Ok here's the relatively painless no-learning-curve ez guide to backing up blurays...so you dont have to!
This is the guide I wish someone had made for me when i started. This looks like a lot but its as painless as it gets (assuming you want
movie-only, no menu, pick and choose audio tracks and subtitles compressed to a 25GB disc, as opposed to a full bluray clone with expensive 50gb blank discs)
Backing up blurays is an entirely different kettle of fish than backing up plain old DVDs. You can go through the learning curve with
clown, handbrake, etc etc etc., or just do what i do.
First of all, you have to buy AnyDVDHD to remove copy protection. Its $150 or $75 if you already have good old lifetime anydvd.
You kind of have to have it because otherwise its impossible to break copyright protection in several instances.
there's DVDfab which is also a pay service but Im not really sold on them. I'm not aware of anyone else.
Then you need media. If you want the good stuff get verbatim 25gb. If you want cheap get melody 6x 25gb. The melodys are cheap, burn well at
lower speeds, but there is a concern about longevity. you have to treat these backups like gold because they are fragile. Use jewelcases and
dont let your nasty little cousin get his pudgy beaters on them. dont lose your originals!
If you havent gotten a bluray writer yet you might want to get one that supports disc quality testing (mine doesnt pioneer bd208D).
Use AnyDVDHD to rip your bluray to image to your hard drive (right click rip to image).
Then use some kind of virtual mount program (I like Gizmo-dont use virtual daemon any more) to mount the image as a virtual disc.
You will now have a new virtual drive under computer with a drive letter, for instance "CD Drive (I:)Star Trek"
Ok so this is how I like my backups: no menu, forced subs for non-english parts, option for full english subs for parts that i cant clearly hear
i.e. arnold shwarzenegger, option for dir commentary audio track, and extras at the end.
Welp, unless you go through the learning curve you arent getting the extras at the end, BUT you can choose "quick play" in BD rebuilder which
gives you a tiny quick menu and includes all the features including extras. We'll get to that.
Now you have your image mounted. You want to inspect the audio streams and the subtitles to make sure they are the right ones you want to
keep and/or force.
Get the freeware program tsMuxer. run the gui version. click "add". navigate to the virtua;ly mounted img file i.e. the I: drive, BDMV folder, Stream folder,
now find the video stream that appears to be the correct size for the movie, i.e. the largest. choose it. uncheck the main movie video and the true HD audio.
The rest of them should be secondary audio tracks and subtitles. choose "demux". hit "start demuxing".
after its done go ahead and listen to the audio files. they should be playable on VLC or whatever audio program you use. I like to include
secondary AC3 regular english just in case and directors commentary. Remember the order of the audio tracks you want to keep.
open the freeware program suprip. Click open and navigate to the subtitle files you just demuxed. now step through to check which ones are which.
Remember the order of the subtitle files you want to keep.
Ok now open the freeware program BD Rebuilder. Youll need other programs with it you can go find those somewhere. Youre going to use it to compress
the movie to 25gb. BTW you can compress a bluray to a regular DVD size, burn it to a regular dvd, and play it in your bluray player, and it looks damn good.
Decision time:
do you want movie-only? Well choose "movie only" on bd rebuilder. check the audio streams you want to keep (remember the order?). you'll
always want to keep the tru HD audio as your primary. Check the subtitle streams you want to keep (remember the order?). Right click and choose force for the subtitles for
the nonenglish speaking parts. If you dont force subtitles they will default as off but be selectible on your bluray player with your remote.
You should be good to go. CLick start and wait. takes a while.
Do you want extras? Choose "quick play backup". this will make a bare bones menu version that includes extras. you can uncheck streams you dont want in
"edit quick play menu". Previewing streams in BD Rebuild didnt work for me so its all a crapshoot.
Including extras like coming attractions and fbi warnings isnt that big of a deal in sacrificing quality. i want quick n easy so i dont bother. maybe you can go
figure out how to preview each stream...maybe tsmuxer? bdinfo? Personally, i dont really care because compression of a 40GB movie to 25GB still looks fantastic.
Oh btw there's a quick-play threshold on how small of video files you want to be detected for quick play backup mode. You'll have to change that. Forgot where it was.
Problem:
theres some movies that mess you all up. for instance GI Joe Retaliation. Apparently it requires a setting in the main menu to get the audio file
to activate. If you go with "movie only" you aint got nothing coming through the speakers. Go with "quick play backup" and that takes care of that problem.
Then you got Cabin in the Woods. Now, you got your playlists and your streams. The playlists determine the order in which video files (streams) are played,
including extras and menu items etc. They use the playlists to determine which order the video pieces are played. Sometimes they shuffle it up to hassle pirates,
or maybe its to have all versions of the movie on one disc (directors cut, extra bloody version, rental, retail, etc). In this case go to
the slysoft (anydvHD) forums and see what other people do. Cabin in the Woods rental version uses playlist 771 for instance. you would choose "edit quick play menu"
and uncheck everything but playlist 771. Voila youre good to go. Watch out when you change modes it resets audio and subtitle choices.
Now you have the compressed bluray on your hard drive within the folders BDVM and probably CERTIFICATES. You can run another freeware program to make
the bluray file more compatible with most bluray players. its called AVCHD-patcher. Run it, choose, INDX 100, now drag the index.bdmv file from your BDMV
folder on to the little AVCHD window and boom you get a victory message. Now youre ready to burn.
Before you burn you may want to check everything is ok. use the freeware Potplayer to play the bluray file. I dont know how to test forced subs with pot player.
Use freeware imgburn. choose "write files/folders to disc". Drag BDVM and CERTIFICATES folder to imgburn. Youll want options/UDF 2.50 and burn it at 4x speed.
Some people say 6x is fine even for Melody media but i like to be careful.
Done. AFAIK this is all good and it's been working for me. I'm sure others know better than me, like for instance is AVCHD really necessary? Dunno.
theres a guide that helped me by milOtis somewhere on the internet if you want to get more info.
I dont often check in on this forum, so good luck. :))