I have an LG bluray player in my PC and the supplied player software Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 hasn't worked since I upgraded to windows 8. I'm not sure if this is something I have done, or whether it's a "feature" or the new OS. For the time being I am using the trial version of PowerDVD 12, but before I fork out the £30 to install it for real I wondered if it is the best option in the long run? £30 isn't too much, but if a better quality option is available I might consider it, even if it's more expensive (though cheaper is likely better). I suppose I am asking what kind of software people use and trust to support their bluray needs
When I ran into this issue I decieded to rip my bluyrays to HDD and have the added benifit of vieqing on any of my devices. Be warned the first set up is time consuming. Sent from Bittech Android app
Yes do this. You can use MAKEMKV to rip the file to an .mkv format. If your short on space you can use FREEMAKE or Handbrake to shrink the file size. You can also change the file format if you want to mp4. It's what I do.
What settings do you use? Just curious my rips tend to be 20-30 GB for just main movie and subs (have a lot of non-english films) What I mean is what are decent settings for 1080p good quality and sub 8GB or am I wishing for too much?
I get rips about 20 to 30 gig too using MAKEMKV. I use Freemake for blu rays as it's easier to get the forced subtitles to work. I tend to shrink to about half the file size e.g. 10 to 15 gig. I could probably shrink smaller with little loss in quality, but I've got plenty of harddrive space so I tend to leave the files quite large.
I would rip Blu Rays to watch on other devices, but I would not rip them to watch them on my main PC / TV. If you have a Blu Ray player in the first place you probably care about having the best film quality available, so you will want a software player capable of Blu Ray playback. If you are going to rip and compress stuff you might as well just buy DVDs. Because of licencing there are only three main players in this market I think. Power DVD Total Media Theatre Corel Win DVD. They are probably all much of a muchness, so if Power DVD 12 is working for you well then you could go for that. £30 does sting the wallet a bit, but I doubt you will get anything for less.
Ripping doesn't necessarily mean a loss in quality - MakeMKV doesn't recode the file, it just encapsulates it (AFAIK) in an MKV container. Alternatively, I use ClownBD to rip just the main movie while keeping a BluRay folder structure. PowerDVD is okay, but I prefer TMT for playing BluRays - it just seems to do a better job, IMHO - although it is more expensive than PowerDVD.
VLC does not natively play commercial Blu Ray due to the licencing involved. VLC can be 'tweaked' to play commercial Blu Rays and a bit of googling will tell you how (though strictly speaking this is not legal). It is certainly an option though.
Hard subs tend to be in the actual video and not a added layer. This has been my experience so far. As long as I choose the correct main movie file they have always been there. ( my ripping experience is quite limited though atm.)
