Guides to playing Blu ray in SageTV

[craigap]

I was hoping that I could get some input from you guys on all the different ways someone can play a blu ray in SageTV; be it Ripping it to the HDD in some fashion or playing it straight from the disc. I was thinking of making the move to blu ray, but I don't know how I should proceed. I would appreciate it if everyone could share there methods and the software used to do it.

Methods using AnyDVD HD are a plus since I have that already.

Thanks

[Deacon Crusher]

If you only watch through extenders it's dead simple and works like a charm.

First time steps.

Make sure you are running Sage 7. Make sure your server has anydvd running on it. Install a blu-ray player drive in your server. Make that drive a movies folder in sage.

Once that's done any time you want to watch a movie.

Insert Disc in drive on server. Go to extender and watch the movie.

[Polypro]

Missing Remote had a tutorial for Clients.

P

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Missing Remote had a tutorial for Clients.

P

The only "guide" I can find for this is in the "Installing SageTV V7" guide, under the "Virtual CloneDrive" section. Not sure if that's the one you were talking about, though.

[Mitch G]

Similarly, you can rip the movie and play from any extender.
I use DvdFab to rip the main movie. Note, I have a very low fuss-threshold and I've been pleasantly surprised how fuss-free this has been.
One of the surprises was that the audio plays fine even though my receiver does not support the HD formats and I'm using HD-100s.
I simply drop the movie into the drive, rip the first main movie in the list and sometime later (it can take an hour or so for BluRay) it's ready to play.

You can download a trial of DvdFab (maybe AnyDVD as well) and try it out and see how it works for you. I think you'll be surprised at how painless the process is.


Mitch

[craigap]

So far it seems that there are two major programs for decryption--DFab and AnyDVD HD. It this correct?

I haven't tried Dfab but it seems to be an All-in-One solution where as, AnyDVD will require the use of some other software to "Author" the Blu ray. Is this correct?

I've read about a number of formats/containers that I can't seem to get straight. ie .m2ts, .mkv, BDMV, BDAV, AVCHD, maybe some others.
How do these come to play in Sage? How do I go from blu ray disc to a rip on the HDD that will play in Sage?

I've noticed Handbrake comes up a lot when ripping Blu ray. How exactly does it play a role in this?

[xxLJLxx]

I don't have much experience with DVDFab but you are correct that AnyDVD-HD cannot author the bluray. You can rip the whole disc and then use a program like tsMuxer to alter it or another program to re-encode it to an mkv.

A while back, I wrote out a pretty simple guide that goes through the steps I do to get my blurays working with tsMuxer. The software I mention in there is free and can be easily found. This may or not be the way you end up going but I figured I'd at least show you an option, since everyone does it different ways with different software. Hope this can help!

[craigap]

Thanks for that xxLJLxx.

I think I'd like to set myself up with something that would allow me to rip the main movie and one audio track the same way I do it with anydvd and dvdshrink.

What container or file type do I need the blu ray rip in to be able to use the codecs that come with Windows 7. I read the list of formats for the HD300 that I use, but I also have my server running in service/client mode on Windows 7 and plugged into my TV. I'd like to be able to get away without having to install something like PDVD or TMT3. Is that possible?

[Fuzzy]

You can keep the bluray in BDMV folder structure (as it is on the disc), or rip it to a single movie file (.m2ts, .mkv, etc). Just depends on whether you want to preserve the BD menus or not. Personally, i just copy the contents of the entire disc to a folder, (with AnyDVDHD running to remove protection on the fly during the copy). But, this is because i am usually using TMT3 to play back my movies, because I like having full menus, and 3D support. You could just as easily use something like DVDFab (which I believe lets you cut it down to just the titles/streams you wane) and keep it in a bluray folder structure, or something like MakeMKV, which can rip out individual titles into singular .MKV files.

Regardless of what method you use, it is still going to be either H.264 or VC-1 video, with Either DTS-MA, TruHD, or PCM audio. H.264 and VC-1 both work fine with the windows decoders (though VC-1 isn't hardware acellerated with the WM Video DMO that is in win7). For the audio side, installing ffdshow should get you all the applicable formats (though if you don't have HDMI audio, then AC3Filter can decode the DD or DTS cores out of the box).

[AJ Bertelson]

So if I understand this correctly, a 7 client can can not play back full menu'd blu ray's that are ripped.

Is that correct? I have just been using anothereacgui in order to get the full hd sound playback. I loose the menu's and I really would like to get them back some day with out going through tmt.

[Fuzzy]

Sage does not support BD-J applications, which is what BluRay menus are (and most likely won't - the licensing is pretty steep). That said, it does seem to play back all bluray formats fine (though I do have a problem with PCM playback, of all things, that I need to get around to bug reporting.. only have one PCM movie, so haven't dug deeper with this).

[AJ Bertelson]

That is what I figured. So there really is no reason for me to change from my current method then if I am happy with it.

[craigap]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

You can keep the bluray in BDMV folder structure (as it is on the disc), or rip it to a single movie file (.m2ts, .mkv, etc). Just depends on whether you want to preserve the BD menus or not. Personally, i just copy the contents of the entire disc to a folder, (with AnyDVDHD running to remove protection on the fly during the copy). But, this is because i am usually using TMT3 to play back my movies, because I like having full menus, and 3D support. You could just as easily use something like DVDFab (which I believe lets you cut it down to just the titles/streams you wane) and keep it in a bluray folder structure, or something like MakeMKV, which can rip out individual titles into singular .MKV files.

Regardless of what method you use, it is still going to be either H.264 or VC-1 video, with Either DTS-MA, TruHD, or PCM audio. H.264 and VC-1 both work fine with the windows decoders (though VC-1 isn't hardware acellerated with the WM Video DMO that is in win7). For the audio side, installing ffdshow should get you all the applicable formats (though if you don't have HDMI audio, then AC3Filter can decode the DD or DTS cores out of the box).

This was very helpful. Thanks. Is whether or not it's H.264 or VC-1 dependent on how the blu ray movie was made in manufacturing or how I rip it? I'm pretty sure its how its manufactured but just want to be sure.

Also, about the audio. I'm using HDMI from a ATI HD 4350. What are my choices then. FFDshow to decode the HD audio? Buy a HD 5000 series card and bitstream to my AVR for decoding?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by craigap

This was very helpful. Thanks. Is whether or not it's H.264 or VC-1 dependent on how the blu ray movie was made in manufacturing or how I rip it? I'm pretty sure its how its manufactured but just want to be sure.

Yes

Originally Posted by craigap

Also, about the audio. I'm using HDMI from a ATI HD 4350. What are my choices then. FFDshow to decode the HD audio? Buy a HD 5000 series card and bitstream to my AVR for decoding?

ffdshow should be able to decode everything to PCM and output it over the 4350's HDMI port, but I don't know that for sure (I just recently bought an HDMI reciever, and at the same time, acquired an HD 5570 graphics card, so I'm just using bitstreaming with that.

[Polypro]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

The only "guide" I can find for this is in the "Installing SageTV V7" guide, under the "Virtual CloneDrive" section. Not sure if that's the one you were talking about, though.

That looks like it. I don't use .iso's or AC3Filter, so I just set ArcSoft as the H.264 and VC-1 codec, set ffdshow as the audio decoder, configured ffdshow, enabled HD Audio in Sage, and set both the BD drive, and a master BD folder as import directories (sometimes I rip, sometimes I watch the disk). As long as you have a PAP capable, bit streaming graphics card...it should work.

P

[hedly]

The 4000 series ATI cards will NOT stream TrueDTS or hi-def audio. it will only stream 5.1 surround sound.

The 5000 series will now do it; but I believe it is only HDMI 1.3a. nVidia's new cards are HDMI 1.4 so they are fully 3D capable.

I am waiting on the HTPC 6000 series from ATI. the ATI cards do great on rendering hi-def images. I think it was Anandtech that has had some great review comparisons between the ATI and nvidia cards. He is also one of the only sites out there that really drives home the differences on the HDMI versions. I have been on Newegg and TigerDirect about adding that information to their sites. But even that information is tough to find on ATI's website.

I have been using DVDFab to rip our DVD's. I get rid of the menues and only keep the main movie and the best audio track. I never watch all that director's info and if I really want it I will grab the DVD off the shelf.

[Fuzzy]

Nothing about HDMI 1.4 is required to be 3D capable. The only thing 1.4 adds for 3D capability is the auto-configuration data, so it will automatically determine waht format the display supports, and enable said mode on the display. You can still manually put your tv in 3D mode, and it will work just fine. (in fact, I've been using 3D with my samsing DLP for a few years now.. long before HDMI 1.4 was released).

[John@TunerUK]

Has anyone else had issues with subtitles when using ripped blu-rays? I have ripped some movies using DVDFab that are in a foreign language, but subtitled. So far I haven't found a way to enable the subtitles. There is an option in the sage on screen menu, but that does nothing, so I thought perhaps it was something I'd done wrong when ripping.

[mkstretch]

Im using DVDfab to rip my blu rays, when I press the audio button to change it to AC3 i get sound but every few minutes or so it has someone saying what the actor is doing on top of the movie audio. Can someone tell me what settings Im missing in DVDfab? Thanks

[gplasky]

Make sure to right-click on the little video window to make sure you have the right audio track chosen. Sounds like also have the sight impaired track chosen. You should uncheck all the audio tracks except the one you really want.

Gerry