BD-rip, ISO = No subtitles? (1 Viewer)

[jonaskp]

As I am quite new here, where and to whom could you request such a 'mod'

I just did it in MediaPortal General Discussion:

link to Thread.


My hopes for this to be implemented are very slim, since we are so close to the deadline of feature freeze. The only reason it should, is that the Dev-team really think that this is something that will benefit MediaPortal (as I do) or that it is a very easy fix.

 

[ixian]

There's a better way to go about this (it's what I do): Use AnyDVD HD to remove protection as you are doing now, rip the disk with AnotherEAC3 (http://www.acdnow.com/AnotherEAC3toGUI/AnotherEAC3toGUISetup.zip) - this program will copy your video and audio files from BD uncompressed (full quality), subtitle tracks, alternate language tracks, chapter list, and more to disk.

Then you put them all back together inside an .mkv file using MKVMerge - AnotherEAC3 will actually automate this step for you. Why? Because Mediaportal - and a lot of other video players, for that matter - can easily switch between video feeds, audio tracks, subtitles, etc inside of mkv containers.

Your audio and video are untouched this way - you can encode them to smaller files if you want, or you can leave them in a bit-perfect state if you don't mind the large file sizes (and if you are already ripping them to .iso, you don't). This process also offers one tremendous advantage -it strips DRM not only from Video, but audio as well, meaning you can play back BD's with full uncompressed audio if you have a receiver that can handle it.

You might think this is a lot of trouble but it's not. AnotherEAC3 can automate almost all tasks so all you have to do is put in your disk, scan it, select what video/tracks/etc you want included, and go. Takes about as long, or less, as it does to rip to .ISO. You end up with an mkv file that will play in Mediaportal and do everything you need it to do at the same quality as the original Blu-ray - no need for external players.

 

[jonaskp]

To me that solution would be just as good. It would also mean I didn't have to mount the iso before playing. However, I am having a bit of trouble with the tool. First off, none of the actual programs are included so I had to google them, and Im not sure I found the right version?

I tried mounting my rip of The Dark Knight and running it on that - i just got an error saying that length is zero. I am running it on my rip of Taken now, seems to be fine.

I miss a one-click solution where I don't have to download all sorts of different tools all over the place

 

[ixian]

I know, but sometimes you have to do a little legwork to get things exactly the way you want them.

Here's a list:


mkvtoolnix -- Matroska tools for Linux/Unix and Windows
MKVtoolnix

Haali Media Splitter
Haali media splitter

http://madshi.net/eac3to.zip
eac3to

http://madshi.net/madFlac.rar
Madflac decoder

BDSup2Sub - Video software and downloads - VideoHelp.com
BDSup2Sub

Download the programs above - what I do is extract eac3to to it's own folder, install MKVTookNix and AnotherEAC via their installers, install MadFlac, then unzip BDSub2Sub in to the eac3to folder. You only have to do this once.

Now run AnotherEACtoGUI (as you may gather, it's just a GUI front end for eac3to) and set the program paths above to where it asks.

That's it. When you insert a disk make sure AnyDVD HD is running and that it is the latest version - the above tools can't work if the disk isn't decrypted. Wait for AnyDVD HD to say it's done scanning. Now analyze the disk with AnotherEAC - I've yet to find one that doesn't work with it but it's a work in progress so there may be a bug here and there.

Once the disk is analyzed you can either click "batch" - which will do all the work for you - or, if you want more control over the process (say you want to specifiy other subtitles, etc) click "Command Line" . That will pop up a list of the video, audio, subtitles, and chapters on the disk. First, change the name of the final file to whatever you want (the name of the movie, in other words) and choose the destination. Then click Command Line and check the ones you want then click process. It'll take a while (about 20 minutes for an average BD on a reasonable fast PC) then you will have all the separate files in the directory you specified.

From there, assuming you went the "manual" route with command (if you do batch the below is done for you, but you have less control over what is selected) you have two steps:

Run BDSup2Sub - just double click it (requires Java runtime). Load the extracted subtitles from the step above, it'll show you a preview of them, browse through and make sure everything looks correct, then go to file-export. This will export the subs to a standard sub/idx format, which most players (like Mediaportal) can process.

Now run MKVMerge. Select all the files you want to put in the mkv, go to global, select the chapter.txt file that was extracted, then choose the final destination/output directory, and Merge away.

I know what you are thinking - seems complicated. But really, after the first time you do it, it's not. I usually would rip a few disks each evening while I was reading email, etc. After the first one it's pretty simple and in the end you get a *perfect* mkv file you can play in Mediaportal or other players with subs, alternate audio tracks, perfect BD quality audio/video, etc.

Once you start doing it this way you'll never mess with disks or external players again, trust me.

 

[jonaskp]

My first attempt didn't go so well (before your post), There were no subtitles or alternate audio. I'll try later today to uninstall the tools and reinstall the ones you linked to. I'll post my progress. Thanks for the help.

 

[eXplicit82]

@ ixian

works like a charm, thanks for your great help, much appreciated!

 

[jonaskp]

Just a question: Doing this, how does the final audio-tracks look? Is it still True-HD/MA-HD or has it been converted to something else?

 

[Toga]

Just a question: Doing this, how does the final audio-tracks look? Is it still True-HD/MA-HD or has it been converted to something else?

The Audio is converted to FLAC. As Far as I can tell there is no loss in quality.

@ixian Thanks for posting this solution worls well. Disks I have already ripped can be converted in little over half an hour.

 

[ixian]

Toga beat me to it - audio is converted to FLAC, which is an open source uncompressed format. That means what you think it does - the audio fidelity of, for example, True-HD/MA-HD is maintained.

In fact audio is the main reason all of these tools (well, Eac3to anyway) came in to being - you may not be aware of this, but it's actually very difficult to play uncompressed HD audio from BD/HDVD out of a PC. Until *very* recently, it required a special $200 sound card, the Xonar D2 HD version (which was hard to find in the US) and you had to use the version of Arcsoft Total Media theater that came with the card - not any version of TME, but the OEM build bundled with the Xonar. That used to be the one and only way you could playback BD and HDDVD disks on a PC and still get the full uncompressed audio. Other players, like PowerDVD, or other builds of TME for that matter, would downsample the audio thanks to PAP (Protected Audio Path, aka DRM for audio), which wasn't fully supported on most PC's - you needed a sound card AND the software together to support it.

The whole mess was (and is) completely stupid, and it's not until just recently, with the release of the ATI 57xx series video cards, that you could actually send uncompressed audio to your receiver without going through the custom steps above (and you still need to use a recent player like PowerDVD 9). Under no circumstances, even now, could you play uncompressed audio in MPC-HC, Mediaportal, etc - of course, you can't play BD disks video with the built in player either.

Naturally, HT enthusiasts weren't going to take that laying down. First came AnyDVD HD, which to this day effortlessly strips restrictive DRM from your disks. Then came eac3to, a tool that extracts the now-unprotected video and audio from the disks - the video it leaves untouched, since VC-1, etc can be played back with the right codec packs in Mediaportal and other players, but audio was still a problem because of PAP. So eac3to also takes the uncompressed audio track and converts it to FLAC, a free, open-source, uncompressed audio codec that any media player (including Mediaportal) can play back, at full fidelity.

So the way it works is, you still have to have a way to bitstream 8 channel audio to a receiver that can handle it - if you have an HDMI 1.3a compliant video card (like the newer Intels, ATI, and Nvidia cards have) and of course a receiver that can handle HD audio formats in the first place then you do - and Mediaportal/your media player of choice will send that nice uncompressed FLAC stream right to your receiver (known as bitstreaming) and you get nice full audio, the way it was meant to be.

Believe it or not that's how it all started - as a side benefit, you now also have the ability to make nice clean .mkv files with your HD video, audio, alternate audio (dubs, etc), subtitles, chapter steps, extra features (like video extras), etc all in one container that Mediaportal can not only play, but can read inside the user interface with your remote so you can pick subtitles to show, etc etc. Furthermore, if you don't mind a little compression, and like smaller file sizes, you can reencode your video using h.264 (there are tons of programs that do this, my favorite is MeGUI: meGUI | Get meGUI at SourceForge.net ) and make your overall file size smaller at a small sacrifice to quality that frankly most people wouldn't notice.

Anyway, that's the story. Enjoy

 

[jonaskp]

Wow, thanks for the explanation. Last night I managed to finish a disc, using the manual method in order to cut out unnessesary audio and subtitles. And it worked perfectly.


Only problem though is, that someof my discs gets an error when I try to analyze them in AnotherEAC3 - something about "Zero Lenght". Until now this has been both The Dark Knight and Pirates of the Caribean 3. Mind you, this is all done from my ripped .iso files mounted with VCD. I'll try later with the physical disc, hoping that will work.

But for now, I suppose I can convert most of my BD's this way and that will be great. I have made a choice not to mess with reencode, mostly for two reasons: 1 I may not see the quality loss, but I know its there - and thats knowledge I don't like 2 HDD space is not really that big an issue these days. New discs are cheap. And cutting out audio and subtitles still saves a great deal. From the 23GB Taken .iso I cutted out almost 5,5GB just removing the audio and subtitles I don't need and the extra features. I still have both a AC3 5.1 english audio track and the Lossless Audio. This size is good enough for me.


Thanks alot for your help. It was not the answer to my original question, but it was a solution that I am 95% as pleased with - and I can live with that, atleast for now .