Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jmone]

Overview of the project

I was always in the Blu camp but when HD DVD died, I could not help myself with all those $2 sales and ended up with about 100 HD DVD discs!  Anyway, a couple of years on and the HW and SW support is pretty much gone ... and I figured I'd better got onto converting them before my combo drives eventually died.  Here is what I considered:

1) Sell the HD DVD's and use the funds to buy the content I really want on Blu:  This is the most sensible option as many of my HD DVD's are not even opened!  It is also a boring option so I've not gone down that route.

2) Convert to MKV:  Another sensible option but it has two current drawback for me.  There is no great one-click tool that handles the conversion well and I also personally favour physical discs due to their portability and the ability to just stick a disc in the drive (HTPC, PS3, HW devices etc).

3) Convert to Blu-ray BDR-25 GB Discs:  These blanks are down to a couple of $'s (any more and I'd be back on Point 1).  ClownBD does a pretty good job on most discs though there are issues with correctly getting and converting just the Forced Subtitles and what to convert the EAC3 tracks to that are favoured on many HD DVD discs (note: the EAC3 format on HD DVD discs is NOT the same as with the Blu-ray spec).  This is the option I am currently using.

[jmone]

Tools Used

ClownBD:  http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=25818 : This is a front end GUI that automates the config and use of eac3to (does the extraction of all the streams and converts the audio), BDSup2Sub (converts the Subtitles), tsMuxer (creates the Blu-ray structure on your HDD) & ImgBurn (burns it to a BDR).  The instructions are very good, and the thread at Doom9 active for questions etc.  I'll only be covering the tips/tweaks I come across as a part of this project not how to use ClownBD in general.

AnyDVD HD:  Without something like AnyDVD HD installed http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvdhd.html you (and ClownBD) will not get unencrypted access to the HD DVD content. 

Coverart:  I'm using http://www.dvdcoversfuzion.com/ as it seems to have a good range of Disc Coverart in High Quality to print onto the BDR blanks (it is a payware or contribute to site).

[jmone]

Basic Process

1) Put the HD DVD in the drive and let AnyDVD HD scan and mount the disc

2) Run ClownBD and follow the prompts:

- Step 1 (see Pic Step 1):  Make sure you fill out all the correct Location info and the various options.  Note: the folder name you give in the Remux Location (eg TMNT) will be used as the disc title later.  When done, press Next and wait as the disc is scanned (you may see a DOS Box flash up pending on the options you set in ClownBD)

- Step 2:  Not much to do here but check that you are happy that the selected first title is the one to convert (I've never had to change this) and press Next.  More scanning (and more DOS Boxes) 

- Step 3 (see Pic Step 3):  This is where you get to pick what streams you want to convert and the options to use (see the red boxes).  You would normally select the Chapters, Video, the "best" Audio (eg TrueHD in this example).  You may also want to include one or more subtitle tracks (more on forced subtitles in the next post).  If you select to keep the Output Audio Format as "Unconverted" it will keep them all as is with the exception of EAC3 tracks which will be uncompressed to LPCM.  Make sure Batch is unchecked, that you have selected Blu-ray+Burn and press Next.  This is going to take around half an hour pending your setup, how big the disc is and if it needs a second pass (you may see more DOS progress boxes show how it is going with the demuxing, converting, and remuxing).  Time to get a beer or have a cup of tea!

- Burn:  You will now see ImgBurn appear and it is time to simply swap the original HD DVD for a Blank BD-R at which point it will start to burn the disc.  Go have another beer or a cup of tea as it will take some time (especially if you have "Verify" checked which I would recommend).

Once finished you can print your disc art etc and you are done!

[jmone]

Tips and Tricks

Unfortunately it is sometimes not so straight forward especially if the image created is too big for your BDR (you will get a warning msg in ImgBurn), or if you want to keep a Forced Subtitle stream and have it correctly displayed.

1) Options when the img is to big for a BDR25 (eac3, dts) : This simple process above creates a PCM Audio Stream that is some 5GB larger that the the EAC3 File making some images to big to fit on a BDR-25GB disc.  You options are then:
- Use BDR-50GB Discs (but they are twice the price)

- Leave the structure on your HDD, and just import it into MC as with any other Blu-ray

- In the Output Audio Format, transcode the EAC3 to DTS 1536.  This will result in an audio stream of the same size (both are the same bitrate though I can not vouch if you will hear a quality degradation from the transcoding process).  The downside is you need to have Surcode DVD Pro DTS Encoder installed on your system and this is commercial SW and not cheap.

- In the Output Audio Format, transcode the EAC3 to AC3.  This will result in a smaller audio stream as it will drop the EAC3 stream to DD one.  I can not comment on how much difference you will hear from the transcoding process and loss of bitrate

- Keep the original EAC3 track (see point 3 below)

2) Forced Subs : HD DVD seems to keep it's "Forced Subs" in a separate subtitle file.  While it is easy to select this stream in the converted file, here is how you can "force" these subtitles to be displayed in MC thanks to how LAV Splitter works (in RO).  

- Step 1: See Pic "Forced Subs 1" and ensure you select the Forced Subtitle Stream and Check the "Batch button.  Press "Next" and it will return Clown BD back to Step on.  At this stage just press Exit and you will be asked if you want to START the Batch File, Press NO, You will then be asked if you want to EDIT the batch file, Press "Yes"

- Step 2:  Editing the batchfile.  You are going to want to find this line in the Batchfile and add to it the bit in RED below.  Note what the file is called and where it is Located.  Save and close notepad
    echo Call BDSup2Sub Subtitles (BLU-RAY Conversion)
     "%PathToCBD%" "Prepare_BDSup2Sub" "%PathToJAVA%" "%PathToDMX%" "_exp" ".sup" "/forceall /res:1080"

- Step 3:  Find and run the batchfile. - You will now have a disc with forced subtitles activated.

- Keep the original EAC3 track (see point 3 below)

3) Keeping the EAC3 Audio Track : If you are only ever going to play these converted Blu-rays on an HTPC, you may want to conser keeping the original EAC3 Audio tracks instead of converting them.  The downside is as the EAC3 format is not a mandatory spec of Blu-ray (and even then it is different), it will not play on some HW (eg the PS3 will not be able to play a EAC3 Track).    

- Step 1: See Pic "EAC3 1" and ensure you select the EACS Audio Stream you want, the Output Format as AC3 and Check the "Batch" button.  Press "Next" and it will return Clown BD back to Step on.  At this stage just press Exit and you will be asked if you want to START the Batch File, Press NO, You will then be asked if you want to EDIT the batch file, Press "Yes"

- Step 2:  Editing the batchfile.  You are going to want to find this line in the Batchfile and add to it the bit in RED below.  Note what the file is called and where it is Located.  Save and close notepad
    "%PathToCBD%" "Prepare_EAC_3" "%PathToBD%" "%PathToDMX%" "1)" 2: "%PathToDMX%\Chapters_2.txt" 3: "%PathToDMX%\Video_3.*" 6: "%PathToDMX%\Audio_6_English.EAC3"

- Step 3:  Find and run the batchfile and the Process will start

- Step 4:  While that is running you will need to locate and edit in Notepad a file called "?.meta" where the ? is the folder name you used in Clown BD (see Pic "EAC3 2"), and in that file change the following line by adding the bits in RED then save and close.  ClownBD will now run as usual but create a BD with the EAC3 track as is.
    A_AC3, "x:\Output\BI\Audio_6_English.EAC3", lang=eng

Note:  One trick I found (if there is room on the disc) is if you want to keep the original EAC3 Track but want compatibility with HW players like the PS3, the create / mux into the project a std DD or DTS track as Audio Track 1.  It will not take up too much space and the PS3 defaults to Audio Track 1 so it will play (but at a reduced quality) and you will still be able to get your EAC3 track on the HTPC.

[Matt]

One thing to consider is the shelf-life of home-burned optical media.

I don't know how Blu-ray holds up, but the MP3 CDs I burned when I first started with digital media are spotty now.  This was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, so maybe they've since solved this problem.

[jmone]

Good point of the media life.  I've had cheap DVD-R also give out, so as usual if going to Burn Media then buyer beware on the media you get.

After some searching, I've found this claim on Panasonic http://panasonic.net/avc/blu-ray_disc/advantage.html of a data archiving life of 50 years for their media.  Even at half of this, it should see us out to the next format so we can buy all the content over again (...and again) (..and again)

Also updated the Tips and Tricks section.