Help with Blu-Ray Ripping

[bobhays]

Hi everyone, I'm trying to rip a few blu-ray movies so that I can watch it on other devices that don't have a blu-ray player. To do this I'm using Make MKV which I'm having 2 problems with while ripping Harry Potter movies (note this is the first time I'm ripping blu-rays).

 

1. There seems to be a few minutes missing from the rips. When the disc is ripped there are about 10-15 video files. Most of them are just interviews and things, but then there will be 2-3  20GB files which are the movie (each file is the whole movie), and then a smaller file which is a few minutes of the movie that isn't in the very large file. I could just insert it into the movie via a video editor but that's annoying, and sometimes the missing clip is TERRIBLE quality. How can I fix this?

 

2. When I rip the video there are multiple files that contain the full movie, but aren't exactly the same size. For example one would be 19.2103GB and the other would be 19.2150GB so they aren't just copies of each other, but they both have the movie. If I play one of those files the video is very grainy, I included a screenshot. Does anyone know what the issue is here? I'm thinking each file contains like half of the pixels of the full movie but I don't know how to combine them or if that even makes sense.

 

[spoiler = 'screenshot']

 

 

 

Can anyone help me figure out how to make proper blu-ray rips without missing clips and good quality?

[The Cool n00B]

Isn't movie ripping I dunno, illegal?

 

Regardless, I'd use Handbrake to do it.

[bobhays]

Isn't movie ripping I dunno, illegal?

 

Regardless, I'd use Handbrake to do it.

Handbrake converts the video I don't think it rips it right?

If it's illegal, that's dumb (thought it probably is), but honestly I don't care. If I bought a movie I should be able to watch it on my laptop or my computer. Heck, my desktop has a blu-ray drive but I can't play the video without either ripping it or buying special software to watch blu-rays which is the worst idea ever.

 

EDIT: thanks for the idea, i'm looking into using handbrake.

[EposVox]

Movie ripping is not illegal.

[The Cool n00B]

Handbrake converts the video I don't think it rips it right?

If it's illegal, that's dumb (thought it probably is), but honestly I don't care. If I bought a movie I should be able to watch it on my laptop or my computer. Heck, my desktop has a blu-ray drive but I can't play the video without either ripping it or buying special software to watch blu-rays which is the worst idea ever.

I only use Handbrake to rip DVDs and all that, but the ones with DRM are real dickheads, and you have to install an addon for Handbrake to be able to rip those ones. I've never had an issue with Handbrake and it's pretty easy to use.

[TetraSky]

Ripping for personal use is a grey area.

 

Use MakeMKV, select the longest and biggest file, rip that.
Then you use Handbreak, High Profile, and encode the file to a file size that makes sense instead of like 20GB.

[The Cool n00B]

Movie ripping is not illegal.

Then why to they all have the blue background and the white text screen at the beginning that's all like "ripping this movie is illegal and you'll have to pay like 250 Gs and like 10 years in the slammer" or something along those lines?

[EposVox]

Then why to they all have the blue background and the white text screen at the beginning that's all like "ripping this movie is illegal and you'll have to pay like 250 Gs and like 10 years in the slammer" or something along those lines?

Sharing your ripped movies with others is illegal.

They've ruled that personal ripping is fine in a large majority of situations.

[bobhays]

Ripping for personal use is a grey area.

 

Use MakeMKV, select the longest and biggest file, rip that.

Then you use Handbreak, High Profile, and encode the file to a file size that makes sense instead of like 20GB.

That's what I've been doing and I had the 2 issues mentioned above. The 2nd issue might just be that that's how the movie is supposed to look, but I don't know how to solve the first issue.

[Cirium2216]

Look into RipBot264. I've had success with it myself.

 

http://www.videohelp.com/software/RipBot264

[bobhays]

Look into RipBot264. I've had success with it myself.

 

http://www.videohelp.com/software/RipBot264

thanks ill check that out

[obsidian1200]

For number 1, have you inspected the properties of the missing clip vs the main feature? Chances are, if it's omitted from the primary feature, it probably isn't the same quality as the rest of the feature. With blu rays, it's not uncommon for additional scenes and such to be offered in a lower quality than the rest of the feature. In short, I don't think there's anything you can do to improve on this. MakeMKV is supposed to remove the drm, then creates a 1:1 copy of the file as it's presented on the disk and put it in an MKV container, so I wouldn't say this is a fault of the way you're ripping the disk or the program, but rather the disk itself. That being said, there's nothing physically defective with the disk, either, it's just how the disk was printed and the material was encoded for distribution. If the disk was physically defective, or there were any other errors in the ripping process, MakeMKV wouldn't finish and would produce an error message instead.

 

For number 2, glancing at your screenshot, it doesn't look out of place for a particularly dark scene as those will tend to be more grainy on film (and this looks like it's from Deathly Hollows, both parts of which were fairly dark, lighting-wise). AFAIK, the Harry Potter movies weren't shot digitally, so film grain is a natural part of the presentation and won't be exclusive to the Harry Potter films. As to why there are multiple copies of the film, it may be due to different languages used in the credits. Disney films do this a lot, where you'll see multiple files of similar length but different size, and the only difference will be the language in the credit sequence.

 

Anyway, hopefully you'll find some of this helpful. It's just a little bit I've learned for myself after having ripped 300+ blu rays for personal use with Plex. Happy ripping!

[bobhays]

For number 1, have you inspected the properties of the missing clip vs the main feature? Chances are, if it's omitted from the primary feature, it probably isn't the same quality as the rest of the feature. With blu rays, it's not uncommon for additional scenes and such to be offered in a lower quality than the rest of the feature. In short, I don't think there's anything you can do to improve on this. MakeMKV is supposed to remove the drm, then creates a 1:1 copy of the file as it's presented on the disk and put it in an MKV container, so I wouldn't say this is a fault of the way you're ripping the disk or the program, but rather the disk itself. That being said, there's nothing physically defective with the disk, either, it's just how the disk was printed and the material was encoded for distribution. If the disk was physically defective, or there were any other errors in the ripping process, MakeMKV wouldn't finish and would produce an error message instead.

 

For number 2, glancing at your screenshot, it doesn't look out of place for a particularly dark scene as those will tend to be more grainy on film (and this looks like it's from Deathly Hollows, both parts of which were fairly dark, lighting-wise). AFAIK, the Harry Potter movies weren't shot digitally, so film grain is a natural part of the presentation and won't be exclusive to the Harry Potter films. As to why there are multiple copies of the film, it may be due to different languages used in the credits. Disney films do this a lot, where you'll see multiple files of similar length but different size, and the only difference will be the language in the credit sequence.

 

Anyway, hopefully you'll find some of this helpful. It's just a little bit I've learned for myself after having ripped 300+ blu rays for personal use with Plex. Happy ripping!

Thank you that was very helpful. I actually deleted all the extra scenes so I'm going to rip it again to double check if there were any difference in the files. The missing scene though was definitely supposed to be in the movie. I'll try to figure that one out after the ripping finishes.

 

On another note, what do you use Plex for? I've tried it but wouldn't it be simpler to just access the video over the network from a NAS or shared drive?

[obsidian1200]

Thank you that was very helpful. I actually deleted all the extra scenes so I'm going to rip it again to double check if there were any difference in the files. The missing scene though was definitely supposed to be in the movie. I'll try to figure that one out after the ripping finishes.

 

On another note, what do you use Plex for? I've tried it but wouldn't it be simpler to just access the video over the network from a NAS or shared drive?

I wouldn't call Plex a complicated solution versus accessing the files over the network as they're basically the same process. I'd even say Plex is easier than mapping a network drive for streaming purposes, especially for devices that don't allow for direct network drive access, such as Vizio smart TVs.

 

Plex is nice for presentation, as it fetches metadata and helps your media library look really clean, and it's easier for less tech savvy people to use Plex as I can invite them to share my Plex library if they want. Plex also makes it easy to stream your media off-site, and it'll re-encode media if you stream to devices that aren't powerful enough to handle the original file while still offering the ability to directly stream the file as-is without additional CPU strain. 

 

But, if you're only going to be sharing the media between a computer and a smartphone/tablet, Plex is overkill. It works out for me since I have it installed on my always on server and have household members that use it regularly. It gets most of its use in my household from the smart TVs and a Nexus Player, and sometimes when I'm at work I'll stream something to my smartphone for background noise.

[bobhays]

I wouldn't call Plex a complicated solution versus accessing the files over the network as they're basically the same process. I'd even say Plex is easier than mapping a network drive for streaming purposes, especially for devices that don't allow for direct network drive access, such as Vizio smart TVs.

 

Plex is nice for presentation, as it fetches metadata and helps your media library look really clean, and it's easier for less tech savvy people to use Plex as I can invite them to share my Plex library if they want. Plex also makes it easy to stream your media off-site, and it'll re-encode media if you stream to devices that aren't powerful enough to handle the original file while still offering the ability to directly stream the file as-is without additional CPU strain. 

 

But, if you're only going to be sharing the media between a computer and a smartphone/tablet, Plex is overkill. It works out for me since I have it installed on my always on server and have household members that use it regularly. It gets most of its use in my household from the smart TVs and a Nexus Player, and sometimes when I'm at work I'll stream something to my smartphone for background noise.

I'd use it but 2 problems I have are it doesn't support music playlist files, and the metadata thing is really annoying. It often gives me the wrong info and reorganizes it. At least that's what happened the last time I tried it. I could probably find a way to disable the metadata (I remember trying but gave up), but unless they added playlist support there is a big problem.

 

Personally I don't like smart TV's, they never work as well as a standalone device (even a chromecast).

 

 

EDIT: Update on the problems with blu-ray. So I've been convinced the quality is how it's supposed to be because the light scenes are actually good, that scene was just particularly grainy.

 

I ripped the video again and I noticed there are two copies of the whole movie (exact same run time, but file size difference of 2GB). I'm currently watching both copies to see if I notice the difference. I looked at the credits and they are both the same language so I'm not sure what difference there is or if there even is any. I'm thinking about compressing the file with handbrake because if they both contain the same video data then they should both compress to the same file size. There are also a ton of clips but I think those might be used for the special features part of the disc so I'm also going to check if the movie has all of those clips. Thanks for the help again.

 

EDIT 2: I finally found the difference in file sizes. They have different audio tracks and subtitle tracks. I just never noticed since the default was English.

[obsidian1200]

I'd use it but 2 problems I have are it doesn't support music playlist files, and the metadata thing is really annoying. It often gives me the wrong info and reorganizes it. At least that's what happened the last time I tried it. I could probably find a way to disable the metadata (I remember trying but gave up), but unless they added playlist support there is a big problem.

 

Personally I don't like smart TV's, they never work as well as a standalone device (even a chromecast).

 

 

EDIT: Update on the problems with blu-ray. So I've been convinced the quality is how it's supposed to be because the light scenes are actually good, that scene was just particularly grainy.

 

I ripped the video again and I noticed there are two copies of the whole movie (exact same run time, but file size difference of 2GB). I'm currently watching both copies to see if I notice the difference. I looked at the credits and they are both the same language so I'm not sure what difference there is or if there even is any. I'm thinking about compressing the file with handbrake because if they both contain the same video data then they should both compress to the same file size. There are also a ton of clips but I think those might be used for the special features part of the disc so I'm also going to check if the movie has all of those clips. Thanks for the help again.

 

EDIT 2: I finally found the difference in file sizes. They have different audio tracks and subtitle tracks. I just never noticed since the default was English.

I had the same experience with Plex when I first used it, and stopped using it for years. Recently, it's been way better with metadata, save for some obscure Anime and sometimes it'll confuse movies for the remake if I got lazy with the labeling. But, what's awesome with that is it actually lets you correct the mistakes very easily. As for the music side, I couldn't comment on that since I use Google Music to manage my audio needs.

 

My Vizio's work great with Plex (just as well as the non-smart tv with the nexus player I also have) though I never use them past that and Netflix. They're pretty basic for smart TVs in terms of the extra functionality. Though the interfaces leave much to be desired....

 

I'm glad you came to a conclusion on the blu-ray. If you ever want to try to make the file sizes smaller, Handbrake is a great tool for re-encoding the files with, imho, no perceivable difference in video or audio quality, while using good settings, of course.

[PlayStation 2]

I had the same experience with Plex when I first used it, and stopped using it for years. Recently, it's been way better with metadata, save for some obscure Anime and sometimes it'll confuse movies for the remake if I got lazy with the labeling. But, what's awesome with that is it actually lets you correct the mistakes very easily. As for the music side, I couldn't comment on that since I use Google Music to manage my audio needs.

 

My Vizio's work great with Plex (just as well as the non-smart tv with the nexus player I also have) though I never use them past that and Netflix. They're pretty basic for smart TVs in terms of the extra functionality. Though the interfaces leave much to be desired....

 

I'm glad you came to a conclusion on the blu-ray. If you ever want to try to make the file sizes smaller, Handbrake is a great tool for re-encoding the files with, imho, no perceivable difference in video or audio quality, while using good settings, of course.

I can concur with this. Did some Simpsons DVD ripping this year and it didn't turn out bad. Granted I didn't know what the fuck I should have been ripping at but eh

[bobhays]

I can concur with this. Did some Simpsons DVD ripping this year and it didn't turn out bad. Granted I didn't know what the fuck I should have been ripping at but eh

 

 

snip

 

Ok I've basically solved everything except 1 issue. On some videos I rip the blu-ray and it has multiple clips that contain the movie. For example there will be 1 large clip around 19 GB with most of the movie, but then there will be 1 or 2 files that each contain random clips that aren't in the large file. I could import everything into a video editor and then cut and place the clips in the proper places but that seems like a work around rather than a solution. Is there any way to get around this?

[PlayStation 2]

Ok I've basically solved everything except 1 issue. On some videos I rip the blu-ray and it has multiple clips that contain the movie. For example there will be 1 large clip around 19 GB with most of the movie, but then there will be 1 or 2 files that each contain random clips that aren't in the large file. I could import everything into a video editor and then cut and place the clips in the proper places but that seems like a work around rather than a solution. Is there any way to get around this?

Not that I know of unless Handbrake can do it like with DVD files

[bobhays]

Not that I know of unless Handbrake can do it like with DVD files

I think I've found out why these are separate files. They are either part of the deleted scenes bonus feature, or the extended version of the movie. The thing is that these extra clips are interlaced rather than progressive so I've decided to simply delete them. I'd rather have the extended version of the movie but since they are interlaced and the resolution is lower, the quality would be lower than the rest of the movie so it wouldn't seem like a smooth cut.

 

Thanks for all the help everyone.