Blue Ray to hard drive to watch movie from hard drive

oldwizkid

I'm getting a little old now and I'm not sure what I need to to do to rip a blue ray movie to my hard drive so I can watch the movie from there. Blue Ray blanks are far to pricey to risk burning one to make a coaster.

I've gor DVD Fab 6.0.1.0 installed on my machine right now.

OCanada

Are you looking to watch the film on your monitor, or your Hi-Def TV?

Either way, you don't necessarily need to even rip the BD to your HD - there are many devices out there, all vying for a share of your money, that'll take the computer image, and put it on your TV screen (if that's where you want to watch it), not the least being a Blu-Ray player...(you can use the purchased disc, no B/U req'd)

You only need to back up disks if there's a chance they'll get damaged if you don't...


OC

touchdown_1

Hi oldwizkid.

You say you want to playback BD on your computer,

O'C asks some good questions,

but I would like to ask a few more, for a little more clarity

1) Do you have the video drivers to support HD/BD ?

2) Is your monitor capable of high res.

if your answer to any of the above is no, then you might want to take O'C's advice and shop around...

also would you please state what type of computer you are going to be doing this on e.g. Lap / PC as well as the OS...

Thanks

oldwizkid

Hello all. Some answers to your questions. I have a 24 inch HD monitor on a desktop machine. I also have a Blue Ray player/burner in the computer. The video card is HD capable too.

Basically I'd like to store the movies in Blue Ray clarity on my hard drive to watch at a later point. The software that came with the player/burner has many features, but of course cannot override the copy protection built into the movie.

I tried using the feature in DVD Fab that would allow backing up the Blue Ray disk to another blank Blue Ray disk. Several issues followed.

One was the blank Blue Ray disk was 25 giabytes in size, the actual movie was nearly twice that size. Blue Ray disks are not cheap. So, at the price of the blanks, it would not be long before it would be cheaper to purchase a 1-2 terabyte hard disk and store the movies on them.

The issue for me is, how do I do that? The time or two I tried to place the movies on the hard drive, huge files were stored, but they were separate audio and video files that had no exe type file to allow them to play.

DVD Fab advertises that it can put the DVD files on a hard disk, I'm just not smart enough to figure out how to make them play or maybe even select the proper method of ripping them to the hard drive. If I need to purchase software, what would I need?

OCanada

If you'll please pardon my phrasing it this way, I think the first thing you need is to re-examine your reason for wanting to rip Blu-Ray to your hard drive...

Any way you cut it, BD is an expensive proposition. You've already noted the cost of BD blanks, and yes, they would make very expensive coasters... to play BD on your computer would require a program like Cyberlink's Power DVD Ultra (another expense), as the ripped files from a BD disk don't come with a BD player...

You've already seen the potential size of BD ripped files...10 fairly large ones would almost fill a 500 GB HD, double that (most people have more than 10 favorite films) and you're talking a full 1 TB HD...

One solution...the cost of:
1.) The store-bought BD films themselves...
2.)A BD Set-top player (backwards compatible with regular DVDs)
Meets all the criteria you've stated (almost)...able to watch a BD film whenever you want...no extra storage costs...no special player costs...no time spent picking lint out of your belly-button waiting for a 40 (approx.) GB BD disk to rip...

Another solution...the cost of:
1.) The store-bought BD films themselves...
2.) The program to play them on your computer
3.) If you want to watch them on your TV, the cost of a device to get them from the computer to your TV...
4.) The cost of adding to the constantly shrinking storage facilities for the discs you're ripping..
5.) The cost (in terms of YOUR time), waiting for discs to rip...
6.) The cost of the frustration (not really measurable in terms of $$$) of BDs that won't rip (all rippers are essentially works in progress, as copy protection schemes are updated all the time, and ripper authors are kept busy keeping their rippers up to date, too) waiting for the release that will handle that disc...
7.) The cost (again in terms of your time) while you try and search out answers for the reason behind a failed rip, knowing that others have done it successfully...

I guess all I'm saying is that ripping isn't really for the casual viewer...more for the hobbyist, and one who doesn't mind spending the time and money to get the results he wants.

Which one are you?


OC

oldwizkid

Wow. I guess that makes me a hobbist who has some time and a little bit money. Since I already have the hardware and most of the software, I'm practically there already.

Since I'm not out explain why I want to do what I'm asking, all I was asking is if I could do it with what I have and how to do it.

If there is not a solution, I can deal with that. DVD Fab does advertise it can rip DVDs and Blue Ray DVDs to my hard drive. I cannot figure out the settings to do that. More so, I don't seem to know what it takes to play the ripped file on my computer.

That's it. I've seen many products towork with Blue Ray. DVDFab, Hand Brake and others. I don't want to use 10 different programs to do something that (in concept at least) is that simple. If that is what it takes, then I would be better off with duplicate purchases of a Blue Ray movie.

OCanada

Nobody said anything about buying two of the same BD disk...Cyberlink will play the disk on your computer right out of the box. (and will also play the file on your HD, if you want...).

DVD and BD players don't have to worry about the copy protection on discs - they only have to play the discs...only people like Fengtao who take it upon themselves to beat it worry about the copy protection.

Go ahead if that's really what you want to do.

Please bear in mind that currently DVDFab re Blu-Ray is a work-in-progress, and as such, until there are more releases with Blu-Ray support, there may be frequent times that some discs won't rip, and you'll probably find yourself back on the forum here looking for help...

Good luck and enjoy your new hobby!


OC

oldwizkid

OK.. I've played around with different methods of recoridng to the hard drive. If I use the Generic" device setting in DVDFab, the movie is ripped and stored on the hard drive.

Power DVD and Windows Media Player can open the file and I can view the movie just fine. However, the sound track is running a few seconds behind. What can I do to syncronise the sound with the video of the movie?

zaina

To answer your question how to rip Blu-ray to hard drive and watch from hard drive: you will need DVDFab to rip to harddrive and software player to watch it. There are currently a couple of player that can play from harddrive: ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater and Nero ShowTime. Other softwares (PowerDVD, WinDVD, MediaPlayer, VLC) can only play single m2ts files, and cannot pull up the menu, at least the last time I tried them.

Also keep in mind that DVDFab currently cannot handle BD+ protection that comes in many FOX new releases so you will need to use AnyDVD HD for BD+ movies.

How to:
- Rip using DVDFab "Full Disc" if you want to watch everything including menu, extra features, director commentary etc.
- Rip using DVDFab "Main Movie" if you want to watch the main movie only
- Both method above can currently be use only for non BD+ movies.
- Open ArcSoft TMT or Nero ShowTime and browse to the ripped Blu-ray folder.
- Enjoy the movie.

If you want to watch on HDTV LCD or Plasma, you will need to connect your video card with DVI/HDMI cable and if needed sound card with Optical cable.

alchav21

Listen OldWizkid, I have been doing this with DVD VOB Files for years now with DVDFab. You Rip the Movie Only to your HDD then Stream it to your HDTV over Ethernet. You need a Media Player with software that will recognize VOB Files to Stream. Once you can do DVD, then get a Media Player that will recognize M2ts Files, and you are home free. This Streaming Video is the way of the future, but you have to put in your hard knocks first. Remember, don't bother with Wireless, Wired Ethernet is the only way to go until Fiber is feasible.

davesandstorm

I rip the BD to my HDD by creating an iso file and then use Slysoft's Virtual CloneDrive to mount the image and watch it with Cyberlink's PowerDVD, which came with my BR drive. Works like a charm, soon enough I'll be doing exactly as alchav21 said and will be able to stream all of my media to any computer or TV in my house.

zaina

The wired connection for Blu-ray streaming is correct that it is the way to go. But I'm interested in knowing which media player or NMT that can play full Blu-ray with menu and hidef sounds, not only movie only or m2ts only?

alchav21

Sorry Zaina, I don't know of any Player. I used the Buffalo DVD Player for many years it had software to access my DVD Movie Files on my Computer and Server HDD. This Player worked like a charm, but when Blu-ray came out with bigger different Files I could not find a Player. Even Kaleidescape has not come out with a Player, they are a very high end DVD Movie Media Player.

I think what we are going to see next, is Server based movies. All these HD Movies are going to be stored on massive Servers, and accessed for a price by us users. Software Companies like DVDFab will work out the kink's, and we can put back-up BD on Servers in our homes. Then all we need is a good Media Player to play these Movies for us off our Servers.

bedecc

If you do as stated above

1) Rip to an ISO file
2) Mount the file with Virtual CloneDrive
3) Select the virtual drive with PowerDVD and then it will play as if you inserted the disk and have all features.

I connect my computer video to the HDTV via an HDMI cable and audio to my receiver with a SPDIF optical cable and get very good results.

So far Virtual CloneDrive will only allow selecting an ISO file on my C drive not an external drive connected thru a USB cable. And these BD files are large. Without external storage you will fill your hard drive in no time.

bedecc

I figured out how to use external drives.

OCanada

We would appreciate your sharing that knowledge, and I'm sure oldwizkid would like to know also, as I suspect he'll need that info for his situation.


OC

bedecc

Virtual CloneDrive puts an icon in the task bar. Left click that and it gives the option for the virtual drive available.

Hover over that virtual drive and it gives the 'Mount...' selection and click on that.
It pulls up Explorer. (This is in Vista)

Explorer usually defaults to some mystery location. But you want to find in the list 'Computer' and that gives you all the drives available.

In the drives list select the external drive that is connected via the USB and has your saved ISO file.

Drill down to where your ISO file is and select it and click on OPEN.

Your ISO file is now mounted. Then in Cyberlink you can select the virtual drive and play it, just as if you had the DVD loaded on your computer.

Addendum: you don't have to drill down to the ISO file but to the folder that DVDFab created that contains the ISO file. Select the folder. Also if you are copying from the HDD to the external drive after ripping, copy the movie title folder from the ISO directory.

alchav21

Wow Dude, to much stuff to do. Just Streaming Video Files is so much easier. I have good news for you guys, Oldwizkid got me thinking and looking for ways to Stream Blu-ray off your HDD. Buffalo has a Media Player that plays VOB's and M2ts, and I ordered the unit. So I will be working with it and I'll report back. I have confidence with Buffalo, they Stream VOB's just like the DVD Disk, so I'm sure the M2ts Files will work too. The only draw back are the large Files, but just get a big TB HDD.

bedecc

Yes it took 11 mouse clicks and that includes the double clicks to open software and select the folder.

If all you rip is the main movie you can play that with Cyberlink. The process I described is to get a ripped version to play just like playing a BD disk on a BD player, menus and all.

And as stated previously by others the easiest thing to do is insert the original disk in a player and press play. If you plan on archiving BD movies on HDD it will take a lot of bytes and money.

We are fortunate that Fengtao Software makes this possible.

Jimbo

Just to add to all this, your version 6010 has had some problems and is way outdated now so before you get to involved in all this I would download the latest version which is 6040

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