HD-100 Blu-Ray Rip to MKV Settings

[skyeclad]

Currently I use Ripbot to compress my BD Rips to MKV which play back very nicely on my ATI 3650 client PC. Unfortunately, I'm not having as much luck on my Extender. The result is a file that seems to be suffering from what appears to be dropped frames. While playback only occasionally stutters the real issue is that it doesn't look very smooth.

My question is what compression settings, if any, have been proven to improve the hardware's capability of playing back smooth high bitrate h.264 in an MKV container?

Currently I have my compressions set to level 4.1 and I just recently started removing B-pyramids, although I haven't tested the result of the B-pyramid removal on my extender. Anything else which might make the Extender's job easier?

[Taddeusz]

My rips work just fine. I use MeGUI using x264 to transcode them to make them smaller in size. The BD videos look great but are kind of huge for storing a lot of them. Here is part of a MediaInfo listing for one of my files:

Video
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 4 frames
Muxing mode                      : Container profile=Unknown@4.0
Codec ID                         : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                         : 2h 15mn
Bit rate                         : 4 816 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 824 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 2.35
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Resolution                       : 24 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Writing library                  : x264 core 65 r1040M 1591275
Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=crf / crf=25.5 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Language                         : English

[skyeclad]

Thanks, hard to parse those encoding settings into Ripbot options. Does 1 = yes and 0= no?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by skyeclad

Thanks, hard to parse those encoding settings into Ripbot options. Does 1 = yes and 0= no?

Yes, I believe so.

You can download MediaInfo and check out your own files to see what the options look like and compare.

[greggerm]

Taddeusz - Sorry for awaking an old thread, but I had a question regarding your Ripbot settings above and your television...

I noticed in the above-listed settings that you have an average bitrate of ~4,800kbps as listed from MediaInfo.

How large is the television that you use to view this particular encode? I ask because for a high-def source, that seems like an awfully low bitrate. I'm curious about the quality degradation you see using that bitrate with a 1080p source.

I'm trying to develop a personal standard for my Ripbot encodes (bitrate wise), and I don't have the time or patience to wait 17 hours per encode to test and see what works best!

Thanks for the late response!
-Greg

[Beefcake550]

I just say no to the re-compression of this stuff. It takes way too much time, can cause problems if done wrong, and hard drives are cheap!

[S_M_E]

According to his sig "Insignia NS-LCD42HD-09 1080p LCD" it's 42"

[greggerm]

Thanks S M E for pointing that out...

While I do have gobs of space at this time, I will always have the original discs from my encoded Blurays should I need to go to the full, original quality. My first encoding project was the David Gilmour : Remember That Night concert video (1080i), and I fed it ungodly amounts of bitrate. The resultant MP4 is 1/2 the size of the original, but the quality to my eye on my 37" screen is transparent with the original, so I want to push it lower.

I'm just hoping to save myself some experimenting and find a good, happy medium for my encoding data rates.

Cheers,
-Greg

[Taddeusz]

The TV listed in my sig is what I use. It's a 42" LCD. While there is degradation, sometimes somewhat noticeable, I don't believe it detracts from the image. Blu-ray uses some pretty ridiculously high quality anyway. Reducing it even by half isn't going to be that noticeable unless you've got some sort of special powers or an absolutely insanely huge screen. Of course then cost isn't going to be a factor.

And while storage is relatively cheap 25-50GB per movie is a little insane to keep archived unless you have bottomless pockets. Which I doubt any of us have.

I don't use Ripbot. I use MeGUI. I crop the movie vertically if necessary (leave the horizontal at 1920 no matter what). I had been transcoding to H.264 with a CRF of 25.5 but that has been creating rather large files lately, probably changes in x264. I've changed the CRF to 26 fo my latest rip to see how that goes. Here are my encoding settings as reported by MediaInfo:

Encoding settings                : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=6 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=24 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=crf / crf=25.5 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by greggerm

Thanks S M E for pointing that out...

While I do have gobs of space at this time, I will always have the original discs from my encoded Blurays should I need to go to the full, original quality. My first encoding project was the David Gilmour : Remember That Night concert video (1080i), and I fed it ungodly amounts of bitrate. The resultant MP4 is 1/2 the size of the original, but the quality to my eye on my 37" screen is transparent with the original, so I want to push it lower.

I'm just hoping to save myself some experimenting and find a good, happy medium for my encoding data rates.

Cheers,
-Greg

There's nothing wrong with saving space, especially if quality doesn't suffer or if you're willing to accept a loss in quality or picture size but there's also the issue of time. Some of my DVD's have taken 8+ hours to convert to mp4 (while I sleep) and I've heard of larger HD content taking days to finish for some people, of course that depends on settings and machine specs too. I can't imagine a person could rip a 50G bluray movie down to 8 or 12G without losing quality and a lot of time. Also, so far, it seems all of the methods of ripping and converting bluray disks are pretty complicated although that will get better. I looked at AutoMKV (even though I have no bluray disks yet) and I'd have no idea what options I should use, there are literally dozens of options and check boxes.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I don't use Ripbot. I use MeGUI. I crop the movie vertically if necessary (leave the horizontal at 1920 no matter what).

How do you know how much to crop vertically without wasting a lot of time experimenting? Are letter boxes a standard size?

[Beefcake550]

I will respect those which like to recompress...I used to do it a lot.

However, there will always be a loss in quality, it's just a matter of whether or not you perceive it. I think we'll all agree to that. For me, I probably couldn't tell the difference but it does bother me on some level that it's recompressed and I'll see some artifact somewhere and always wonder if it's in the original. So, I remove all of the "junk" i.e. - non main movie items and save just the main movie with the sound tracks I want. On average, each movie is 22-25GB. I can handle that and I can understand how others can't. I jsut choose not to spend the time recompressing.

Good luck.

I have read that it is important to have the correct encoding options set so that the HD200 can properly read back the file.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

How do you know how much to crop vertically without wasting a lot of time experimenting? Are letter boxes a standard size?

MeGUI can detect it automatically. There is no experimenting. The only movie I've ever had problems with was The Dark Knight and this was due to the fact that during high action scenes they chose to go full frame rather than keeping the theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This confused MeGUI's detection routines a little bit but once I figured out what was going on all was good.

My computer isn't that beefy by today's standards. It's the one in my sig listed as my client. It takes on average about 1.5 hours to transcode a standard DVD with Handbrake. For BD rips it takes anywhere between 8-16 hours depending on the movie. While that is a long time it's not horrible. Generally I just set it up before I go to work and it's done either by that evening before bed or the next morning.

[S_M_E]

I'll have to look at megui when I get my bluray burner, letterboxes bother me to no end. Nero has been pretty good at detecting letterboxes and autocropping on DVD's but it's slower, especially on high quality settings.

[Taddeusz]

Handbrake is a godsend for regular DVD's. My only problem with it now is that it won't copy a DTS track. It will at least keep the original DD track. I've messed around with MeGUI for DVD's but for some reason I've never been able to get the audio sync correct afterward and I didn't see any options to keep the original track and have it be a one-stop-shop like Handbrake. Odd that I've never had any sync problems with BD rips and I do the audio separately.

[S_M_E]

I tried ep's video tools ( http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34527 ) which allows you to drag and drop a TS_VIDEO folder for auto-converting but I don't remember if it got rid of the letterboxes. It was pretty fast though and it uses handbrake.

EDIT:
OK, I just ran Jaws III through the video tools and it left me with a 1.2G .mkv file but it still had the letterbox and it took ~3 hours. I might try the gui version of handbrake to see what that does but I *know* nero recode will get rid of the letterbox.

EDIT2:
The gui version worked a little faster, created virtually the same size .mkv file and cropped the letterbox. I may start using that.

[toony]

The extender should have no problem with a full .ts file at 1080p. I don't think it's a bitrate issue as much as it's a bandwidth issue. I know people say that a gigabit network is not needed, since I upgraded all to cat 6e from cat 5 and a gigabit router I have never had any problems. It will cost a few bucks but if you make your own cables it's a good way to save money.