How do you like your BD25 Downloads

[Lepgek]

Hi this topic is to gather infomation on how people like there BD25 Downloads.

There is so many Bluray rips out there some are full blurays some are full blurays shrunk to bd25 and some are bd50 shrink to bd25 movie only.

So the question is how do you like yours?

My answer would be depending on the film i would aim for best possible Film quality so for example i have a bd50 and the main movie file is 26gb i would ditch the menu and extras and just focus on the film as by the time you have shrunk the whole disk the movie will prob be around 10-15gb which in that case you might as well just get a x264 of it.

Doing a Full BD50 shrink is ok if the disk is say around 30-35gb but any more and you going to be affecting the main movie quality, Its a shame there is no program that can take out extras at the moment as that would be the best option.

So How do you like Yours?

[uncle den]

Best picture and audio quality not bothered about extras

[drokk54]

Movie. In Best Quality. ............. extra's are expendable........... and only wacko's sit and watch a menu.....

[Beck38]

Hi this topic is to gather infomation on how people like there BD25 Downloads.

There is so many Bluray rips out there some are full blurays some are full blurays shrunk to bd25 and some are bd50 shrink to bd25 movie only.

Well, not exactly. The vast majority of posts are 'movie only', and equal anywhere from dvd5 size (4.37GB) to DVD9 (7.95GB), through anywhere from there to upwards of around 20GB (10-20GB).
Then there's the full rip posting, pure BD25 or BD50.

Doing a Full BD50 shrink is ok if the disk is say around 30-35gb but any more and you going to be affecting the main movie quality, Its a shame there is no program that can take out extras at the moment as that would be the best option.

Uh, have you ever taken a look at the BD 'architecture'? The main movie and the extras are in different 'm2ts' pieces (the BD equivalent of DVD vob's), and all you need is your mouse and explorer to separate it from all the rest of the 'stuff' (extras) on the disc.

So How do you like Yours?

I've made it pretty clear before, but the biggest bit-hog on BD is the main audio Dolby True-HD and/or the DTS-MA tracks, both 7.1 (Some discs have PCM, 5.1 or 7.1, extremely high bit rate as well as it's totally uncompressed). Both are CBR, constant bit rate. Transform either of those to DTS (5.1, either 1.5mb/s or 768kb/s), and that'll wack them to less than a third of the original. You can do Dolby 5.1, 448kb/s or 640kb/s, but it's really nowhere as good as DTS. Take the commentary track (usually DD2.0, 192kb/s), and do the same, using OGG, AAC, or whatever (again, the result will be less than perhaps 25% or the original).

Then take a look at what you'll have left for video, and go from there. Most BD movie recodes are in the 10-20GB region (with audio), depending mostly on a target average bit rate (usually 10Mb/s), and of course the length of the movie.

But if your 'target' is BD25, you'll be right at the top of the pack 'average bit rate' video wise, and the video (and audio) quality will be VERY close, if not indistinguishable between it and the original.

A recent good disc (BD50, extremely high encoding rates (and a good test for any system) is 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Anything with large pans of seascapes will drive an encoder nuts, LOTS of scenes exceeding bit rates of well over 50Mb/s, and of course using (originally on the disc) Mpeg2HD encoding (not very efficient compared to VC1), will leave your system panting.

So, to recap:

DTS audio, from the HD main audio tracks
Commentary through compressed stereo
ALL captions (bit space used is very minimal)
Video exceeding 10Mb/s (in fact, you'll find that the standard 2hr movie will exceed 15-20mb/s with x.264 with the 25G you're specifying)
AND don't try down-rezing to 720P; you've got so much bandwidth at 25GB that it simply isn't necessary, and it DOES show!


When I started out scanning what was 'available' on usenet, I tended to 'like' those recodes that matched DVD5/9 sizes, but quickly found that those with more 'breathing room' in the 12-15GB range simply looked (and sounded with DTS) much better. Again, with a target size of a BD25, it will look/sound superb.

Added:

Here is an example of some folks who're doing a superb job, HDC. I've d/l'ed a lot of their stuff, but here is one that was just now uploaded; several others have done it (the movie is 'Contact', the Jodie Foster flick from a few years ago), but either no DTS main soundtrack (usually Dolby5.1 from the TrueHD track on the BR original), and sans any commentary track(s). Here's a bit of the nfo:

General Information
Release Name..: Contact.1997.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-HDC
Release Date..: 29.10.2009
Runtime.......: 02h:29m:41s
Size..........: 12.22 GB
Video Codec...: x264 [LVL4.1][DXVA]
Framerate.....: 23.976 fps
Bitrate.......: 9.925 kbps
Resolution....: 1920x800 [AR 2.40:1]
Audio 1.......: English 5.1 DTS @ 1.536 kbps (from TrueHD)
Audio 2.......: English Commentary I 2.0 OGG @ 96 kbps
Audio 3.......: English Commentary II 2.0 OGG @ 96 kbps
Audio 4.......: English Commentary III 2.0 OGG @ 96 kbps
Chapters......: YES like BluRay
Subtitles.....: German, English
Source........: BluRay VC1 ~ 22.661 Mbps thx 2 BananaFarmer
Encoder .....: iwok
IMDB Rating...: 7.3/10 [68.072 votes]
IMDB Link.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/

x264 [info]: profile High, level 4.1
x264 [info]: frame I:1972 Avg QP:16.55 size:132063
x264 [info]: frame P:59279 Avg QP:17.97 size: 77888
x264 [info]: frame B:154075 Avg QP:19.45 size: 40658
x264 [info]: SSIM Mean Y:0.9832521

encoded 215326 frames, 5.53 fps, 9924.95 kb/s

> As you can see, their 'target' is a video bitrate of 10Mb/s or thereabouts, from an original 22GB movie m2ts source. So, although the original disc (the movie part) was <BR25 size, they recoded it to a bit more that 50% size, recoded the Dolby TrueHD to DTS (as something most everyone can 'hear'), and redid the commentary tracks to OGG, and left the video in 1080P.

VERY nicely done, I'm leeching the thing as I type this. Four Stars out of four, from the nfo. I'll know tomorrow am after it finishes.

But a good example of where, again, the movie is <BR25 in size. If you wanted to, you could 'keep' the original TrueHD, and/or also do a DTS recode so, again, those without TrueHD decoding capability could get something virtually as good (or even do a DTS-MA transcode, there's probably enough room before hitting 25GB, again, because anyone with a DTS decoder can decode the DTS-MA 'core' of DTS), again, untouching the video.

[drokk54]

Bexk Eats MEDIA for Breakfast. This is a good thing. For us all.

[Beck38]

After messing around for a couple months with high-end video cards, several HD 'players' and such, I broke down and bought a Popcorn Hour (A-110) box.

Best **** $200+ I've spent on video, bar none. Will get the C-200 box in a bit. Meanwhile, my drives are filling up with all kinds of goodies.

Then again, I have a bit shy of 70TB of SD DVD's. It'll take awhile to the HD stuff to get a fair percentage of that, even though I get a ton from broadcast/subscription sources.

Again, a lot of the 'mistakes' (my opinion) I see with the HD/x.264 recodes I saw with SD DVD's some 10 years ago. I'm trying to get a machine (quad-core) set up to do recoding, but the tools are still in the cradle, and my ability to figure out the s/w is not what it was 1o years ago.

But as the example above, there are folks out there 'doing it right' by my estimation, and if the video was 'untouched', it's be even better.

Good (or bad) recent example:

FRINGE, the best new 'network' (US) program this year. As groundbreaking (if not more so) than "Heroes" was 3 years ago. Two x.264 uploads so far (remember, these are ~45min episodes, 20ea. for the season). One was <2.5GB, with commentary stripped, ~5.5Mb/s rate, original 1080P downrezed to 720P. The other, 5GB with commentary stripped, ~12Mb/s rate, with original 1080P. Both with original Dolby5.1 audio... but with commentary stripped. Including the commentary would have taken perhaps at best 50kb/s worth of bits.

Makes no sense. BTW, the creator of the program is J.J. Abrams, the guy who directed the new 'Star Trek' movie. And got Leonard Nimoy to be in FRINGE (debuting in the final episode) as a recurring character.

[akademiks]

Does it make that much of a difference in image quality though? Between a bd25 rip and something that's been compressed to say, 10GB for just the movie and audio?

Quite honestly I don't see it..

[Beck38]

Does it make that much of a difference in image quality though? Between a bd25 rip and something that's been compressed to say, 10GB for just the movie and audio?

Quite honestly I don't see it..

As to what, either the 720P v. 1080P, or the bit-rate (in my example above, the 720P is at ~5.600mb/s, whereas the 1080P is ~12.1Mb/s.

Depends on the equipment; most 'consumer' HD displays, particularly 'flat' LCD based ones, even with the 'best' you're probably right, very hard to note any difference; the top consumer plasma would give one a better chance. (LCD ~$1K, plasma ~$3K).

I have a broadcast grade 32" CRT HD display, and even though it's not capable (being 'first generation') of 1080P (in fact, not any progressive exceeding 480P), the difference between the same material 720P v. 1080P is pretty striking, even though the actual display is max'ed out at 1080i and both 720P and 1080P are being converted to 1080i (the conversion box/part >$3K).

I've only seen a couple 'flat' plasma displays that come close to it, Pioneer and Panasonic, both exceeding $10K in (2009) price. My 'little' set cost almost double that, in 2001 dollars. That's the price of being an 'early adopter', but also because I've been dealing with digital video (SD and HD) as a broadcast design/engineer since the late 1980's (and analog a good 15 years before that).

I continually A/B recodes vr. the source BR disc, and find that generally, only in the toughest scenes does recodes with over 10Mb/s get into 'trouble'. Of course, I also find that most movies are <25GB, even on a 50GB dual-layer BR disc, so...

The original idea, postulated by Lepgek, is pretty sound, in that only a handful of movies would need to be recoded to 'fit' on a 25GB disc (and only VERY light recoding), and would therefore be in the original 1080P format.

But it does make a difference. You may not 'see' it now, but if you upgrade your equipment, you'll see it. I liken it to, perhaps, a Widescreen SD disc (on a standard SD display) vr. one that is anamorphic, on a digital capable display where the 'unsqueeze' take place digitally; generally, one gets about 40% more resolution with the anamorphic.

Heck, here it is 2009 and I'm still having to explain 'anamorphic' to folks with analog SD equipment, so it's not unusual to point out the shortcomings of 'typical' consumer HD equipment, attached (usually) to down-rez'ed and bit-starved 'digital' cable-tv systems. Same thing with the content that's being d/l'ed.

[akademiks]

Does it make that much of a difference in image quality though? Between a bd25 rip and something that's been compressed to say, 10GB for just the movie and audio?

Quite honestly I don't see it..

As to what, either the 720P v. 1080P, or the bit-rate (in my example above, the 720P is at ~5.600mb/s, whereas the 1080P is ~12.1Mb/s.

Depends on the equipment; most 'consumer' HD displays, particularly 'flat' LCD based ones, even with the 'best' you're probably right, very hard to note any difference; the top consumer plasma would give one a better chance. (LCD ~$1K, plasma ~$3K).

I have a broadcast grade 32" CRT HD display, and even though it's not capable (being 'first generation') of 1080P (in fact, not any progressive exceeding 480P), the difference between the same material 720P v. 1080P is pretty striking, even though the actual display is max'ed out at 1080i and both 720P and 1080P are being converted to 1080i (the conversion box/part >$3K).

I've only seen a couple 'flat' plasma displays that come close to it, Pioneer and Panasonic, both exceeding $10K in (2009) price. My 'little' set cost almost double that, in 2001 dollars. That's the price of being an 'early adopter', but also because I've been dealing with digital video (SD and HD) as a broadcast design/engineer since the late 1980's (and analog a good 15 years before that).

I continually A/B recodes vr. the source BR disc, and find that generally, only in the toughest scenes does recodes with over 10Mb/s get into 'trouble'. Of course, I also find that most movies are <25GB, even on a 50GB dual-layer BR disc, so...

The original idea, postulated by Lepgek, is pretty sound, in that only a handful of movies would need to be recoded to 'fit' on a 25GB disc (and only VERY light recoding), and would therefore be in the original 1080P format.

But it does make a difference. You may not 'see' it now, but if you upgrade your equipment, you'll see it. I liken it to, perhaps, a Widescreen SD disc (on a standard SD display) vr. one that is anamorphic, on a digital capable display where the 'unsqueeze' take place digitally; generally, one gets about 40% more resolution with the anamorphic.

Heck, here it is 2009 and I'm still having to explain 'anamorphic' to folks with analog SD equipment, so it's not unusual to point out the shortcomings of 'typical' consumer HD equipment, attached (usually) to down-rez'ed and bit-starved 'digital' cable-tv systems. Same thing with the content that's being d/l'ed.

Well I actually have got a Pioneer Elite 151FD and a Samsung PN50B850 so I don't think my equipment is the problem..

Truthfully, all of the supposed issues with low(er) bitrate 1080p rips I have never encountered.. Macro blocking, crushed blacks, etc.. I've never really seen a comparison between actual blu-ray and a high quality MKV rip but I would definitely be interested in seeing the difference.

[NiKRuLeZ]

BD50's FTW!!