Converting Blu Ray Discs to x264

[drunkenm4ster]

Hi All,

The info out on the web seems to be sparse and confusing (for a simpleton like me:happy:)
I am looking for recommendeds guides and software on converting Blu Ray Discs to x264 format.
Why you may ask, well I am about to go NAS crazy, and want to lnow the best way of converting my library to make some shlve space for some collectibles.
Of course if you think a better format for streaming (Wired Network) high quality moviws is advisable, please go ahead.
So many questions, or should I be looking at a dedicated site for this sort of stuff?.

Many thanks for reading this, and of course I forgot to say please.

[sn00ker]

I haven't done it for a for years now but I think and I could be wrong but I think you should make your Blu ray format to MKV's then run them through HandBrake . I'm sure if I'm right others here could help

[drunkenm4ster]

I haven't done it for a for years now but I think and I could be wrong but I think you should make your Blu ray format to MKV's then run them through HandBrake . I'm sure if I'm right others here could help
Thanks sn00ker, what do I use to make them inyo mkvs - sorry for the delay.

[the_nephrops]

you have the following tools:
a) VSO Blue-ray to mkv
b) AnyDVDHD
c) DVDFab

my advice, read the guides that are available over the net before trying the conversion, because a single layer take more or less 80min to finish the rip, and them you have to joint the files into mkv format.

[Beck38]

Probably the best conversion setup out there is MeGUI; a still good guide is at Ribo Labs:

https://ribolabs.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/guide-for-re-encoding-blu-ray-to-x264-mkv-megui/

Over the years a few things have come (and gone); the x264 has gotten better, but (IMHO) tsMuxr has gone a bit south in some of the more recent iterations (seems to have problems with audio syncing).

AVISynth has been added to one of the later parts of both Vista and Win7, so one may already have that on their system. Several other bits and pieces of both ripping apart the bluray and putting it back together has improved as well.

Basic thing is still, have a decent fast multi-core machine if you plan on going 'into production' with the system. Decent quality will run you around 12+ hours per run on a 6-8 core 3GHZ+ machine.

One thing to keep in mind is what you're going to use as a playback mechanism. I settled on PCH (Popcorn Hour) machines a long time ago, but have found that the newer bluray players (like <$100 Sony) that do MKV run just about as good on playing BD25's, both MKV and m2ts. Remember audio, you may need to transform whatever to Dolby, or TrueHD to DTS, and there are easily available tools to do that as well.

Although I have almost 100TB of Networked disc space, my 'base' storage is on BD25's, so that's the 'space' I recode to (video+audio+maybe extras) or go to 2/BD25's if lots of extras, particularly as inkjet blanks are so cheap (<$.70 cents now).

So figure out the complete 'plan' on what you want to accomplish and 'make a plan'. I've been in 'full production' for over 8+ years now.

Folks like Slysoft (anydvd) have just come out with 'single-click' BD compressors, but one can figure the quality is about the same as with the old DVD 'Clone' programs vr, Rebuilder/Cinemacraft, who knows.

MeGUI for me.

[Appzalien]

I don't have a blueray drive so I don't convert disks to mkv. but I know handbrake can do it straight from the disk. Here is the help page for selecting a source.
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Sources
Notice you need something like anydvd to remove protections.
The settings of hand brake are pretty straight forward, the one I have trouble with is the Constant Quality slider under the video tab. It's not easy to know what size file you'll end up with, I had to run it twice many times because the file was too small or too large.