Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that Albert just likes to see me work more around here?
On to the questions! Decryption of blu ray…my advice is to buy AnyDVD HD and get the lifetime subscription version if you can afford it. AnyDVD HD is updated very quickly, probably a bit faster than DVDFab, and there are fewer complaints about poorly decrypted discs when using AnyDVD HD than any other program.
I prefer to work with blu ray from the hard drive rather than putting more wear and tear on the optical drive, so I always rip the blu ray to the hard drive using AnyDVD HD’s built in ripper.
If you want free options, those might not work on the very newest releases, but work for most anything else. There are two main choices, DVDFab HD Decrypter and MakeMKV. Of those two, I prefer MakeMKV, though it must be noted that blu ray decryption in MakeMKV is only free while the program remains in beta, and you have to put in a new beta key each month or so. http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053
MakeMKV will rip as an uncompressed mkv file, or in Backup mode, it will rip the entire disc.
I like BD Rebuilder, and recommend it to most anyone who wants to make blu ray backups to 25gb sized output. It would also be a good choice when making AVCHD discs on single or double layer dvds. It will work for output to 720p mkv files in the sizes you want, but it would not be my first choice for this, as the fine controls over the X264 encoder are not easily set up. You might want to explore Handbrake or Vidcoder for this type of output. And if you want even more control over all parameters, read up on MeGUI and Ripbot264. All of these are free to use.
I don’t have that Pioneer, but my 207MBK rips blu ray in less than an hour…usually in the 40 some odd minute range.
And yes, these are the best programs I know of for these tasks, regardless of which blu ray drive you have.
