What software do people generally use to take a Blue Ray or ISO file to a Video only file? What is the best format for me to use to not loose quality and sound either?
MakeMKV Direct rip to MKV with all audio/subtitle tracks if you so choose. Free for as long as it's in Beta (which has been years so far) and has never had an issue with any disc I've thrown at it.
I've done some pretty extensive quality testing between straight rips and transcoding on my collection, and have concluded that RF18 in handbrake is 100% indistinguishable from the original (along with the umolested HD soundtrack). RF20 was probably 100% as well, maybe 99.9%, so RF18 is just being conservative. It's also saved me several TB of disk, so something to consider.
I found completely different results to Mister_Tad. I use RF15 for a near perfect copy. RF18 gives horrible banding in dark scenes sometimes from my experience.
Interesting, I've not noticed this, even paying particular attention to near-black detail. At the risk of noticing this and having to start over with a gazillion BDs at RF15, any particular scenes that stick out in your mind?
To be honest it was mainly animated stuff. The main scene which stood out was in Frozen, the Let It Go scene. There were a couple of others but I forget exactly what now.
I've just checked it out and did spot a bit light banding towards the corner on one bit of the scene now you mention it, but it's nothing that's ever distracted me before, and is at the level where it wouldn't surprise me if it was on the native BD either - I might spin off an RF15 for a comparison and see what's what. I can't say I've ever noticed it in normal viewing (having normally viewed Frozen around 460 times, being in possession of a 3yo girl) on any of my TVs, but perhaps a better display would be more revealing. Are you sure you've got your display dialled in correctly? My main TV is pretty sensitive to "wrong" settings, falling apart especially in terms of black level detail and banding if it's not dialled in just right.
I think my TV is ok. It was a Samsung UE48J6300 which I'd spent a fair amount of time configuring. Though I wouldn't rule it out. It could also just be me being mega mega picky. For me RF15 was the sweet spot but like a lot of things, each person and TV is different. I did initially use RF18 but re-ripped my entire collection when I got the above TV as I started noticing imperfections.
I'm pretty picky, but on second thought I might have to forget about it and carry on in ignorant bliss... the last thing I want is to re-rip eeeeeeeeverything and I've not noticed any banding in normal viewing before today. Maybe I'll just opt for RF15 for anything new, y'know, just in case.
Beats fetching a few hundred BDs out of the loft... last time I went up there I ended up with a fibreglass splinter in my eye. That sucked almost as hard as re-ripping 300 BDs
Thanks I will try with handbrake.. Could you help me out with the rest of the settings? So this is what I have done so far... Picture tab: Anamorphic - Strict? Filters tab: All defaults Video tab: RF 15? 18? Suppose it's ongoing but lets say I start with 15 for now. Codec - h.264 FPS - Same as source x264 preset - Slow ? Do I need to go even slower or can I even bare faster with no loss? x264 tune - Film? h.264 profile - high h.264 level - 4.1 Audio tab: First matching selected language - English chose Ticked ONLY DTSHD and selected FLAC 24-bit from the drop down Do they seem right? Are there any I should change for better benefit etc? I don't mind how long it takes if it makes the quality worth it.
The only things I changed were the RF, preset (I went for normal i think) and audio settings. I left everything else as is.
It definitely had too many settings for my like. Never got the hang of handbrake So I'm with MakeMKV as well. I't doesn't compress at all though so I've stuck to DVD till now, ripping blurays will fill up my drive really fast
