Benifit of Bluray .iso's over .mkv

U

UT-Jackal

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2004
Messages
373
I was just wondering if there is any benefit to having my blurays directly copied onto my hard drives in .iso form (aka have the entire disk ripped to hard drive), over .mkv files? I currently use .iso, but my friends mostly use .mkv and it takes up a whole lot less space, obviously.
 
The ISO container will keep a disk file structure so you can mount it and use something like PowerDVD with full menus, extras, chapters, etc.

The MKV container is good for movie rips and re-encodes for direct use in everything from MPC-HC to VMC to MediaPortal, etc.
 
Well my big thing is that i don't want to lose any video/audio quality. I don't need full menus, extras and chapters. They are nice, but not necessary. I'm not as worried about space as much as the fact that i don't want to have to mount an image every time i play the movie. I want to go in some pretty front end gui and have all my movies sitting there and just select one. Like how i currently do with DVD's in WMC.
 
Encode with x264 to an MKV file with just the main movie and audio track, then use something like MyMovies to have it play through WMC.
 
If you don't want to lose any quality, demux the main movie's m2ts and then remux the streams into an MKV container. Encoding will result in a loss of quality.

I think there's a guide in this forum for that... Let me see if I can find it.
 
If you encode properly with x264, the loss of quality is so minimal you won't notice it once you sit on the couch and watch. You can really cut down file size, but at the expense of time.
 
criccio said:
Not if done right.
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Yes, you do. Even if it's unnoticeable, you still lose quality.

Anyway, I only suggested muxing the streams into an MKV instead of re-encoding because he said the following:

"i don't want to lose any video/audio quality."

"I'm not as worried about space as much as the fact that i don't want to have to mount an image every time i play the movie."

This method allows him to keep all the audio and video in their original form. It might even be faster since demuxing and remuxing don't take nearly as much time as encoding.
 
I wonder if I should start posting screen shots of the source blu-ray versus a x264 1080p encode with half the file size to see if he can spot the difference. The last person I did it with on these boards got 1 out of 5 right. lol
 
Okay, maybe my choice of words was wrong.

Encoding will cause you to lose bits and bytes from the original source; you may not notice that those bits and bytes are gone, but they're gone.
 
Unless you use the iso. I think you are going to lose any DD-HD or DTS-MA HD sound. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here. But if you're not using HDMI out to you're receiver or care about just using the 5.1, then this is not an issue. For me, I would want to get the HD audio along with the HD video quality--otherwise, why even bother with Blu-ray anyway.
 
NACZ3 said:
Unless you use the iso. I think you are going to lose any DD-HD or DTS-MA HD sound. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here. But if you're not using HDMI out to you're receiver or care about just using the 5.1, then this is not an issue. For me, I would want to get the HD audio along with the HD video quality--otherwise, why even bother with Blu-ray anyway.
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Multi-channel FLAC.
 
IHaven't heard of multi-channel FLAC^ but will that be tied to the video? I.e Mkv or x264 have this FLAC audio track? Can it be bitstreamed via HDMI and decoded by receiver as DD HD or DTS HD. I think you'd have to use the analog outs of your card. And what software video players support this mulit-channel FLAC?

I.E. like WMV HD 5.1 cannot be decoded by digital out to DD 5.1.
 
tgxii is correct in the fact that space isn't an issue. I tested creating one off of a planet earth bluray, because it was only a little over 14 gigs. The .mkv file ended up being ever so slightly smaller than the actual iso, which i would assume is the lack of menu? At first i compared the Video quality between the actual bluray using powerdvd, and the .mkv in WMP classic. Initially i was very disapointed in the .mkv because it look very dull in comparison. I later opened the .mkv using xmdb media center, and it looked almost 100% as good (color wise) as the powerdvd original. The video was equally smooth and all of that with both. I haven't tested the audio, but sadly i only have optical going to my reciever atm because my HTPC/denon reciever won't play nice with my HDMI unless in 2-channel mode. So i won't be able to see if the master audio, etc holds.

And NACZ3, I do want to keep the DD-HD/DTS-MA HD audio, but have no way to test if it is kept or not atm.

Maybe i can explain what I'm using now to create these. I use ripbot264 and the video is set to be Constant quality mode @ 18CRF (not sure what this means, but it's the highest settings for the program). I set the audio to 5.1 CT AAC-LC 320kbps and this is with Sunshine which as you can see is rated at DTS-HD MA 5.1 24 bits 48 kHz. So i would assume this is losing that audio "quality"? I then package it in .mkv, wait about 8 hours for a 14 gig movie, and bam it's done.
 
NACZ3 said:
IHaven't heard of multi-channel FLAC^ but will that be tied to the video? I.e Mkv or x264 have this FLAC audio track? Can it be bitstreamed via HDMI and decoded by receiver as DD HD or DTS HD. I think you'd have to use the analog outs of your card. And what software video players support this mulit-channel FLAC?

I.E. like WMV HD 5.1 cannot be decoded by digital out to DD 5.1.
Click to expand...

The HD audio track is encoded in multi-channel FLAC. It can be sent over HDMI and sent out of the analog outputs on a receiver/prepro. MPC-HC.
 
I take that back, that is the highest audio setting for .mp4.
With .mkv the highest options are "x.x COPY STREAM" which i assume is the DTS-HD MA 5.1 24 bits 48 kHz? And then the next one down is "5.1 Aften AC3 640kbps [cbr]".
 
UT-Jackal said:
I take that back, that is the highest audio setting for .mp4.
With .mkv the highest options are "x.x COPY STREAM" which i assume is the DTS-HD MA 5.1 24 bits 48 kHz? And then the next one down is "5.1 Aften AC3 640kbps [cbr]".
Click to expand...

Using something like RipBot264 is very limiting in what you can do. Do some research on Doom9 about eac3to and x264.
 
w1retap said:
I wonder if I should start posting screen shots of the source blu-ray versus a x264 1080p encode with half the file size to see if he can spot the difference. The last person I did it with on these boards got 1 out of 5 right. lol
Click to expand...

Wait if he was wrong 4 out of 5 times doesn't that mean he was able to spot a difference?
 
lol w1retap.. :p im sure all of you guys are calling w1retap an idiot under your breaths.. but he is right.. if done correctly a normal person would never be able to tell the difference between an encoded 1080 x264 to a standard bluray..

x264 mkv w/ MPC-HC.. thats the answer to everything.. hardware accel w/ multi-threading..

also Arcsoft totalmedia theatre will allow you to play blurays directly off your hdd without having to mount iso's.. only downfall to TMT is that you lose picture in picture support.. but who the heck really uses that anyways..

tell me if you can see the difference in these screen shots and which ones the x264 and which ones the source..

http://img.phyrefile.com/sirmonkey/2009/01/25/s3.png
http://img.phyrefile.com/sirmonkey/2009/01/25/s1.png
http://img.phyrefile.com/sirmonkey/2009/01/25/s2.png
http://img.phyrefile.com/sirmonkey/2009/01/25/s4.png
 
There's similarities in the differences between each pair of screen shots, but without knowing what to look for, I couldn't say which one is original and or better. Is BD supposed to be tad sharper, or is the the codec doing a slight contrast/sharpness boost to compensate for re-compression. That said, I can say s1 is related to s2 as in it's origin being BD or x264 same as s3 and s4 look similar to eachother whether they are BD or x264 recodes I can't tell ya.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
lol w1retap.. :p im sure all of you guys are calling w1retap an idiot under your breaths.. but he is right.. if done correctly a normal person would never be able to tell the difference between an encoded 1080 x264 to a standard bluray..
Click to expand...

Not really. I never said that I could tell the difference. If I could, I wouldn't have my computer encoding videos pretty much 24/7 and would just play off the discs or rip ISOs.

Like I mentioned, my choice of words was wrong. I used the term "loss of quality" to refer to lost data from the original source. wiretap and criccio are referring to perceived loss of quality.

Demuxing the streams and then remuxing them into MKV keeps the audio and video in its original form, which I thought is what UT-Jackal wanted.

Anyway, I only made a moot point since I overlooked the limitations of MKV in terms of HD audio. The DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD can't go into an MKV, so they'll have to be re-encoded to DTS or AC3.

There's a handy guide here for that: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/arch...bluray-disc-into-a-mkv-720p-file-t362452.html

Edit: How the heck do you do a strikeout in the font?
 
Fun fact is that AVC (H.264) is one of the encodings used for Blu-Ray video.

Do you want to keep the menus and everything intact? Do you care about having all the extras and everything in one place? Then stick with an ISO.

If you just want the movie and couldn't care less about the extras and menus (additional audio-tracks and subtitles can still be added), you can experiment with lower bit-rate AVC, but you could also opt for the existing video tracks (1080p, ??FPS). In my experience, however, there isn't much difference between a 720p and 1080p video if your HDTV is halfway decent at upscaling. Even DVDs played on a PS2 (480p, output quality is... okay) look almost identical to the same DVD played (and upscaled on) the PS3 sitting next to it (SCART vs HDMI connection, on a Panasonic 46" Plasma HDTV). In the latter case things even look so good that I haven't found a reason why I would want to 'upgrade' to Blu-Ray movies at this point.
 
Elledan said:
In the latter case things even look so good that I haven't found a reason why I would want to 'upgrade' to Blu-Ray movies at this point.
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Then get your eyes checked or get a better/larger display. If you can't tell the difference then its not the media, its you. There is a MASSIVE difference.
 
criccio said:
Then get your eyes checked or get a better/larger display. If you can't tell the difference then its not the media, its you. There is a MASSIVE difference.
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Friends and I have compared Blu-Ray and DVD movies on the PS3/Panasonic HDTV setup (same movies). We couldn't see any noticable difference. This is a sentiment which has been echoed by even many home-theatre enthusiasts (who would hate to have to replace their collection of DVDs with BDs, of course ;) ). It all comes down to how good your upscaling chip is, and the PS3 is known to be a good upscaling DVD player.
 
Elledan said:
Friends and I have compared Blu-Ray and DVD movies on the PS3/Panasonic HDTV setup (same movies). We couldn't see any noticable difference. This is a sentiment which has been echoed by even many home-theatre enthusiasts (who would hate to have to replace their collection of DVDs with BDs, of course ;) ). It all comes down to how good your upscaling chip is, and the PS3 is known to be a good upscaling DVD player.
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19'd

lmao wow...

aahaha

Were you watching on a 32'' HDTV from 20 feet back?
 
w1retap said:
19'd

lmao wow...

aahaha

Were you watching on a 32'' HDTV from 20 feet back?
Click to expand...

46" Plasma HDTV. Read the post.

Okay, you try to find a trust-worthy source which confirms this 'MASSIVE' difference between upscaled DVD and BD video quality on an HDTV. I follow multiple gadget and multimedia blogs and sites, and nowhere have I heard people support BD for its 'massive' IQ improvement over upscaled DVD. BD sales are also just a fraction of DVD sales at this point, so even if this 'massive' improvement exists, it doesn't seem to translate to marketshare.
 
try watching the dark knight in blu ray, and if you do not notice a difference in quality, you really should get your eyes checked.
 
Elledan said:
46" Plasma HDTV. Read the post.

Okay, you try to find a trust-worthy source which confirms this 'MASSIVE' difference between upscaled DVD and BD video quality on an HDTV. I follow multiple gadget and multimedia blogs and sites, and nowhere have I heard people support BD for its 'massive' IQ improvement over upscaled DVD. BD sales are also just a fraction of DVD sales at this point, so even if this 'massive' improvement exists, it doesn't seem to translate to marketshare.
Click to expand...

You're kidding right? It's one thing to debate MKV vs ISO of BluRay movies... but DVD vs BD?? What have you been watching? It is an absolutely HUGE difference.
 
WTS
modelwithextrathickglasyd9.jpg
 
I'm not arguing whether bluray > dvd upscaled. I have seen it with my own two eyes that it is. Does depend on the movie, some of your older movies that you purchase on bluray where they didn't put as much time into don't look much better than their upscaled counterpart, but as others said, throw in the dark knight or wall-e and either your setup is wack, or you just don't notice fine details that others do.

Anyways..

tgxiii is correct that i am looking to keep the highest sound and video quality that is on the bluray. You say that i should demux and then remux the streams in order to do this. Are there any good tutorials that you could link me to, or programs that i would use?

And i don't care about the menus are extras, I only want the film anyways.

And a strange thing happened when i used ripbot264 to .mkv the sunshine movie. The .iso file size is ~46gigs, but then the .mkv is ~16gigs. Is this because the video and audio track only take up around a third of the bluray disk? Or am i losing quality? I really want to start making my blurays into .mkv files seeing as how long it will take me to get the whole collection in this format, but i want to make sure i'm using the best possible software before i throw away all that time. I want this to be a one time deal (for each movie).

Thanks for the help so far guys.
 
I rip all my Blu-Rays to Isos and wath them using My Movies/PowerDVD/ thru VMC, Ya i could probably save 10 gig or more per movie but i dont have the time. Its easier to rip with AnyDVD-HD then mount the sucker, i have 4 Terabytes and i am gonna buy External Box with ESATA and start filling up more drives, i wish the 2 Terebyte drives were out.
 
@Marcdaddy
That is what i currently do, but i am just wanting a more seamless player. Like how most media players now treat VIDEO_TS files. And the only thing i see atm is .mkv etc. The way you and i do it works fine, just looking for something "easier" for others, and more aesthetically pleasing for myself.
 
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