since the time to render from 6M to 8M is not much different, I always use 8192KBPS and make sure the size is not over 7500MB (dvd9). With movies that are 2hr or longer, we may have to lock the size to 7500MB and it will automatically reduce the KBPS to 6M-7M. Like in this case 1:37 long = 6165MB @ 8192. The resolution is 1920x1080 and the pictures will come out as good as the original 20GB. We can resize it to 720P if we want, but why use the same time to have lower resolution movie? Between 6Mbs & 8Mbs for real actors/actresses movies, it's very hard to tell the difference in quality, if setting 6M to get 4.1GB to fit in a DVD5, we would do it. And make sure we lock the size at 4.1GB, because after muxing it to a blu-ray structure with SUP (subtitle), it would come up to about 4.3GB (barely fit in DVD5).
When we are happy with all the settings, then just check the shutdown when done and hits start and go to sleep or something.
HANDBRAKE 9.3. This is a great program to encode M2TS to MKV if it can read the file. The only problem is that if we want DTS audio, this one doesn't produce it and it doesn't even transcode DTS to AC3. We use ripbot264 to extract and transcode audio DTS and True-HD and subtitle (SUP), all these files will be in C:\temp\ripbot264\job1 after it analyzed the M2TS (copy them to the movie folder for future use).
Open Handbrake program.
Load Video file = M2TS (main movie from Tsmuxer)
Select the output folder and the file name, make sure extension .MKV is selected.
On Picture Settings, either select Anamorphic "strict" = the same as source or "NONE" to any resolution we want. We set default to NONE 1920x1080.
Video section, the higher Avg Bitrate the better the quality. For 1920x1080 (8000 is optimal) but we can set the target size if the movie is 2hours long. For DVD9 without audio 6.5GB (look at the audio file in ripbot264 size add with this to be about 7.7GB max to be safe in DVD9 8.5GB) or 4.1GB (total video+audio) DVD5.
If the movie has DTS or True-HD audio and NONE AC3, then select NONE because we will use the Audio extracted from Ripbot264 to merge with our MKV.
We DON'T select subtitle because it will be hard coded into the MKV. We will merge with SRT when this is done so we can select or deselect subtitle. After everything is done, click start and CLI window will pop up and just wait for the program to do its thing. When the CLI window closes, that's when the encoding is done.
For those downloaded PAL mkv from the internet with resolution of 1280 x 528 or some cropped resolutions, if you want to resize (DVD5) with subtitle, you need to recode the movie to 1280 x 720 for the subtitle to display properly, otherwise, you will have an AVCHD DVD without subtitle even the DVD has subtitle in it.
To fit into DVD5 you need to set the target size of 4200MB.
Select the Audio to make sure.
When done, just use Tsmuxer to merge the SRT to AVCHD.
Set font to 48 to make it smaller and offset from bottom to 0
When done just burn to DVD5 and blu-ray player will have subtitle.
So, how fast is Handbrake compares to Ripbot264. We tested a 830Mb M2TS 1920x1080.
Handbrake9.3 (5minutes48seconds) Ripbot264(6minutes43seconds)
The difference is only 1 minute, but with 20GB movie, we will save approximately 1 to 1.5 hours although we have to merge MKV and audio to Handbrake when needed, but merging is about 3-5 minutes max.
While we're waiting for the ripbo264 or Handbrake to do their things, we can use suprip (su"p" not su"b") to convert .sup to .srt for MKV movie.
Click OCR and suprip will show which word it can't detect and we have to manually type it in. In this case "f" is not recognized.
This will take a while to manually replacing the unknown characters, but when it's done, it will be nice in your MKV movie after muxing.Special characters can be found in the character map, just find it, select it, copy and past into the replacement window and hit OK.
Make sure they finished before saving it. We make a habit of checking it twice before saving.
After everything is done. We will have MKV file + .srt file. To merge them together, we need MKVtoolnix = MKVmerge. Every stream, we should select the language so when it's played, the streams are defined as "engligh" or any language we chose at the time of merging.
Now we have a full blown 1080p MKV file with subtitle embedded to play with all the player listed above. One good thing about this MKV file is that we can use this file to create AVCHD version DVD9/5 of the movie to play in most of blu-ray players out there. We can also make the blu-ray structure files to burn ISO and we can play with POWERDVD7.3 or WINDVD8 or 9 in the PC. By using the Tsmuxer, we can create blu-ray disk with chapter for every 5 minutes or whatever we want with subtitle. The subtitle for blu-ray will be the original ".sup" file that we demuxed from the beginning. If we're lazy we can just use the ".srt" already embedded in the MKV we just did. Open the Tsmuxer, add the MKV file, add the .sup file, make sure we select the language "eng" and select create blu-ray, chose a folder name and start muxing. When it's done, we should have a folder with all the necessary files to burn to DVD9/5 or ISO. The next software needed is the IMGburn (system UDF 2.5) to burn ISO or DVD9/5 blu-ray.
IMGBURN HOW TO
Set the speed lower to burn better. DVD9 is 8x, set it at 6x. DVD5 @18x set it at x12.
Select folders and set UDF 2.5
SO, with this DVD9/5 blu-ray, we can also make MKV out of it too in case later our hard drive died and we have no back up. Instead of losing hours of making the original 20GB back to smaller5-7GB, we can just put these DVD9/5 blu-ray in our DVD drive, demux the streams into VIDEO (m2ts),Audio (AC3), SRT, SUP, then use MKVmerge and merge the 3 files together VIDEO (m2ts),Audio(AC3), SRT. When you open the m2ts file, MKVmerge may not be able to detect the fps and will default it to 24fps, we need to select 24000/1001 to get 23.973fps, other than that, we will have our MKV movie with subtitle again. Isn't that nice????
Now, since blu-ray DVD9/5 can't be used in portable DVD player that our kids use on trips, we need to convert this MKV with subtitle to DVD 720x480 format, but amazingly, their pictures are much better than the regular DVDs. We need to use
VSO-CONVERTXtoDVD program.
Use High quality, if the movie is less than 100 minutes, DVD5 will have excellent quality, if longer use DVD9. But the software will notify if the quality is excellent or GOOD. Always use excellent settings.
If we used the MKV file that has subtitle built in, it will show as 1 subtitle
We want subtitle to display to the bottom of the screen, we can edit here using safe area. Click Subtitle text settings
We use 49 is the best location.
Unclick the burn option. It doesn't do very well. After the movie is done, use IMGburn or NERO to burn to DVD.
Set up all settings once and use it over and over.
When it's done, just go to working folder and burn the VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS to DVD using NERO or IMGBURN, the structure will be different and so the system file will NOT be UDF 2.5.
Cheers,
3/12/09
