I can't get Handbrake to work reliably for Blu-Ray to Windows Media Center, and I'm not what you'd call an average user...

Exactly. I called it "relatively" easy for a reason. It's still the most straightforward solution for converting physical media. At least for free.

For DVDs, I just use makemkv to extract the titles to mkv files without re-encoding. Dead simple, quick, and fine for the smaller DVD format. BRdiscs are huge, though!

I second Mark's mention of MakeMKV. It should support BluRay as well plenty of people in the Boxee forum swear by it. Then you can set handbrake or other encoder to process a queue of files over night. Or many nights...

But seriously, if you own the disc, save yourself the trouble and download a copy someone else has already ripped and re-encoded for you. It's much much faster than ripping your original disc yourself, and for you, the consumer of the video, should be just as legal. But INAL.

I think the industry is missing an important device right now that could fill the place of a computer without the complexity for unloading personal media such as photos, video and audio. Such a device would be easily and ideally interoperable with modern mobile computing devices such as phones and tablets.

Apple already has device that contains all the right base hardware in the Time Capsule. They just need move a USB port to the front and add a card reader or two. Maybe a "GO" button.

Yeah. For DVDs, I use CloneDVD to extract the MPEG-2 files, so that my fileserver has the VIDEO_TS directories and everything. For DVDs, this is not a problem, because they're quite small (hah!).

For BD movies, it's ridiculous, and I've been trying to transcode them to MPEG-4, but I'm not happy with the results.

MPEG4 containers, or actual transcoding to the base MPEG4 (part 2 or AVP) video standard? If you are doing video transcoding, it's likely not going to help unless you are reducing the bitrate or resolution. Most Blu-ray movies are already encoded in H.264 (also know as MPEG4/AVC, or MPEG4 Part 10. Standards people like lots of names it seems).

I'm confused now. All I want to do is take a BD movie (that I ripped using AnyDVD) and make it browsable and playable on Windows Media Center 7.

If I point WMC at the ripped BD folder, I get "To play this DVD, you must first install a playback application that supports Blu-ray Disc." Since all of the Blu-Ray apps on Windows suck, I don't want to do that.

I was hoping that I could convert the folder to a single MKV (or MP4 file).

Scratch that. Handbrake / Normal Profile / MKV container + Shark007 codecs appears to make it work.

Sorry for the confusion. It's a messy situation with all the "standards" out there, and it doesn't help that MPEG-4 encompasses containers, audio codecs, (multiple) video codecs, pictures, fonts, and more.

Blu-ray movies are also complicated, as there are 3 different video codecs supported. The older MPEG-2 video formats DVD also supported, the newer H.264 AVC format, and Microsoft's VC1 format. Your workflow may work with some of these, but keep this in mind if a particular disc is giving you problems. Most now seem to be H.264, but older discs may use the others.

Windows 7 without any codec packs should just work with an H.264 video inside an MP4 file container. Shark007 is likely adding support for MKV containers.

The problem is that Roger is using Windows Media Center. The files previously created would probably have worked on a Boxee Box or WDTV Live player or using VLC, MPlayer, etc.

If using Windows with DirectShow you'll want to install a codec pack like either of these:

http://www.cccp-project.net/

http://www.codecguide.com/about_mega.htm

http://yatoshi.com/en/index.php?p=decoder

You should be able to use Handbrake's "preview" to test potential settings before committing to a full transcode.

I'd still start with MakeMKV which will dump all the DVD/BluRay menu cruft. Special features can sometimes be cool on disc-based releases, but animated menus and all that kind of stuff are just a total waste of time and only complicate navigation.

Which brings me to a side-note. IMO, DVD navigation/players were the worst implemented invention of the 90's. Everything from their remotes to disc layout sucks balls.

I split this thread out just so that it's easier to find in the future, since there are some good recommendations in here.

The 10-foot UI for those sucks. They also have low WAF.

As long as you pay attention and uncheck the Weatherbug crapware in the installer. And turn off Bing toolbar after installation.

And who would have imagined that blu-ray would be even worse. My blu-ray player remote has no less than three menu buttons.

I still have little idea which of them I need to press at which point to get back to the previous menu. I press the wrong one 80% of the time

A couple of blu-rays that I got recently came with multi page booklets to explain how their overly complex menu systems worked !

There is one improvement, at least blu-ray player menus respond much faster than DVD ones did.

If you'd rather watch the original BluRay content, rather than a recompressed version of it, then makemkv will extract the title(s) to .mkv files.

Can you at least press the PLAY button to actually PLAY the movie? Because on a DVD player, the PLAY button most definitely doesn't play the movie unless it's already playing and in some other state, like PAUSE.

Not sure. But I do know you are wrong about the DVD case, on some DVDs the play button will indeed start playback. Or at least it did on the DVD players I've owned.

Only of the menu system. In other words, you press PLAY and the FBI warnings and other material starts up before you're dumped to the DVD menu.

I have yet to see a disc where pressing PLAY while viewing the menu actually starts playing the FEATURE. I'm sure it can be done as part of the authoring process, but the problem is that everything about DVD menus is non-standard and no two discs are ever the same, including how menu items are highlighted, both in presentation and selection order.

Some budget discs which are light on content and don't have interactive menus are actually best in this regard because you can start the feature right away.

My parents always had a very hard time with DVDs and DVD players because of all this crap.

Basically from a DVD remote, half the buttons are useless when you're inside the menu system and the other half are useless when you're playing the feature. Leads one to think they could have implemented a remote with half the buttons by intelligently re-using buttons.

Ok- so I'm still not sure what the best solution is for getting blu ray into a format I can use I my apple tv. I have a solution now, but it sucks and sometimes the images don't come out with the right aspect ratio. I just want something that works and I don't have to mess with.

Handbrake with an existing (or new) preset. Or a first pass with MakeMKV to simply dump the main title into an MKV container and then Handbrake for the transcode and re-wrap in an MP4 container.

I don't have an AppleTV yet, but I'll be picking up a new one shortly. Mostly for testing, so I'll be able to answer questions like this with empirical evidence soon.

Interesting, I've had the opposite experience. As long as I've let the DVD get to main menu, once it's reached that screen, pressing play will play the feature. Sometimes the feature will have ads, copyright or FBI notices at the beginning, but the feature does play.

Now, if you try to press play before the main menu appears, that's a whole different story. Many DVDs will play ads before even reaching the main menu. That's something I abhor. Yes, I wish I could just insert the disc and press play immediately without having to wait for it to reach the main menu.

I wonder if there is a universal hack that could be applied that would let a piece of DVD playing app or player firmware do that: Skip straight to the feature, on every DVD, before even trying to put up a menu or an ad. That would be awesome.

I wasn't talking about the restrictions forcing you to watch FBI and other warnings, but simply pressing PLAY on the menu.

I have about 200 DVDs and my last physical DVD player was probably purchased in 2003 or 2004. I haven't watched DVDs regularly since about 2005/6. Maybe things have changed on newer discs and/or newer players. Which would be a good thing.

At the moment I don't even have a DVD player hooked up and don't have any plans to change that. Nor add a BluRay player as an alternative. Everything I play back comes off my NAS.



I wouldn't think universal hack at the player level would be possible, but it'd certainly be possible with a hack specific to any one product. That product would be in violation of their licenses of course. Discs can also be authored or re-authored not to have those restrictions as well as jump directly to the main feature. I have a few discs that go to the main feature directly and only go to the menu if you press the Menu button.

DVDShrink and I'm sure a ton of other programs can do the re-authoring of existing discs (to a new disc), including of course stripping region coding.

I tried handbrake early on in this process, but just got really confused and was never happy with the results. I don't remember what my issues were, though, so maybe I'll give it another shot.

Handbrake is pretty confusing, that's for sure. You should start with only a preview-sized sample so you don't waste a lot of time. And start by using one of the presets for an Apple TV target.