Another Eac3to Gui Plus
. Note: the below requires the use of Windows so if that is not an option for you, you can save time and stop reading now There are a few threads on here about converting blu ray disks into an ATV2 compatible format but they are a little fragmented. Some dont address the subtitles issues while others dont address the ability to create a file that can play across ATV, iPad, etc. Also, I find some instructions to be more difficult than they need to be. I thought i would outline my process which has worked very very well for me on my 124 BRs and is about as easy as it gets as far as I have found. First a few notes. 1) This process involves using PC-only software.
Another EAC3to GUI. AEAC is an easy to use front end that uses many of the core tools available (such as eac3to, MKVToolnix, etc) to create an mkv from either a. Free Download Another EAC3toGUI-Plus 0.9.1.18 - Comprehensive GUI for creating MKV files from Blu-ray or HD DVD movies, featuring advanced options a. Thanks Mike This is exactly what i am looking for but have a question I tried Avatar today and everything seem to go the way it should but the forced subtitles don't.
For those with a PC, its easy. For Mac users, you will need to either have a VM install (which I have found most people on this forum have) or run your Mac in boot camp when you are doing this process. 2) My method assumes you do not want subtitles unless they are forced as in Avatar, District9, etc.
I have to imagine this is the case with a majority of people. Software Used: 1) AnyDVD HD PC-only - Software for ripping the Blu Rays unprotected (that you own of course) -$85/w trial (note, I have not used it but DVDfab Key supposedly does the same thing and its free) 2) Another EAC3to GUI Plus PC-only - a EAC3 front-end that does it all -Free - (a) To use Another EAC3to GUI Plus, you will also need to download and install the following (Dont worry, once installed you will never have to open them or worry about them): Haali Media Splitter - Eac3to - MKVtoolnix (MKVmerge) - BDSup2Sub - Java - Latest version. 3) Handbrake PC or Mac - Everyone should be very familiar. Use the lateste stable nightly build.Free Process: 1) Download and install all the software above 2) Load your Blu Ray into your drive (I have a Plextor B320SA) - AnyDVD will automatically read your disk and remove the copy protection (which i assume of course is only done to your owned/purchased content) 3) Open Another EAC3to GUI Plus. When you set it up for the first time, it will ask for the location of “eac3to.exe”, “BDSub2Sub.jar” & “mkvmerge.exe”. Browse to the location of these applications. Also in the Options section, since I am just concerned about ATV, choose 'Core Only' as this will extract the core audio track only.
Also make sure to uncheck 'Add non-forced captions'. In the advanced options, make sure a work files location is chosen and if possible, make it a different drive than the output folder. This dramatically increases re-mux times. Once done click ok and the rest of the MKV creation process is straight forward and quick. See the guide provided in the link above for Another Eac3to GUI Plus.Note: I prefer this option to Clown BD or other methods of extracting the different BR components separately or even MakeMKV because Another EAC3to GUI Plus does all the steps for you automatically to convert from BR disk to MKV and also is able to find and extract the forced subtitles automatically for burning in (discussed later) in Handbrake. It is also very quick and converting from MKV to MP4/MV4 in Handbrake also enables you to keep chapters easily.
4) Open the latest nightly build of handbrake (important you use a nightly for DTS to AC3 conversion) and open your recently created MKV. 5) Handbrake settings have been discussed ALOT in these threads so i will just list mine but point out the important items.
Picture Tab: High profile preset. Container is MP4. Width set to 1280. Video Filters: All Off Video: Use deafults Audio: So here i create 2 audio tracks.
A 5.1 track for the ATV and a stereo track for the ipad/other devices. Source should be your DTS or Dolby 5.1 track in the MKV.
There will be only one. For the first track, Audio codec will either be AC3 Passthrough (for dolby 5.1 tracks that were part of Core track in TrueHD Blu Ray) or AC3 ffmpeg to convert the DTS to AC3.
Mixdown should be Discrete 6.1. The samplerate and bitrates should fill in automatically but at the least bitrate should be 640. Now add another track and highlight it. This one should have the same source. Audio codec should be AAC (faac). Mixdown can be Dolby PL II.
Bitrate at 320. Subtitles: If there was a forced track, under track you will see one subtitle track listed (ie 1 English Vobsub). If there wasn't, likely no forced subtitle track present (havent encountered a case yet where this was wrong). Now, to avoid any issues with force flags etc, i 'burn in' the subs. Thus make sure to check, Default, Burned In, and Forced Only.
Then click add. Chapters: You will see they are all there. Advanced: Leave on Defaults 5) Click Start or add as many to the Queue as you want and then fire it up. This process results in a nice, high quality Mv4 file that plays great on my ATV2 while also able to play nicely on my iPad. While the above seems like a lot of text and steps, majority of it is just first time set up.
Again, what I like most about this setup is that even though something like MakeMKV may be easier for steps 1-3, in reality its not since once AnyDVD is installed it runs on every disk installed automatically so you are then down to MakeMKV setup vs Another EAC3to GUI Plus, and the latter is more flexible for me because of its ability to pull the forced subtitles more easily. My only downside personally is I am working with a 2.8 C2D so the MKV process takes 20-45 mins and then Handbrake can take 4-10 hours depending on the file. But I am slowly converting my Blu Rays and am looking to upgrade to an i7-860 in the next few days. I hope this helps and if people would like, Id be happy to throw in screen shots with settings if it would help. OP, Thank you sooo much!
I have also been using a bunch of different software and frankly was having trouble finding the best solution. This worked perfectly and i love Another EAC3to GUI Plus. Never heard of it before but its a nasty little piece of software. I tried this process on 4 movies last night and it worked great.
I did as you said running the first three steps in my VM and then using handbrake on my mac for the encode. I am lucky as I have a quad core I7 imac.
The MKV process takes 15 mins and my encodes takes anywhere from 90 mins to 2 hours. Thanks again and I think added screenshots would be helpful. There were a few options I was unsure about. Interesting approach. I have been using a few different tools on the mac with good success but i find it frustrating dealing with forced subtitles and its more of a process. If Additional EAC3to GUI really is that simple (i looked at the link to the guide and it does indeed look very nice) I might consider throwing a VM on my imac in Virtualbox to do this.
Funny enough, I have an Anydvd HD license from way back but went i switched to a mac i stopped using it. Anyone else have experience with Additional Eac3to GUI Plus? Does it work well? I do agree with you that there are a bunch of threads on this topic but they are all somewhat imperfect. If this really works as you say, then it will be much appreciated as this does seem quite simple.
'My easy process to convert Blu Rays for ATV2 (&iPad) FOR THE MAC!!!!!' Download MakeMKV for Mac OS X. Plug in USB BluRay player of any kind, including read only. Use MakeMKV to rip the main the title movie to your hard drive. Launch the latest nightly version of Handbrake 0.9.4 (make sure you have VLC installed first.) 5. Select your.mkv file created in step 3. Use the 'High Profile' Preset, select framerate to 29.97 NTSC, click the Peak Frame Rate box, click the Large file checkbox, select the RF value to anywhere 20-23 (lower is better but a bigger file), in the Audio tab add a second audio line of AC Passthrough or AC3 if you plug your ATV2 into a surround system, click the picture setting menu and set Anamorphic to NONE and set width to 1280 with the height autoscaling.
Files will be 1 to 4 GB and be STUNNING in 720p. 'My easy process to convert Blu Rays for ATV2 (&iPad) FOR THE MAC!!!!!' Download MakeMKV for Mac OS X. Plug in USB BluRay player of any kind, including read only. Use MakeMKV to rip the main the title movie to your hard drive.
Launch the latest nightly version of Handbrake 0.9.4 (make sure you have VLC installed first.) 5. Select your.mkv file created in step 3.
Eac3to Gui
Use the 'High Profile' Preset, select framerate to 29.97 NTSC, click the Peak Frame Rate box, click the Large file checkbox, select the RF value to anywhere 20-23 (lower is better but a bigger file), in the Audio tab add a second audio line of AC Passthrough or AC3 if you plug your ATV2 into a surround system, click the picture setting menu and set Anamorphic to NONE and set width to 1280 with the height autoscaling. Files will be 1 to 4 GB and be STUNNING in 720p. Click to expand.Not helpful for those movies with forced subtitles which i think was the OP's point. There are plenty of threads discussing MakeMKV as it is indeed an easy rip and MKV maker for the mac but its limited. The biggest problem is that i do not know all the movies that have forced subs (and there are alot) so its not like i can just do those movies in a different way. I just dont think there is an easy, automated way on the Mac yet to do what the OP is suggesting and have the comfort that you will not be in the middle of your movie and realize there are no subs - or that you pulled the wrong subtitle track for forced. For those Mac only users who are unwilling or cant install windows, i think makemkv is the best, albeit somewhat limited option, but for those mac users with a bootcamp or VM windows install, i am reallly liking the OPs method.
Have been encoding all day. Click to expand.Thought about it as I didnt want to waste anyones time but truth be told i have been reading hundreds of threads about encoding blu rays for ATV2 and more users than not have some sort of windows install. Its not like you need a windows machine, we are talking about running windows on a mac machine which apple provides you the ability to do natively in their OS with bootcamp (and of course which you can also do for free using Virtualbox). Thats why i prefaced the entire read with the note about it using windows. There are going to be a bunch of people for whom this is helpful and then there will be those who refuse to ever touch windows just because. Is what it is.
Id run two tests. The easier one, in a way, is right click on Another EAC3to GUI and click properties. Choose the Compatibility tab and on the bottom, check the box under Privilege Level that says Run this program as an administrator. You may need to restart windows for it to take affect but try and reopen the program. If it works, thats great but you may run into issues with all the other programs in the process.
Thus, id advise you to go into each one and set the Privilege level like you did for Another EAC32 GUI. If the above still causes issues, then go into the UAC settings and turn it off (or all the way down).
Restart computer and then try to open Another EAC3to GUI. If that works, then its obviously a privilege issue and just would need to figure out why you are having it even when you manually set it to allow. Let me know results.
Personally, I keep UAC off (lowest setting) as especially for this kind of stuff the permissions can be a nightmare. Just rely on good firewall and detection software. That did it, thank you.
I ran it on iron man 2 to try it out and it went fine but eventually got an error. This is what the log looked like. It worked this time, thank you very much, it is much more streamlined than my process. A couple of observations I will have to play around with.
I used the same settings I use in my other process (apple tv setting, change to custom anamorphic to maximize resolution, constant quality 21, no other changes, it automatically creates two audio tracks, aac and ac3 passthrough). When I play the resulting file in vlc it has bars on top and bottom, auto cropping didn't work in handbrake, in my other workflow it does eliminate them. On the atv2 it does not play dd sound, it is prologic. The files i rip in my other workflow play as dd.
Did you experience either of these issues using this process? Wonder if I just need to tweek some settings or if this is expected. Thanks again for sharing, sorry for all the basic questions, Peter. It worked this time, thank you very much, it is much more streamlined than my process. A couple of observations I will have to play around with.
I used the same settings I use in my other process (apple tv setting, change to custom anamorphic to maximize resolution, constant quality 21, no other changes, it automatically creates two audio tracks, aac and ac3 passthrough). When I play the resulting file in vlc it has bars on top and bottom, auto cropping didn't work in handbrake, in my other workflow it does eliminate them. On the atv2 it does not play dd sound, it is prologic. The files i rip in my other workflow play as dd. Did you experience either of these issues using this process?
Wonder if I just need to tweek some settings or if this is expected. Thanks again for sharing, sorry for all the basic questions, Peter. Click to expand.Hey Peter A couple of observations.
In handbrake, assuming you are using a nightly build?, does the file you are trying to convert contain a DTS or TrueHD track? In your other process, you may have been (i think you said you were using ClownBD?) choosing the option to convert the audio to AC3 640 so when you feed it to handbrake, AC3 passthrough would be the correct option. This would be true of DTS or TrueHD audio tracks. However, in Another EAC3to GUI it creates an MKV with both the High Def original track and core track and does not do the AC3 conversion. Thus, when you feed this MKV into Handbrake, for DTS tracks, you must choose AC3 (ffmpeg) to mux the DTS to AC3. For TrueHD tracks, you can continue to choose AC3 passthrough.
The AAC track should be fine on either. As for the cropping, not sure what the issue is.
What movie did this happen to you on? Chances are i might have it and can test myself. Hey Peter A couple of observations. In handbrake, assuming you are using a nightly build?, does the file you are trying to convert contain a DTS or TrueHD track? In your other process, you may have been (i think you said you were using ClownBD?) choosing the option to convert the audio to AC3 640 so when you feed it to handbrake, AC3 passthrough would be the correct option. This would be true of DTS or TrueHD audio tracks. However, in Another EAC3to GUI it creates an MKV with both the High Def original track and core track and does not do the AC3 conversion.
Thus, when you feed this MKV into Handbrake, for DTS tracks, you must choose AC3 (ffmpeg) to mux the DTS to AC3. For TrueHD tracks, you can continue to choose AC3 passthrough.
The AAC track should be fine on either. As for the cropping, not sure what the issue is. What movie did this happen to you on? Chances are i might have it and can test myself. Click to expand.Peter, Choosing Core is correct but that doesnt convert the DTS to AC3.
It simply pulls the 5.1 DTS track vs pulling the High Def DTS track. You still need to convert it in Handbrake. I am sure that is the issue.
When you return, take the MKV you made of Iron Man 2 and open it in handbrake. Under Audio, the source will likely say 5.1 DTS. Now, for the first audio track, if you are using Windows, you need to choose AC3 (ffmpeg) and NOT AC3 (passthrough).
If using Handbrake on a Mac, choose the options called simply AC3 (again not AC3 (passthrough). For both, make sure you also choose 6.1 discrete. The second track should still be AAC for both. Let me know if it solves your issue.