When I rip DVD or BD into MKV files from the program ByteCopy the TV Live Streamer plays the movies just fine. But when I try to use HandBrake to create MKV files the TV Live Sreamer gives me an error saything that it can not play the selected format. Any ideas? Thanks.
Paste the text ouput of Mediainfo on these files here.
From WD support, we can easily find that WD TV compatible media file types include WMV9, AVI (MPEG1/2/4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), MOV (MPEG4, H.264), M2TS, TP, TS, MOV/MP4 (MPEG4, h.264), DVR-MS, VOB (unprotected or unencrypted). MKV is on the format list, but what we need to note is that MKV is a container file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture, or subtitle tracks in one file. Some DTS encoded MKV files can’t be supported by WD TV player. Maybe it is a codec issue.
My WD TV Live box list MKV as a supported file type.
Here’s one of the titles.
garrett@mint-desktop /media/garrett/Files/DVD_Rips $ mediainfo Something's\ Gotta\ Give.mkv
General
Unique ID : 322464241340449590798287275925316121223 (0xF2985A9534287146FB8B696B38753287)
Complete name : Something’s Gotta Give.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 23.6 GiB
Duration : 2h 8mn
Overall bit rate : 26.4 Mbps
Writing application : HandBrake rev5474
Writing library : libmkv 0.6.5.1
TITLE : Something’s Gotta Give_HB
ARTIST : Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton
Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High 4:4:4 Predictive@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 2h 8mn
Bit rate : 25.7 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 464 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Original display aspect ratio : 1.85:1
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.565
Stream size : 23.0 GiB (97%)
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2389 956c8d8
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=2 / psy=0 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=1 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc=cqp / mbtree=0 / qp=0
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.601
Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Format profile : Dolby Digital
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 2h 8mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 160 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 147 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Menu
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 1
00:02:18.104 : Chapter 2
00:05:52.719 : Chapter 3
00:08:46.225 : Chapter 4
00:10:51.851 : Chapter 5
00:17:27.880 : Chapter 6
00:19:57.396 : Chapter 7
00:22:32.050 : Chapter 8
00:26:33.758 : Chapter 9
00:28:21.700 : Chapter 10
00:30:49.814 : Chapter 11
00:33:10.788 : Chapter 12
00:35:42.974 : Chapter 13
00:38:37.481 : Chapter 14
00:44:19.623 : Chapter 15
00:49:09.780 : Chapter 16
00:57:55.338 : Chapter 17
01:02:47.597 : Chapter 18
01:05:16.646 : Chapter 19
01:19:51.419 : Chapter 20
01:22:06.421 : Chapter 21
01:29:34.068 : Chapter 22
01:35:25.519 : Chapter 23
01:39:55.656 : Chapter 24
01:46:28.915 : Chapter 25
01:49:42.108 : Chapter 26
01:55:13.573 : Chapter 27
01:59:16.649 : Chapter 28
garrett85 wrote:
Format profile : High 4:4:4 Predictive@L4.0
There’s the problem… Use a supported profile.
I’ve never once seen a HandBrake’d blu-ray take 24 GB!! What RF Factor are you choosing??!
It’s not a blue-ray, it’s just a DVD. I’m setting the RF factor to 0 for lossless quality. What do you mean a supported profile? When I’m on my window$ machine I use ByteCopy to rip my DVDs into lossless mkv files and they are usually from 4-8 GB in size, much smaller than the lossles HandBrake equivelent.
garrett85 wrote:
It’s not a blue-ray, it’s just a DVD. I’m setting the RF factor to 0 for lossless quality.
Holy cow, dude… There’s no such thing as lossless when it comes to video.
All DVDs and BDs are lossy to begin with. You can’t re-create something lossless from something lossy.
You’ve taken a file that started probably around 6 gigs (average for a DVD movie) and made it 4 times the size. :laughing:
You should be using an RF nearer to 20 than 0…
garrett85 wrote:
What do you mean a supported profile? When I’m on my window$ machine I use ByteCopy to rip my DVDs into lossless mkv files and they are usually from 4-8 GB in size, much smaller than the lossles HandBrake equivelent.
That’s because Byte-copy just takes what’s already encoded on the DVD MPEG stream (MPEG-2 video) and shoves it into an MKV container.
The point of using Handbrake is to make files SMALLER, not BIGGER. :smileyvery-happy:
My goal is to get keep the quality of my video as close to source as possible. I would also like to make sure I capture all the languages and subtites as well. I certainly don’t want to make the file larger than it should be but I have no idea what RF setting I need to use to keep the file as close to source as possible.
If you’re wanting to keep source fidelity, don’t use Handbrake at all. No matter what settings you use, it’s ALWAYS going to re-encode the video.
garrett85 wrote:
I certainly don’t want to make the file larger than it should be but I have no idea what RF setting I need to use to keep the file as close to source as possible.
How about testing some settings (on a 1 minute clip), starting with Tony’s suggestion, to see what quality suits you fine on your equipment?
I’ve been using ByteCopy mostly because the company advertises lossless ripps. Is that a good choice? When I use the word lossless I assumed taht we were talking about source fideltiy but I we’ve been talking about two different things. What do you refer to as lossless?
When ripping music I always stay away from mp3 files because they are highly compressed and much of the quality is sacraficed and instead I go with flac files. I would use wav files but they’re bad about not having the meta data.
There are a few lossless video codecs. But note that very few hardware decoders (like the WD) support ANY of them.
The point here is that what’s on the DVD (MPEG-2 video) or BD (MPEG Video, h.264 or AVC, or VC-1) is already heavily compressed using lossy codecs.
Once compressed with a lossy codec, the “loss” can NEVER be restored. So your decision to use an RF of 0 on Handbrake is simply decompressing and decoding the lossy video (still lossy when decompressed) and not recompressing it.
BD video, for example, is compressed to 3-5% of its original size.
An uncompressed bluray takes about 7-8GB per MINUTE of video. So a 2-hour movie would be about 1 TB and that 1 TB file would STILL be missing information from the original encode and can NEVER be recovered.
BD h.264 compressed video is about 30 GB per 2 hours, depending on compression parameters used.
In order to have a lossless BD, you’d have to have access to the original digital master and compress it (or not) using a lossless codec.
One example of a lossless video codec is YULS. And using YULS on a BD would still yield a file about 350GB in size.
When I say I want it as close to the source as possible I mean the source as in the disk (DVD or BD) not the original copy.
garrett85 wrote:
When I say I want it as close to the source as possible I mean the source as in the disk (DVD or BD) not the original copy.
Then just copy the files – don’t process them at all.
I have found navigating the internals of DVDs and BDs a little complicated in the past, I’ll give it another try.
So is ByteCopy not giving me what I want? The dev company PavTube boast lossess rips into the mkv format.
garrett85 wrote:
I have found navigating the internals of DVDs and BDs a little complicated in the past, I’ll give it another try.
So is ByteCopy not giving me what I want? The dev company PavTube boast lossess rips into the mkv format.
Yes, ByteCopy is giving you what your want.
I’d still go with DVD Shrink for DVDs (re-author → main title → ISO) or MakeMKV for BDs.
What did you mean by “(re-author → main title → ISO)”?
So why DVD Shrink and MakeMKV instead of ByteCopy?
One last thing. Navigating my BD I found a directory with files labeled 00000.m2ts, 00002.m2ts, etc… that seemed to be of the correct size for a blu ray video file but I’ve never heard of that format not would my computer play the files. Otherewise I might have just copied the file over as you had previously suggested.
Obviously because Bytecopy doesn’t do it right, no? DVD Shrink is free and you can simply reauthor the main movie of the DVD to an ISO without any compression and thus with identical quality that plays just fine on the WDTV.
If you’ve never heard of the standard container format for Blurays, why not check Wikipedia for m2ts? VLC will play those just fine though not straight from disc since these files are encrypted and need to be ripped first (unless you have AnyDVD or something running in the background).
