Encoding Blu-rays to MP4 with RipBot

Step 1)
Make sure that you have ripped your disk to your hard drive using something like AnyDVD HD or DVD Fab. If you need a tutorial, or your not exactly sure on how to rip the disk, see the one that I wrote here.

Step 2)
Open up RipBot. If you are missing any of the necessary programs it should warn you and give you a download link to a compatible version. It takes the usual suspects (Avisynth, FFDShow, Haalis Media Splitter, etc) When you are sure that all of your dependencies have been satisfied, click the Add button.

Step 3)
The main configuration dialog window should open (below). Next to the Video field, select the button to select your video source.

Step 4)
You will be presented with a file selection dialog box. Navigate to the directory that you ripped your Blu-ray in and navigate down until you hit the Stream folder (like you see below). The main movie is (usually) the largest .m2ts file, so we are going to go ahead and select it as our source. Press Open. Note: Be sure that you are selecting the right file. Preview the file before hand using something like Media Player Classic or your own Home Theater software.

Step 5)
RipBot will proceed to analyze your input video (this can take a few minutes) and then present a stream selection window like the one below. Its usually safe to leave it at defaults, but you can edit your stream selections if you desire. Just know before hand what you are getting into. When you are done, press Ok.

Step 6)
After you have selected your stream settings, RipBot will go about demuxing the necessary files from your source. This can take a little while (sometimes an hour or more depending on your system) so be prepared to wait. Go make some coffee Note: Demuxing the necessary files can take up some serious space, so make sure that you have plenty of free space on your hard drive before even ripping your Blu-ray. HD material is HUGE and you dont want to get stuck half way through.

Step 7)
Once your streams have been properly demuxed, you can about editing your encode settings. Okay, now here is where the interesting part begins. Im going to assume that you want to create an MP4 that is compatible with your Xbox 360 or PS3. If so, you can leave part 1. alone. Otherwise, take a look at the drop-down options and chose one that fits your needs. Or create a custom profile by pressing on the little button. Its your choice. Next, choose your audio settings in section 2. Since this MP4 is aiming to be compatible with an Xbox 360, I am encoding my audio using the Stereo, AAC-LC at 128 kbps. I am doing this because the Xbox 360 does not support 5.1 audio using the (high quality) AAC compressor. The PS3 on the other hand does support 5.1 AAC (when used with the PS3s PCM 5.1 output over HDMI to a capable receiver), so use it if you want. Again, if your target is not going to be a console, I leave the settings up to you. Leave a comment if you are curious about a specific setting. Choose your encoding mode in section 3. Since I wanted to shoot for a specific file size, I went with a 2-pass encode at 1024 kbps. You can see the size estimate in to bottom right hand corner (1264 MB). You can use the default CQ mode, however you risk over shooting the consoles supported bitrate if you choose to low of a number (18 or below). Last but not least, select your output directory. Make sure .mp4 is selected as your output format.

Before we are done, lets shoot back to section 3. and the Properties button.

Step 8)
The area below is what you will see after clicking the Properties button on the previous window. Since most Blu-rays these days come with black bars in the source, I have developed a habit of cropping them off, as they dont really do me any good. However, if we are going to resize later, or need the video to be a certain size, then keeping the black bars is a good idea. As we will see later when resizing, RipBot will automatically add in black bars for padding to attain

a specific aspect ratio.

Step 9)
Now, of my final encode, I want a resolution of 720p (or 1280 x 720 pixels). You dont have to do this step if you dont want to. Its perfectly reasonable to leave it at the original size (plus or minus the cropping that you choose to do). I am resizing here to show you what is possible, so take it or leave it at your will. As you can see there are a plethora of built-in resizing profiles, ranging from HD-full to a tiny little iPod. You can also choose your own output size using the custom options!

Step 10)
Now on to subtitles. Since I dont want to include any subtitles in my final output (as I speak English and the movie was produced in English) I am going to go ahead and say Do not use subtitles. On the other hand, if you do want subtitles burned into your final video, you can use the drop down menu to select your source subtitles that will be burned in to your final encode. Note: Burning in subtitles means that they cannot be deselected on playback. So only use this option if you want to have the subtitles on all the time. Additionally, if you understand Avisynth scripting a little bit, you can view the final output script by clicking on the Show Script button that I have highlighted. Again, not necessary but a nice advanced feature. It is a good idea to preview your output using the Preview Script button before hand, however its not mandatory. If you trust your settings, go ahead and click OK or continue on to step 11 for details on denoising. When you return to the main window, check your final settings and then press Done. This will add your video to the queue and you can continue on to step 12.

Step 11)
Some people may want to denoise their input video before encoding, and this is the place to do it. Again this is optional. Simply use the small arrows at the bottom of the window to arrow over to the right until you get to the page displayed below. Select your preset from the drop down box, or use the Show Script button that I talked about earlier to fine tune the settings your self. Remember, the latter option is for advanced users. When you are finished, you can preview your script using the Preview Script button, or click OK.

Step 12)
At this point, I assume that you have all ready entered your desired settings for everything and have clicked Done on the New Job window. The window you see below is the queue detail. You can use it to see which video encodes you have queued up, or add a few more. When you add additional videos to the queue, most of the settings from the previous video encode will transfer over (with some exceptions in the Avisynth settings), so it never hurts to double check your settings on a new job. When everything is said and done, go ahead and press the Start button and then sit back, relax, and let RipBot do all of the hard work for you!

Conclusion)
RipBot is a truly fantastic program and it takes a lot of the guesswork out of high quality video conversion. I hope that this tutorial helped you to be come more familiar with this wonderful program. Good luck in your encoding!

How to Hardsub Blurays with RipBot

Preparation
To begin, make sure you have your Blu-ray ripped to your hard drive. I have several guides on this procedure already, so simply look around if you are lost on this step. When you are ready, open RipBot.

Selecting Your Bluray

RipBot will automatically open a open file dialog box. Navigate to where your Bluray is stored, and select the main movie. You will then see a window like the one below. Feel free to edit the settings like you want, but make sure to at least extract the subtitles you desire. As you can see, I selected to extract all subtitles as that way I can hardsub any subtitles I like.

When you are satisfied with your choices, click the OK button. You will see RipBots demuxing progress in the bottom left-hand corner, like this:

Embedding Your Subtitles

Once your demuxing has finished, select the Properties button like I have highlighted below.

You will be presented with the processing properties for this video encode. Look at the bottom of this new window and you will see the Permanent Subtitle section. Under the drop-down menu, select Build in picture.

RipBot will present you with a file selection dialog window. It should display the subtitles that you demuxed earlier. Choose whichever subtitle file you want to hardsub (you can only choose one). When you have selected your subtitle, click Open.

RipBot will go about converting your subtitle to a more usable format automatically. Take note that this step requires that you have Java installed, so be sure that you do.

When it has finished with the conversion, you can either preview your video, or just view the generated Avisynth script by clicking on the Script option in the upper right-hand corner.

Note: In the above screenshot, the selection says Show Margins, but that is because I am already viewing the Avisynth script. It toggles back and forth as you switch between the margins and script modes.

Get Encoding

Okay, thats it! You can start the encode process are you normally would, and then enjoy your freshly hardsubbed video!

How to rip Blu-ray to MKV with H264 video and 5.1 audio using Ripbot264

This article will guide you through the process of creating a high definition backup of your Bluray discs using the MKV container and the x264 encoder, including 5.1 audio and subtitles. That way you can keep high quality but small size movie files in your hard drive to watch, keeping your Blu-ray discs safe at their case. You can download Ripbot264 by using the link below. Ripbot264 1.16.4

Step 1
Before starting the encoding process with Ripbot264 you need to use an unlocking software to circumvent the Blu-ray's protection. I really suggest you let AnyDVD HD do that job. You can download it here. Ripbot264 will demux and copy the files in your hard drive, so make sure you have more than 50GB of free space.

Step 2

Open up Ripbot264. Ripbot itself needs a few more programs, like ffdshow and AniSynth to be installed in your computer. If they are not already installed you will see a warning screen with some links to download and install them. Do that, and reopen Ripbot to come to the window above. Click Add.

Step 3

Browse to the BDMV folder of your Blu-ray (or the folder you ripped it into at step 1) and then inside the STREAM folder. Get the detailed list of the contents (1) and select the biggest file, which contains the main movie (2).

Step 4

The options here are pretty straight-forward: Select the main movie (1) and the audio track that you want to use (2). If your Blu-ray has DTS audio (like this example) and you want to keep it intact select the Core option above. Otherwise, to encode to Dolby or even Stereo leave it to Wave. You should also select any subtitles you may want to add to the mkv file later (3). The chapters option lets you use the original Blu-ray chapters for the mkv file as well. Click OK to continue.

Step 5

Ripbot might look like it got stuck at this point. However there is no need to worry since as you can see at the bottom of the window, it is demuxing the streams, meaning it separates the video, audio and subtitle streams into different files, a process that took about 15-20 minutes on my PC.

Step 6

After the demuxing is done you will be presented with the Encoding settings window. We will select the .mkv (1) option to create a Matroska file. For sound select Aften AC3 (2) in order to have surround AC3 audio or if the sound was already in AC3 format the Copy stream option. For the codec encoding mode (3), I will use the CQ (constant quality) setting of 22 value. Constant quality is a faster encoding method than the traditional 2-pass option and tries to keep a constant quality on all your files. That however means that you cannot know how big the file will be as it depends on the movie length, the CQ setting and the actual content. Usual values range from 18 to 26, with 18 being the "best" and 26 the "worse" quality. I am using this option for my mkv backups as I prefer to base my encoding on video quality and not file size. Of course, you can always select the 2-pass option and set the file size limit. Click here to see the alternative image with the settings you must have in order to use 2-pass. Click on the properties button (4) and move to the next step.

Step 7

Here you can see a bit of the movie in order to set the size options. If the frame you are looking at doesn't help click New Frame (1) in order to change the picture captured by Ripbot264 to preview your settings. Set Crop (2) to automatically in order to remove the black bars. Pay extra attention in the Size (2) setting. Selecting Custom or Do not resize will apply the cropping correctly. However selecting one of the predefined resolutions (Full HD, HD Ready etc) will not remove the black bars. What to do? If you want the original resolution, keep it at Do not resize. If you want to downscale from 1080p to 720p as I did here, select the first Custom option and lower the width to 1280 for 720p resolution. The height will be auto adjusted in order to keep the correct aspect ratio. Don't be fooled by the numbers, 1280x534 practically IS 720p (or the different value you will get for 1920 width), we are just getting rid of the unwanted black space. Another thing that can be misleading is the subtitle option presented here. The permanent subtitles setting adds burned subtitles to the video (you cannot turn them off). Usually, since we are using an mkv file we don't want that, as we will add our subtitles at the next step in a different stream with the ability to turn them on or off. So unless you have a specific reason for why you may need hard subs (like a player that doesn't support them otherwise), just leave this option at Do not use subtitles.

The small ">" button bellow reveals more settings, like Denoise or Deinterlace that we don't need in this example. Just click OK to return to the main window and then open the subtitles options (arrow number 5 at step 6).

Step 8

Here we can add some subtitle streams to our mkv file. Clicking the "+" button (1) will allow us to add any subtitles that we demuxed from the Blu-ray discs, you can also browse and select any other subtitles you may want to use in .srt or .ssa format. Set the correct language (2) and click OK. You will be back in the main Ripbot264 window. Click Done.

Step 9

Your movie will be added in the queue as a job. If you want to add more files to convert, click add and start the guide all over again, unless of course you already got the hang of the whole process. When you are ready, click the Start button.

Step 10

That's it! If you are not using the PC, uncheck Low Priority for some extra speed. Your Blu-ray video will now be encoded and a few hours later you will have a great high definition mkv file with AC3 audio and subtitles.

How to rip a Blu-ray disc and remux it to MKV

This article will guide you through the steps of ripping a Blu-ray disc, demux it and then remux it to mkv format. This way you will get a huge, but unprotected, easy to use and store mkv file that contains the exact video and audio streams as your Blu-ray disc quality and size-wise. You can then use this file as input for another program, use any player to watch it in about any platform or just store it in your hard drive as a backup. You will need the programs below for this guide. Click on the links to download them straight from our downloads database.

tsMuxeR 1.10.6 BDInfo 0.5.6 mkvtoolnix 4.5.0

Step 1
Before you start processing your disc you need to use an unlocking software to circumvent the Blu-ray's protection. I really suggest you let AnyDVD HD do that job. You can download it here or check the authors page here. Install it and forget it is even there. It will do all its work on the background.

Step 2

Open up BDInfo. Using this application we will determine in which files the main movie is and what streams we need. Browse (1) and select the BDMV folder in your Blu-ray disc. Check out which playlist contains the movie (2), obviously the one with the biggest length and check its name. In this example, our Blu-ray uses seamless branching, in plain words it has a "Director's Cut" feature and it uses various smaller m2ts files (3) you can see in the list below. That is why we have one bigger playlist, and another one a bit smaller. In normal Blu-rays you will only have one big playlist and one m2ts file. Make sure that in the various video and audio streams area (4) you right down the fps value of the video, in this example 23.976. Now, leave BDInfo open and run tsMuxeR

Step 3

To start, add (1) the playlist file that we have already found in BDInfo. tsMuxeR will automatically load all the m2ts files assosiated with it. Now we have our main movie loaded and ready for extraction. Select the main video track, the audio that you want to keep and any subtitles (2) you may need later on. Then set output to Demux (3) and after you set the location of the output files, click Start demuxing (4).

Step 4

tsMuxeR will now copy the tracks you have selected to your hard drive. This process will take from about 45 to 90 minutes, depending on the speed of your Blu-ray drive and the size of the disc. When it is done, click OK and close tsMuxeR. Next step is to create our mkv file, so run mkvmerge GUI (named mmg.exe in the archive you have downloaded).

Step 5

First of all, we need to set as input all the files that tsMuxeR created, so click add (1) and select all the files that we demuxed before (2). You can also add subtitles in Blu-ray's .sup format. Now we need to set some options. Select the video track (3), set the language (4) and then click the Format specific options (5) tab.

Step 6

Here you need to add the FPS value exactly as the one you wrote down at Step 2.

Step 7

Feel free to add the correct language to any other audio or subtitle tracks you may have and when you are ready Browse (1) to set the output filename and click Start muxing (2) in order to start the process.

Step 8

That's it. A few minutes later you will have an mkv file containing the exact video and audio streams of your Blu-ray disc. You should delete all the files tsMuxeR created as you no longer need them. You can now test your mkv file using any player that supports that format and then use it as you please.

DTS-HD Master Audio and how to rip it

DTS-HD Master Audio or just DTS-HD in many descriptions is a lossless audio codec by Digital Theater System. It replaces the old DTS audio (actually it extends it) and its main goal is to allow a bit-to-bit representation of the original movie's studio master soundtrack. If you are unaware with the lossless term, it is a compression method that allows you to

have the exact original data from the compressed data after extraction, in contrast to lossy formats which only allows an approximation of the original data to be reconstructed. An example of a lossy audio format is MP3, while another lossless audio format is FLAC.

DTS-HD has pretty much become the standard audio track of most Blu-ray discs. That is why we will try to explain how it works, and of course, how you can rip it, in this article.

The DTS-HD Core and how the whole format works

As you can read in detail in the DTS-HD white paper the encoding process of a DTS-HD track in simple terms is the following: first the Core, which is lossy format, similar to the old DTS is being created. Then the Core is compared to the original audio and any parts found missing are being added an an extra "residual" stream. Then both streams are used to create the final DTSHD MA track. That way in older decoders that only support the old DTS format, you just listen to the Core stream. In decoders that support DTS-HD, both the streams are being played in the same time giving you lossless original sound quality. The advantages of this format are backwards compatibility with older decoders, smaller size of the audio track than using both an HD and a Core track and faster encoding.

What do you need to rip

First of all I assume you have at least a 5.1 sound system, otherwise you should just downmix to stereo. Now since there are only a few software decoders for DTS-HD and these at insane prices we can pretty much assume the following scenarios:

If you have bought a software decoder or have a decoder that supports DTS-HD and you passthrough the audio through HDMI or Optical, just create an mkv file and maintain the original audio track from the Blu-ray. If you decode through your PC or you passthrough to a decoder that doesn't support DTS-HD you don't need both streams. Even if you keep the whole track, you will only listen to the Core, so just keep that and remove the HD audio. For instance, you might be able to decode DTS-HD in your PC but instead you pass-through the audio to your decoder via an optical cable. Your decoder will just play the Core. If you want to maximize compatiblity or reduce the size of the audio track you can convert to AC3 audio in a lower bitrate. If you are copying a Blu-ray to AVCHD, check your Blu-ray player's manual. If it supports (most likely it will) DTS-HD keep it, otherwise follow one of the options above. Of course if you are converting to mkv in order to store your movie, keeping the DTS-HD format is a good idea. It will be easy to decode soon enough in any PC so take a minute and think about what you need.

Just to add my experience since I recently bought a DTS-HD sound system, if you listening to your movies in low - normal volume you really can't tell any difference between the lossless DTS-HD and just the Core. If you starting increasing the volume, especially in action films you can tell some difference, but as the DTS-HD whitepaper says the Core is also a very capable

lossy format and given the huge bitrate of 1500kbps that it usually uses, in most cases you are fine just ripping the Core.

What various ripping programs support

Ripbot264 supports getting the Core stream. Just select Core when you import the Blu-ray and then copy stream in order to get the original Core audio. You can also demux the whole stream to Wave and then use Aften to convert to AC3. Handbrake also supports copying the Core stream. Choose the mkv container and in the audio options add DTS passthrough. Staxrip can get both streams if you select the DTS-HD option or otherwise rips just the Core if you select DTS. Using the Just Remux option you get the original DTS-HD or DTS Core streams in your mkv file and you can also convert to AC3. This is my program of choice due to the many and clear options of you for audio (just demux and remux, re-encode etc) DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper rips both streams by default, unless you select the Remove HD Audio option which just rips the Core. It can convert to AC3 as well. Generally eac3to can deal with all those formats and give you any output you wish, Core or HD, just demux or recode to wave, flac etc. Then, you just mux the sound with your video file.

You can always get the original DTS-HD track by manually demuxing the Blu-ray, converting just the video with any encoder and then remux using mkvmerge using the original .dtshd track.

What if I want to decode DTS-HD

You have to buy a commercial software that contains a decoder. Arcsoft Total Media Theater 5 should install a system-wide filter that will decode DTS-HD using eac3to, Staxrip, Ripbot264 and other programs.

What about Dolby TrueHD

Dobly TrueHD is the format competing with DTS-HD. It is less common but you will surely eventually buy a Blu-ray disc that uses TrueHD as the main audio format. Well, pretty much everything above applies for TrueHD as well with the exception of the software decoder which is free and included in ffmpeg. So you can decode the lossless part just fine and use it as a source for all your encodes. Most TrueHD streams also contain an AC3 stream (kind of like the Core DTS has). Staxrip can deal with that and either remove it or extract it. (you probably want to remove it anyway)

How to copy a Blu-ray disc using BD Rebuilder

With the transition to the high definition format the Blu-ray discs were introduced as the optical disc of choice for movie distribution. However even though a BD-50 Blu-ray disc can hold up to 50GB of data, this huge storage increase is not the only reason behind improved HD quality. The even bigger change was the move from MPEG-2 codec DVDs use to the MPEG4 AVC codec which allows greater quality in less space. As a result, you can copy a movie in a BD-50 disc to the much cheaper BD-25 disc using Blu-ray recorder or even to a BD-9 (using a dual layer DVD and a simple DVD recorder) and only lose a bit of the original quality. In this guide we will use BD Rebuilder in order to copy a Blu-ray movie after recoding it in order to fit into a smaller disc. You can download BD Rebuilder from the link below, and if you don't already have them, AviSynth, FFDSHOW and Haali Matroska Splitter as they are needed for BD Rebuilder to work.
BD Rebuilder 0.38.02

Avisynth 2.5.8

FFDShow MPEG-4 2010-09-07

Haali Matroska Splitter

Step 1
Before starting the recoding process with BD Rebuilder you need to use an unlocking software to circumvent the Blu-ray's protection. I really suggest you let AnyDVD HD do that job. You can download it here. Another good idea would be to rip the whole disc to the hard drive first. Read this guide to find out how you can do that.

Step 2

Open BD Rebuilder. Browse (1) to your Blu-ray drive or preferably the folder your ripped your Blu-ray disc in. Then browse (2) and select the working path (you need to have more than 50GB free in that drive). By double clicking an audio stream (3) you can remove the ones you don't need (it's not necessary but it's recommended to remove some, especially if you plan to use a BD-9). Next click the Mode (4) menu.

Step 3

In the Mode menu, you can select Full Backup if you want to keep the all the video titles and the menu of your Blu-ray. Movie-Only Backup will only keep the movie while "Quicker" Encode for Extras will use a faster encoding setting for the extras, resulting in lower quality but less time. To continue select Settings -> Setup.

Step 4

Default settings usually work OK for most projects. The three settings you can see selected in the audio encoding (1) options are worth mentioning though, in order to keep the maximum audio quality if you have a nice 5.1 (or better) surround setup. Select the settings you want and click Save Changes (2).

Step 5

In addition, in the settings menu, you can select the output size (1) between BD-5, BD-9 and BD25. The first two, are actually using a DVD disc, regardless the BD- part, and not a Blu-ray disc so make sure your Blu-ray player supports them (if AVCHD support is mentioned there is a good chance it will). Keep in mind we are still creating a Blu-ray disc and not a DVD, so even though you'll be using a DVD recorder and DVD media this does NOT mean that you are creating a DVD video disc. You still need a Blu-ray player. If you have a Blu-ray recorder and not mind the extra media cost, use BD-25 for an excellent backup. Otherwise I suggest using BD-9 but be ready for some quality drop (still much better than a DVD video though). I suggest you check the output before you burn the Blu-ray using ImgBurn, so disable Auto-burn and if you need it, read this guide to learn how to burn your Blu-ray. Click Backup (2) to start the encoding process.

Step 6

That's it. A few hours later your Blu-ray files will be ready for burning.

How to Rip Blu-ray Movie with RipBot264

Solution Please download and install the following components firstly:

RipBot264 AnyDVD HD ffdshow Avisynth Haali Media Splitter tsMuxeR Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0

1. Insert Blu-ray disc into drive and run AnyDVD. You'll find it in the task bar. Right click its icon and select Rip Video DVD to Harddisk.

Then confirm the Source Directory and Destination Directory, click Copy DVD to start.

After the copying process is done, you could check it by playing the largest .m2ts file in the BDMV/STREAMS directory using VLC or WMP.

2. Run RipBot264 and its interface is as below.

3. Click Add and select the largest *.m2ts file in the ripped BDMV/STREAMS folder.

RipBot264 will analyze it and finally it will present you with this window:

4. You may come across an error of any kind here. Now run tsMuxeR, select the biggest m2ts file in the BDMV/STREAM folder, choose the appropriate language, and click Start Muxing.

After this is OK, you can then add the resulting .ts file to RipBot264 as the source.

5. Now Selecting one output format. RipBot264 support three output formats: .mp4, .mkv or BLU-RAY DISC. Here takes .mp4 for example.

6. Click Properties to check the output size of your video or preview it. If everything is done, click OK, then Start and let your system to transcode the massive 1080p AVC stream into a MP4 file. And finally copy the MP4 file to your device of choice and enjoy.

How To: Rip Blu-ray Discs

ncluded digital copies are still the exception rather than the norm in the Blu-ray world. Lame. You'd like to rip those discs for playback elsewhere, right? But there is something you should know first. And that is this: Ripping Blu-ray discs sucks. Hard. It takes forever, eats up a ton of hard drive space, and for all practical purposes requires software that isn't free. It's like trying to rip a DVD in 1999: computers still have a long way to go before this is easy. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible, and once your system is set up it's something you can start before you go to bed and have finished for you in the morning. Here we've outlined exactly what you need to rip your 1080p Blu-ray discs (the ones you own, of course) and then convert the video into a more manageable file size for watching on a computer, phone, game console or PMP. Because hey, you own this movie, and you should be able to watch it on whatever device you want. But you'll have to earn that right. Let's start this painful process, shall we? What's you'll need: A Windows PC (the Blu-ray ripping process is, at the moment, Mac-unfriendly. I used Windows 7 Beta 64-bit and all the following software is Windows-only) AnyDVD HD (free fully-functional 21-day trial, $80 to keep) for ripping and decrypting BD discs RipBot264 (free) for transcoding from AVC (you'll also need a few codecs to go along with it: .NET Framework 2.0, the avisynth and ffdshow codec packs, and the Haali media splitter) tsMuxeR (free) for muxing (may not be necessary) A Blu-ray drive (I used OWC's new Mercury Pro multi-interface external) A ton of free hard drive space (80GB or so to be safe) A decent understanding of how video codecs and containers work (Matt's Giz Explains has everything you need) How it Works AnyDVD HD is a driver that sits in the background, which automatically removes the AACS or BD+ security lock and the region code from any BD disc you load, allowing it to be ripped. The video on most Blu-ray discs is encoded in the MPEG4 AVC format in .m2ts files, so it will need

to be transcoded from AVC to something else (like an H.264 MP4 file) for playback on other devices. MPEG4 AVC doesn't have wide support in all of the best video transcoders we alread love, like Handbrake. This makes finding a free and easy transcoding solution a little tougher, but thankfully RipBot264 seems competent. You can then either transcode directly from the disc, or go the route I took and rip the disc to your hard drive before running it through the transcoder, which reduces the chance for errors. Give both a shot to find what's easiest. Thanks to poster Baldrick's guide on the Videohelp.com forums and the folks at Doom9these instructions are based on info found there. Check them out if you get stuck. Rip Your BD Disc Again, if you want to try transcoding directly from the disc at the sacrifice of speed or the chance of corruption, you can skip this part (except for step 1) and go to step 4. 1. First up, download and install all the necessary software: AnyDVD HD and RipBot264, which also requires .NET Framework 2.0, the avisynth and ffdshow codec packs, and the Haali media splitter. (All links lead to their Videohelp.com pages, a fantastic resource). These codecs, nicely enough, should give AVC decoding capabilities system wide, so apps like VLC and Windows Media Player should be able to play them without problems. 2. Fire up AnyDVD if it's not running yet, and from the fox icon in the system tray, choose "Rip Video DVD to Harddisk." Choose a save point where there's a healthy 40-50GB free and start it a-rippin'. It'll probably take around an hour. 3. When it's done, open up the BDMV/STREAMS directory and try to play the largest .m2ts in VLC or WMP. It should play fine with sound, but if anything's fishy, you may want to try reloading RipBot264's required codecs or trying another AVC codec like CoreCodec's CoreAVC. This is more paid software, but like AnyDVD, it comes with a free trial period. You need to be able to see and hear an .m2ts file normally during playback before you proceed. Transcode Your Rip Now, the fun part. 4. Open up RipBot264. When you try to run RipBot264 the first time, it may say you haven't installed ffdshow even if you have. If this is the case, open the RipBot264.ini file in Notepad and change "CheckRequiredSoftware=1" to "CheckRequiredSoftware=0" and save it. 5. Click "Add" and select the largest *.m2ts file found in your ripped BD disc's BDMV/STREAMS folder. RipBot will then analyze it and find the various programs available to encodeyou want the one that matches the runtime of your movie, and not one of the special features. RipBot will chew on this file for a long time, and hopefully when it's done, will present you with this dialog:

6. If RipBot throws an error of any kind here, first make sure you've got a bunch of HD breathing room on the volume you're using. If errors still come up, you may have to mux your rip. To put that in English: Blu-ray discs have a lot of different files on them representing several different audio and video streams. The process of joining all of these disparate elements into a single stream (usually a .ts file) is called multiplexing, or muxing, and its necessary to do before transcoding. RipBot264 can do this on its own, but it has problems with certain discs. So if any of the above fails, download tsMuxeR, select the biggest .2mts file in the BDMV/STREAM folder in your rip or on your disc, choose the appropriate language, and hit "Start Muxing." You can then add the resulting .ts file to RipBot264 as the source.

7. Now you can choose how you want to convert the video. RipBot gives you presets for Apple TV, iPod or iPhone, PSP or a high-res file which can then be re-burned to a new BD disc. I chose the iPod/iPhone level.

8. Click "Properties"here you can fine tune the output size of your video (I chose a nice 640x360 file) and preview it before you begin. MAKE SURE you preview your choices using the "Preview Script" button, because you don't want to sit through the eternity of transcoding only to find that your dimensions are messed up and everything is in the wrong aspect ratio. 9. If all looks and sounds good, press OK, then "Start" and watch as your system transcodes the massive 1080p AVC stream into a new MP4 file. On my 2.53GHz Macbook Pro, it averages around 20fps, which is actually slower than real time playback. Yuck. So you'll want to set this and forget it.

10. Wake up the next morning, have your coffee, and check your output file. It should play beautifully in your media player of choice, and look crisp as a kettle chip. My 640x360 encode of the Dark Knight was around an even 1GB in the end, which is not bad at all. Copy it to your device of choice and enjoy. As you can see, this process is a bitch. It takes an hour to rip the disc, another hour and change for all the software to read your rip and get ready, then an amount of time equal to or even longer than the movie itself to transcode it, depending on your system. So hey, movie studios: how about making digital copies standard features on your BD discs so we don't have to go through this, mmkay? Note to Mac Users While the BD-ripping world is largely a Windows one, you may want to fiddle around with DumpHD, a ripping tool written in Java that supposedly works with OS X. I couldn't get it to work, but you can read more here to try for yourself. If you manage to rip your BD disc, you'll then have to find an AVC converter that works with OS X. Most of these are paid and I haven't used any, but they exist. If anyone has had luck with a particular tool, let us know.

h.264 tutorial using RipBot264

Its time for a new h.264 guide. We all know that, to be honest, SUPER is bag of crap. Ive also become aware that it is now being bundled with a program that can be considered spyware. With this new guide though, there is no need to use SUPER again for S9 or J3 conversion. As a bonus, this new method will also work for Blu-Ray rips. Enjoy!

The first thing to state is that this guide DOES NOT cover how to rip DVDs or Blu-Rays. I believe that there is another sticky somewhere (here? Thanks Urne!) on the S9/J3 forums for ripping using DVDFab. Otherwise, well known software is DVDDecrypter and Slysoft AnyDVD HD. Ill leave it there. The piece of software Ill be using is called RipBot264, which is freely available. Ripbot264 requires the installation of a few other bits, such as up-to-date FFDShow filters and AVISynth. Simply download RipBot264 and unpack it to a handy directory it does not need installing. When you run it the first time it will tell you what other things it needs you to get. Dead easy! Lets get going.

Temporary Folders
Before we go about adding files, you need to consider hard drive space. Ripbot make a Temp folder which can be large, usually at least as big as the ripped disc. In older versions, RipBot would place this folder in the root of the drive letter with the most free space. BEWARE if you have external hard drives connected, this will take a long time! The new version appears to want to create it in the C: drive every time. Therefore, make sure you have enough space for the ripped disc again. It will speed things up if you can put the rip on a second hard drive.

Guide
First off, click the Add button and navigate to the folder of your ripped disc. For a DVD, just select one of the biggest .VOB files. In most cases you can actually select any of the files. For a Blu-Ray rip you will need to navigate to the BDMV/STREAM/ folder and select the biggest .m2ts file. Again, in most cases, clicking any file will do.

If you have selected a Blu-ray .m2ts, you will now see the following box:

You now have a bit of a wait whilst it merges the VOBs or de-muxes the m2ts. Dont worry, this really can take some time.

When its finished, youll see this:

Well look at the following:

When its ready, click the small box for Profile (1). If it hasnt appeared, click where it should be, sometimes this happens :P Youll need to set this box as follows, delete any text in the box and paste in the commands below.

--profile baseline --level 3.0 --no-cabac --filter 0,0 --ref 1 --no-mixed-refs --bframes 0 --b-adapt 0 --noweightb --weightp 0 --b-pyramid none --subme 6 --aq-mode 0 --trellis 0 --partitions p8x8,b8x8,i4x4 --no8x8dct --me hex Make sure you set a name for your new profile before clicking OK Next, set the Audio to FHD AAC-LC 128kbps (2) For the Mode (3) I would use CQ, as 2-pass is excessive for a mobile player. It also takes quite a lot longer. I find that 20-22 are sensible settings for a film. Set to 22, you can expect a ~600MB file for a typical film. Setting to 20 will increase this to 750+MB. Click the Properties box (4), and in the Size box, select PSP.iPhone 480x272. This is also the place where you need to select any subtitle tracks, if applicable. You may also want to set Crop to Automatic. I do not like to stretch the video in any circumstances so I do not select this, but its personal preference. Click OK in the bottom right to return to the main screen. If the button is not there, aim for where it should be and it will appear.

Make sure that Normalize (5) is set to 100%, as some films are very quiet! Finally, set the file type to .MP4 (6) and then click Done! Youll now be back to the job list, so providing youre happy, click Start!

How to backup and convert Blu-ray to MP4 HD or MKV HD

This guide will describe how to convert your own Blu-ray Disc video to a single MP4 HD or MK4 HD file that can be played on computers, HTPC and media centers like the Popcorn Hour, Tvix, etc. You could also use this guide to just shrink Blu-ray and output as a new Blu-ray Disc / AVCHD. You need of course a Blu-ray reader like a Blu-ray ROM or Blu-ray Writer and lots of HDD space.

Tools Preparation Guide suprip - sup to srt anydvd - Blu-ray to HDD ripping Blu-ray to Blu-ray/AVCHD shrinking Problems

Tools required: AnyDVD($110) or you could try free DumpHD but it does not support newer movies with BD+. Ripbot264(free) and it requires that you have installed .Net Framework 2.0, Avisynth, ffdshow, Haali media splitter. suprip (if you need subtitles).

Preparation Install AnyDVD. If you are in Windows Vista, you have to disable UAC(User Account Control) and run as administrator. See here. If you are in Windows XP and can't see any files on the Blu-ray drive when browsing the disc then install this UDF Reader 2.5, extract the files and right click on the thdudf.inf file, choose install and then restart your computer.

Install all the required tools for Ripbot264, Net Framework, Haali Media Splitter and ffdshow. Use winrar or 7zip to extract Ripbot264.7z to a folder.

Guide Start Ripbot264 and choose Add to start a new Project Load the Video, browse to the Blu-ray drive (or the backup folder) and go to the BDMV\STREAMS folder and choose the 000000.m2ts(or whatever m2ts file) file and Ripbot264 will automatically load the movie. Select the video track(the 1080p/24), audio track(DTS or AC3) and if you want subtitles. Ripbot264 will now demultiplex the video, audio and subtitle and it will take several minutes. If it would crash or stop then be sure to use LATEST anydvd or rip the Blu-ray to your HDD first(see here).

Video Under Profile choose HD BluRay Consoles (Click on ... for advanced encoding settings) Under Mode choose CQ for Constant Quality, you can adjust the CRF, lower CRF=better quality but bigger file size. You can also adjust by output file size by first choose 2-pass under Mode and then click Lock size and choose the file size, use around 1-2GB/hour video for 1280x720 video or 2-3 GB hour/video for 1920x1080 video.

Crop and Resize Click on Properties to crop and resize video. Many movies are in 2.35 or 2.40 aspect ratio(check the back on Blu-ray cover) with black borders in the source Blu-ray video so we can crop out those. Under Crop choose automatically. Use the size if you want to down resize to smaller format like 1280x720(16:9) or choose Custom for 1280x544(2.35:1) or 1280x534(2.40:1). Click on the Preview to view how it will look like.

Audio You can copy/keep the DTS or AC3 audio if you are making a .MKV file that is playable on computers, HTPC and some media centers like Popcorn Hour and Tvix. Choose AAC audio 2.0 if you are making a .MP4 file for PS3 or Xbox 360. Change to .mkv or .mp4 at the bottom.

Subtitle If you need subtitles you must convert the Blu-ray sup to srt, use for example suprip (suprip guide). You can make hard coded/burned in subtitles by click on Properties and click on the right arrow at the bottom and under Subtitles choose Build in Picture and load the srt. If you want switchable subtitles in the mp4 or mkv then click on SUBTITLES ... button and load the srt file.

Last hit Done to add the project to the Queue. Hit start to start Convert! It will take several hours to convert H264 HD video, even on a fast computer so go and do something else now.

Play the .mp4 or .mkv with Media Player Classic Home Cinema or VLC Media Player or stream to your media center.

suprip - sup to srt Download suprip and extract files to a folder. Open the sup file, you find the sup file in the Ripbot264 temp folder, default C:\TEMP\Ripbot264temp. Click on Auto OCR. Click SRT and view the text, if it looks okey then you can Save... If doesn't look okey you have to manually OCR the text, click on Image. Click on the OCR button and then type in the characters you see and click OK and click OCR again and repeat until done. Save as a srt under SRT.

anydvd - Blu-ray to HDD You can rip the Blu-ray Disc to your HDD using AnyDVD if you want to store the Blu-ray for later conversion, just right click on the AnyDVD-fox-icon in the notification area and choose Rip Video DVD to Harddisk. You neeed a lot of space(around 50GB). If AnyDVD crashes or wont work be sure to upgrade to LATEST AnyDVD.

Blu-ray to Blu-ray/AVCHD shrinking Follow the guide above but do NOT crop. You can down resize to 1280x720p as it supported by Blu-ray video. Under SAVE AS choose Blu-ray Disc instead of MP4 or MKV.

You can then for example burn the Blu-ray Disc output folder to a DVDR and it might work on some standalone Blu-ray players. Burn using Imgburn, select Write files/folders to disc, add the .bluray folder that Ripbot264 made and Imgburn will adjust Blu-ray settings correctly.

Problems If you are in Windows XP and can't see any files on the Blu-ray drive when browsing the disc then install this UDF Reader 2.5, extract the files and right click on the thdudf.inf file, choose install and then restart your computer. If Ripbot264 stops or crashes after you opened the m2ts then try rip the Blu-ray to your HDD first(see here) and then open the m2ts from the HDD. If you receive an error like Code:
Cannot play back the video stream: no suitable decompressor could be found

then be sure that you have installed ffdshow and that you have enabled VC-1 decoding, go to Start->Programs->ffdshow->Video decoder configuration and scroll down to VC-1 and click on disabled and set it to libavcodec and VC-1 blu-rays should work. If you receive an error in Ripbot264 like Code:
DirectShowSource: Couldn't open C:\temp\RipBot264temp\job1\video.mkv: The selected folder/file was not found (C:\temp\RipBot264temp\job1\getinfo.avs, line 2)

then if you are in Windows Vista, you have to disable UAC(User Account Control) and run as administrator. See here.

Or try rip the Blu-ray to your HDD first(see here) and then open the m2ts from the HDD. Or try use tsmuxer to open the main movie mt2s(the biggest file) from the Blu-ray, create a new ts file and then open the new ts in Ripbot264. Read this detailed Blu-ray to MKV guide: http://forum.videohelp.com/topic362452.html for more information how to use Tsmuxer.

Converting BLU-RAY to MKV ~Using Ripbot~

First you need rip the blue-ray to hard disk .For that use AnyDVD HD ripping software

then Use Ripbot software for conversion

Just Follow the step which is shown below

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

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Step 12

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Step 16

Step 17

Ripbot H.264 DVD Encoding Guide for Playstation3/Xbox 360

This is a guide for encoding your DVD (Blu-ray will work too) movies into H.264 using Ripbot264 a very nice encoder that uses x264. The target being high quality & playback via device (PS3/X360 etc) on an LCD HDTV running at 720p or higher. What you will be using;

AnyDVD Ripbot264 Step 1: Go download Ripbot264 Ripbot plugins: AviSynth Haali Media Spliter ffdshow Get RipBot264 Here Get AnyDVD Here Or you can Have a Look on Extra torrent Step 2: Extract the files to a folder and run Ripbot264. You will be presented with a window like the one below.

This screen allows you to add, edit and remove jobs so click on Add to begin. I'm going to assume that you already have ripped your DVD to your hard drive if not then go use AnyDVD or some other ripper to do it. Step 3: On this screen we see the main options but nothing is yet available. Click on the highlighted button to input your movie.

Step 4: Now browse to locate your DVD folder and point it at the first VOB file of the movie (switching to details view mode helps here, see highlighted button), Ripbot will automatically pick up the other parts and find the movie so if all goes well it will display "demuxing audio streams". The demux can take some time so be patient and after it is done we can proceed.

Step 5: The next step is to change a few settings so we can get the optimal quality (though this is by no means definitive just my own personal observations). First up under output at the bottom of the screen you will see MP4, MKV or Blu-ray disc as a selection for compatibility with the Xbox 360 and PS3 select MP4. If you want AC3 5.1 audio select Bluray disc then look in the BDMV\STREAM folder and you will find an M2TS file known as AVCHD that you can use with your Playstation 3.

See where it says mode = CQ change that to a value of 18, the constant quality mode gives a fast encode and high quality video. The higher the value the more compression the lower the value the less compression from the accounts of others with it set at 18 most movies should be close in quality to the original source material. If you are not happy with the results you can always lower the value.

Just be aware that the CQ mode has no fixed file size and depending on the type of video the file size can vary greatly for example Michael Clayton turned out at 1GB for what is a 7.7GB DVD and Downfall turned out at 3GB for what is a 7.2GB DVD. For whatever reason the Michael Clayton movie was much more susceptible to compression than the Downfall movie was, if the movie goes over 4GB it will not play on the PS3 so you will need to redo the movie, try a setting of 20-22 & that may bring it under 4GB. The 4GB limitation only applies to the PS3 and MP4 containers, the Xbox has no limit and

the PS3 has no limit for AVCHD/M2TS files either, going over 4GB is only best suited if you plan on streaming media over network as 4GB limit applies to any USB HD plugged in to either console. The next option on the cards is the audio, pretty much leave it at the 128k AAC LC 2.0 (stereo), the Xbox 360 only supports AAC LC anyway. The PS3 can use the AAC 5.1 options at higher bitrates so if the PS3 is your target select one of those instead. If you are after an AVCHD video for the PS3 then it will change to copy mode for the audio if it is already in the AC3 format.

For the save file location pick any folder, don't use the default root of C: as Windows Vista will not allow you to write a file to that location for security reasons.

Step 6: Now click on properties button as shown in the screen below, this will bring us to the cropping, resizing, de-interlace section.

The cropping feature will remove the black bars/borders from the movie. You dont actually need to crop movies when using x264 there is no penalty, it also makes things easier if you simply want your movie to look like the original DVD and just use a custom resize to 1024x480 (NTSC) or 1024x576 (PAL). If you do want to crop the auto crop tool generally does a good job at what needs to be cropped and what doesn't so don't worry about it too much.

If you have cropped the video then select resize and it will display the aspect ratio which may or may not have been adjusted after taking cropping into account. Ripbot264 comes

with built in selections for common resolutions, you can also choose custom mode but for that I would recommend if cropping is using the aspect ratio calculator to get the right resolution so the movie wont be pulled or stretched in the wrong way and look really weird when played back (the aspect ratio of the movie is the [2,40:1] in the screen below).

Step 7: Click the > button just to show what other options are present (this is really a once off you most likely wont be looking at these screens again). On this page the only setting that is useful is the subtitles but that is also available from the main screen too. The subtitles will accept a variety of subtitles your best converting into .srt

On the last screen you have the denoise option, the denoise should only be used on really bad movies that are poor VHS transfers or really poor quality TV shows etc, the other setting should be (left alone).

Step 8: So with everything setup to our liking click ok & were back to the main screen, all that is left is to click on "done".

You will be brought back to the first screen which now shows your queued job, from where you can click on add again to add another job or edit to change anything with the selected job. Once happy click start and it will work it's magic.

Completed jobs are auto removed when you close the program. Overall it's a pretty straightforward once you have done it once or twice. As for time to encode well that depends on your computer, I'm running a quad Intel core 2 @ 2.94GHz so that's pretty high end, on average it takes about 1 hours 40mins to do a movie which is pretty fast so you can do a lot in one day.

Blu Ray to MKV with optioinal multi-language audio/subtitle support

Since the tools used in Blu Ray back-ups are updating so frequently, I figured another guide couldn't hurt. My personal philosophy on back-up copies is that if the original disc had it, I want to have it on the back-up (at least as far as the main movie is concerned.) With that in mind, I have written this guide with optional steps to include all the language (dubs) and subtitles found on the original disc. Of course, if you just want the main movie and one audio stream, that's even easier and this guide can help you do that. With luck this guide will also be a work in progress so that as new tools become available (or the

existing tools update and add features) I'll be able to edit this guide and note the new developments. Note that I tested/wrote this guide using Vista Home Premium 64 bit (so yes, even with 64 bit compatibility issues, I was still able to get this all to work.) Also, it's worth noting the two other guides I used as I was developing this guide - Baldrick's can be found here and ioannis66's can be found here. Also, it has come to my attention that some people dislike the .mkv format because few non-computer players (stand alone DVD players, portable devices, etc.) can play it. For a guide on converting .mkv files to .avi, read here. Note, though, that this requires .srt (text) subtitles via OCR (which is one of the main things I was trying to avoid and thus what led me to the .mkv container.) As a compromise, you might see what the .mp4 container can do for you (since RipBot264, the main converting software used in this guide, also supports the .mp4 container.) Alright, let's get started. Table of Contents: -What you'll need -(Optional, but recommended) Rip the disc to hard drive with AnyDVD -Deciding which playlist or .m2t to use with BDInfo -(Optional) Eac3to GUI for audio conversion -(Optional) tsMuxeR GUI to demux audio and/or subtitle tracks -Converting the video with RipBot264 -(Optional) Converting subtitles with BDSup2Sub -(Optional) Muxing the extra audio and/or subtitle tracks with mkvmerge GUI What you'll need Required AnyDVD HD (a trial version is available, but I tested this with the full version) for removing the Blu Ray disc protection and also allows you to rip the disc to your hard drive BDInfo (free) for finding which file you need to be working with RipBot264 (free) for video conversion Optional Eac3to GUI (free) for converting full HD audio streams to an ac3 (which can then but muxed into a mkv file) tsMuxeR GUI (free) for demuxing multiple audio and/or subtitle tracks (and, sometimes, for demuxing the video track) BDSup2Sub (free) for converting the Blu Ray subtitle format (.sup) to something that can be muxed into an mkv file (idx/sub) without OCR! (If you really do want to do the OCR to get srt files, use suprip) mkvmerge GUI (free) for muxing the multiple audio/subtitle streams together (note that this is part of the mkvtoolnix package) (Optional, but recommended) Rip the disc to hard drive with AnyDVD You will need something like AnyDVD HD to remove the copy protection from the Blu Ray disc but I also strongly recommend ripping the disc to your hard drive before working on converting it. This will take up a lot of hard drive space (say around 35-50GB) but greatly reduces the risk of things getting messed up. I did this while writing this guide so if you don't, realize that you're taking a risk. This is well documented

in this guide. Just in case, though, here's a rundown of how to do it.

Once AnyDVD scans the disc and determines what to do with it, right click on the fox icon (over by the clock, in the lower right) and select "Rip Video DVD to Harddisk" You should get a screen like this one:

Make sure to set the directory to something short where you'll be able to easily find it again. When it's done ripping, it should look like this:

(Note: I'm going a bit overboard with the number of screen shots in this guide because I want to make sure it's very clear, perhaps even to people who are not native English speakers - it's a big internet out there, who knows who'll find this guide.) Deciding which .mpls or .m2t to use with BDInfo Open up BDInfo and hit the "Browse" button as seen here:

Select the whole folder where you either 1) ripped the disc (recommended) or 2) have the disc in your Blu Ray drive. That should open up and list all the playlist files, looking something like this:

The one you want should be the first one in the list that has a file time equal to the video you want (probably the longest one.) Read step Step 3 here if you have more questions. Now that you know which file name you want, you can move on (there's nothing else to do with BDInfo) (Optional) Eac3to GUI for audio conversion There's a great guide on this here (under Step 4A) but here's a brief rundown (look at the other guide for details if you need them) Eac3to GUI: To Convert the HD Audio for use in MKV - optional, might also just be able to demux and use an ac3 version if one is one the disc Input File(s) or Folder [in the top right] to the folder (set in Paths/Sources tab) Title Set 1 (or whichever the secondary window shows is the right one) Track [#] where [#] is the track number you want File Name to something short that makes sense Save As Type to ac3

Run Command Line (Tab Specific) [in lower left] (Optional) tsMuxeR GUI to demux audio and/or subtitle tracks If you want multiple audio and/or subtitle tracks, you can use tsMuxeR GUI to demux them for you. My tests have shown that it's easier to use tsMuxeR GUI to demux the audio and RipBot 264 to demux the subtitles (because tsMuxeR GUI doesn't note which language is which on the subtitle files) but you can try both ways and see which you prefer. To demux, open up tsMuxeR GUI and click "add" as seen here:

If it will let you, navigate to the "Playlist" folder and select the number that you found using BDInfo.

If that doesn't work (it won't let you select a playlist file) you might also be able to go to the "Steams" folder and select the file with the same number from BDInfo.

Either way, it should think for a moment then list all the tracks in that file. Deselect all tracks except the 1080p video track (or, in most cases, you can also uncheck the box for the video and just let RipBot264 do the demuxing - as of the writing of this guide, RipBot264 has had better luck with the demuxing of video than tsMuxeR GUI) and the audio language tracks you want (other than the one we converted via Eac3to) -Optional: Leave the check box by any subtitles you want. These can also be demuxed by RipBot264 (in general, I recommend letting RipBot264 demux the subtitles.) In short, you're probably best to just let tsMuxeR GUI demux the audio tracks, but if for some reason RipBot264 can't demux the video or subtitle tracks, then use tsMuxeR GUI as an alternative.

Set to Demux under Output and change Output path (so the files will be easier to find later) to something like \moviename\DEMUX Hit Start demuxing button

When it's finished, you should see something like this:

Converting the video with RipBot264 Note: If you used tsMuxeR GUI to demux the video, you might be able to add it to RipBot264 and you might not. I recommend only using tsMuxeR GUI for the video if RipBot264 can't get it to work.

If using RipBot264 to demux the video (recommended) then do this: Under add, video, select the playlist (can be checked with BDInfo)

-Note: If it won't let you open the .mpls playlist file, go to the "STREAMS" folder and open the corresponding numbered file there (like 0003.m2t)

Under subtitle be sure to select the last option, All Subtitles (unless you demuxed the subs using

tsMuxeR GUI) - assuming you want subtitles of course.

Note: RipBot264 can only do one audio stream so if you want multiple audio streams (such as different language dubs) you'll need to use tsMuxeR GUI to demux them and then mkvmerge GUI to mux them back in. For now, though, just let RipBot264 do its thing with one video and one audio stream. If you want subtitles, you can let RipBot264 demux them but note that they'll end up in RipBot's temp folder. Also, don't use RipBot264 to actually put in the subtitles (since, at least as of this writting, they'll end up as burned in permanent subs.)

It will take it a bit to demux. When it's done, it should give you drop down lists and look something like this:

Set the file type to MKV (though if you want an .mp4 or AVCHD file then you can play around with those buttons until you get it to work)

Under "Mode" there are two main options: 1 pass (CQ) or 2 pass I can't really tell you which to use - the trade off is size vs. quality. I think a 1 pass (CQ) at "20" (the lower the number, the better the quality) gives a good quality file for its size and doesn't take quite as long as a 2 pass to encode. You might consider getting a small file clip and encoding it using several different options to see which one you like best. In any case, I set CQ 20 for this. To make sure your output file looks tidy, select the audio language over on the right

Under "Properties" (under Mode) you have options to autocrop and also options to resize. I recommend the auto crop (gives you slightly smaller file sizes and generally makes for a more useful output file)

As for the resizing, your options are all here. Note that I have not had much luck getting the autocrop to work when also reducing a 1080p movie down to 720p - I always end up with some black boarders, which I then have to run back through RipBot264 to remove. I'll try to post more here if I find anything out. For this test, though, I didn't resize (left it at 1080p)

You can preview the aviscript if you like, else just hit OK

Look over your settings and also make sure that the output path works for you (if it doesn't, hit the "..." to the right of the the output file path and choose a new one.) Note that you can't just type right on the output path, you have to edit it under the "..." (at least as of the writing of this guide.) I don't recommend doing anything under "Subtitles ..." unless you want burned in subs.

When you hit done you should end up with a project queue. Make sure that "Low Priority" is not checked (as I'm guessing this would slow down the encoding) and hit Start

It'll give you a fairly accurate estimate of when it will be done, but note that if you're doing 2 pass then the time remaining will only be for the pass it's on. -Go to bed, go to work, go shopping, do homework...whatever, but just leave your computer alone for a few hours because this'll take a while. When it's finished, you should have a window like this:

(Optional) Converting subtitles with BDSup2Sub If you want subtitles in your final file, you'll need to convert them since the Blu Ray native .sup files can't be muxed into an .mkv file. This handy little Java app will convert your subtitles to the idx/sub format (an image based subtitle rather than a text based file, which would require OCR.) Open it up and just drag and drop your first subtitle file into the top blue area. If you used tsMuxeR GUI to demux the subtitles, they'll be in whatever folder you told it to demux to. If you used RipBot264 to demux them, they should be in the Temp folder that RipBot264 uses (C:/Temp/Ripbot264 or something like that)

You should get a box like this, asking what to do with the files.

I set the option for 1080p since that's what the source disk was. It should automatically detect frames/second (fps) so you shouldn't need to adjust any of the other options. After hitting OK, it will load the file. You can use the "Set subtitle number" option (the dropdown box just under "File") to navigate between subtitles and make sure they look OK.

After checking them out, go under File for Save/Export and it'll give you this box:

I'd recommend putting the subtitles in a different subfolder (like [moviename]/subs or something like that) so that they'll be easy to find later. Hit "Save" and it should start the export. Repeat these steps for each .sup file (i.e. each subtitle stream.) (Optioonal) Muxing the extra audio and/or subtitle tracks with mkvmerge GUI If you want more than just video with one audio language (which is what RipBot264 will give you, at least as of the writing of this guide), use mkvmerge GUI (part of MKVToolnix) to mux the other audio and/or subtitle streams into the output file from RipBot264. The file you got from RipBot264 should just

have one video and one audio file (with no subtitles.) Drag and drop this file in the "Input files" area of mkvmerge. Also drag and drop any other language or subtitle files (you'll probably need to drop the .idx file rather than the .sub file for each of the subtitles if you used BDSup2Sub.) It will probably set each added stream to "default" so change those all to "no" (unless you want that stream to be on by default.) I don't know what it would do if it had multiple audio and multiple subtitles on by default, but I didn't want to find out.

Once it's all tidied up, select a good output location (by default it will overwrite your mkv file from RipBot264, so you'll need to change this to something like "[file]mux.mkv" or something.)

When it's ready, hit the Start Muxing button and when it's all done you should have a window like this:

Now find that file on your hard drive. Here's the properties of the file I made (note this is a large 1080p

movie with several audio languages and several subtitle languages.)

How to convert a BluRay disc into a .MKV 720P file

THE BASIC STEPS ARE:

STEP 1. PREPARATION-INSTALLATION AND THE TOOLS NEEDED. STEP 2. DECRYPTION OF THE BLURAY DISC. STEP 3. FINDING THE CORRECT .MPLS FILE AND THE DESIRED STREAMS.

STEP 4. EXTRACTING AND CONVERTING THE AUDIO STREAM [4 -A : Dolby TrueHD Audio ----> AC3 5.1 Audio stream OR 4 - B: DTS HD Audio ----> DTS Audio stream] STEP 5. EXTRACTING THE VIDEO STREAM. STEP 6. ENCODING THE VIDEO STREAM AND MULTIPLEXING WITH THE AUDIO INTO .MKV FILE.

PROCEDURES DIAGRAM:

STEP 1. PREPARATION-INSTALLATION AND THE TOOLS NEEDED.

The most important program you will need is AnyDVD HD. It removes all the protection from the BluRay and HDDVD discs and allows you to rip their content into your hard drive. The HD Encoding tools you will need, are:

BDInfo v0.5.1: Just double click on BDInfo.exe to open the program. tsMuxeR v1.8.8b: Double click on the file tsMuxerGUI.exe to open the program. eac3to284 v2.84: Double click on the file yr_eac3to_more_gui.exe to open the program. RipBot264 v1.11.5: Double click on the file RipBot264.exe to open the program. You will notice that in order to work properly with Ripbot264, you should install 3 more programs. AviSynth v2.5.8.4: Double click on the file AviSynth_080912.exe to start the installation. Leave the Standard install option as is, don't change it. ffdshow rev2527: Double click on the file ffdshow_beta6_rev2527_20081219.exe to start the installation. When the Select Components appears just before the installation, be

sure to check AviSynth scripts serving and Application plugins: AviSynth. Do not change any other options, just click on Next to proceed with the installation, and then Finish.

Matroska Splitter v1.8.122.18: Double click on the file MatroskaSplitter.exe to start the installation. Do not change any options, just complete the installation.

After you have installed the last 3 tools, you will notice that RipBot264 opens normally.

STEP 2. DECRYPTION OF THE BLURAY DISC.

We will use AnyDVD HD in order to remove and copy all the contents of the BluRay disc into the hard drive.

Insert the disc in your BD-ROM. Wait some seconds until the following message dissappears.

Right click on the AnyDVD icon on the bottom right of the screen and select Rip VideoDVD to Harddisk...

Choose the Destination Directory and click on the Copy DVD button.

It will take a while, so you can get a cup of coffee... You will end up with these files in your hard drive:

STEP 3. FINDING THE CORRECT .MPLS FILE AND THE DESIRED STREAMS.

We have to note some things now. Examine the contents of the files, in order to choose the correct .MPLS file that points to the main movie and the desired video and audio streams. We want the untouched 1920x1080 video stream and the DTS or AC3 audio stream.

Open BDInfo, click on the Browse... button and select the folder that contains the ripped files.

Click OK, wait a few seconds and your screen will look like this:

We are looking for the .MPLS file that is the "playlist" of the main movie.

Take a look at the Length column. The time 01:29:11 tells us that this is the main movie. So, the first .MPLS file that points to the main movie is 00004.MPLS. That was easy. But what if the BluRay contains 2 versions of the main movie. like Director's Cut and Theatrical Version?

Play the BluRay disc, select the fist version, move the movie at the end and note the duration of the fist version of the movie. Do the same for the second version. For example the new X-Files Bluray contains the Director's Cut 01:48 and the Theatrical version 01:44 Now that we know the durations, we will be able to decide which .MPLS file points to the version we want. So, we will choose the first .MPLS file that has exactly the duration of the version of the film we want to keep.

Remember, with BDInfo we do not do anything, it is just a tool to help us decide the .MPLS file and the examine the available streams. The video stream is easy to choose, we always choose MPEG-4 AVC Video 1080P High Profile 4.1. We see 2 audio streams that are available in English: Dolby TrueHD Audio and Dolby Digital Audio. We always use the best audio stream available. Dolby TrueHD Audio is our selection but we can not use it with a .MKV file. So, we will convert it to AC3 5.1, using eac3to. What if we had a DTS HD stream? If we see a DTS HD stream, we can convert it to a DTS stream with the help of eac3to so we will use that stream. We note that we want:

the 00004.MPLS file, the MPEG-4 AVC Video 1080P High Profile 4.1 stream, the Dolby TrueHD Audio stream or the DTS HD Audio stream.

If you have a Dolby TrueHD Audio stream, go to STEP 4 - A. If you have a DTS HD Audio stream, go to STEP 4 - B.

STEP 4 -A. EXTRACTING AND CONVERTING THE AUDIO STREAM. Dolby TrueHD Audio ----> AC3 5.1 Audio stream.

Open eac3to and from the Paths section click on the Add/Change button just under eac3to. Then select eac3to.exe and click on Open. Your screen will look like this:

This is a one-time setting, in order to inform the GUI, where the .exe file of the main program, is.

Under the Sources section, click on the Add Source Folders button. Then, browse to the folder on your disc that is the name of the movie and contains the extracted content of the BluRay disc.

Now click on the second tab of the program, Eac3to Audio. Under the Input Files or Folder, select Source Folder. Your screen will look like this:

The secondary window, informs us about the number of titles that are available in the main .MPLS file. It is obvious that we want Title Number 1, which contains the main movie. But what if the BluRay contains 2 versions of the main movie. like Director's Cut and Theatrical Version?

[list:4be4e9bd8c] Play the BluRay disc, select the fist version, move the movie at the end and note the duration of the fist version of the movie. Do the same for the second version. For example the new X-Files Bluray contains the Director's Cut 01:48 and the Theatrical version 01:44 Now that we know the durations, we will be able to decide which Title Number that contains the version we want. So, we will choose the Title Number that has exactly the duration of the version of the film we want to keep.

[*]Under Title Sets, select 1). The program will do some calculations and the secondary window will now inform us about the number of the tracks/streams that are available in the selected Title.

It is obvious that we want Track Number 3, which is the Dolby TrueHD Audio stream. [*]Under Tracks, select 3: and under the Filename enter the name of the converted file, like CONVERTEDAC3. Under Save as Type select ac3 and click on Run Command Line button. Your screen will look like this:

From the Command Line area you can see where the converted Audio file wil be on your hard drive, when the conversion ends. This will take a while. [*]You will end up with one .AC3 file in your hard drive, the converted stream (from Dolby TrueHD Audio to AC3 5.1 Audio stream): Now that you have a AC3 5.1 Audio stream, go to STEP 5.[/list:u:4be4e9bd8c]

STEP 4 -B. EXTRACTING AND CONVERTING THE AUDIO STREAM. DTS HD Audio ----> DTS Audio stream.

Open eac3to and from the Paths section click on the Add/Change button just under eac3to. Then select eac3to.exe and click on Open. Your screen will look like this:

This is a one-time setting, in order to inform the GUI, where the .exe file of the main program, is.

Under the Sources section, click on the Add Source Folders button. Then, browse to the folder on your disc that is the name of the movie and contains the extracted content of the BluRay disc.

Some additioal steps about DTS HD converting will be added soon.

Now that you have a DTS Audio stream, go to STEP 5.

STEP 5. EXTRACTING THE VIDEO STREAM.

Now we will extract the video stream.

Open tsMuxeR, click on the Add button and open the 00004.MPLS file. This is in your hard disc folder where you extracted the BluRay disc, in this directory: \[MOVIE_NAME]\BDMV\PLAYLIST\,

for example \PROMNIGHT\BDMV\PLAYLIST\

Your screen will look like this:

From the tracks uncheck everything except this stream: ---->H.264 Profile: High@4.1 Resolution 1920x1080p and

Click on the Demux button, then Browse to select your destination folder and finally the Start Demuxing button. Your screen will look like this:

You will end up with one .264 file in your hard drive, the video stream.

STEP 6. ENCODING THE VIDEO STREAM AND MULTIPLEXING WITH THE AUDIO INTO .MKV FILE.

RipBot264 will do 2 jobs for us. It will encode the video stream with specific setting into a 720P H264 stream. It will also multiplex that stream with our audio stream into a .MKV file. The audio stream is the final AC3 5.1 stream or the final DTS stream.

Open RipBot264 and click on the Add button. Your screen will look like this:

---->Insert the video file: Browse to your .264 file. ---->Wait a few minutes until the program finishes indexing the video stream. ---->Insert the audio file: Browse to your .AC3 file OR to your .DTS file. (It depends on which step you followed: Step 4 - A or Step 4 - B) ---->Select the .MKV option in the Save As area.

Now, your screen will look like this:

---->Make sure that under the Profile, the x.x COPY STREAM is selected. ---->For Mode, select the 2-pass option from the dropdown menu. ---->The Lock Size option will now be available in the right corner of the program. Check this and insert 4480, as this will be the DVD5 fixed size of the final .MKV file. ---->Under Output, select the folder you want the final file to be. ---->Now click on the Properties button in the center of the program.

Your screen will look like this:

---->Under the Crop option, select Automatically. ---->Under the Size option, select HD-Ready 1280x720. ---->Click on the Preview Script button to check your options. ---->Click OK. You will return to the previous window. Click on the Done button.

Your screen will look like this:

Click on the Start button and wait...

The RipBot264 will make the 1st pass encode and when it's over, it will start the 2nd pass. This pass is the most important and will take 3 times the duration of the 1st pass, so leave your pc until it's over. You can burn the final .MKV file into a DVD5 disc.