Software to rip Blu-Rays without lossy conversion?

[ToTo Man]

I would like to rip my growing collection of Blu-Ray movies and concerts to my Mac for easy access, retaining the highest level of picture and audio quality possible.

Quality is of number one importance to me, and so I avoid lossy forms of conversion wherever possible. I like to keep my media in their original format. I have ripped my DVD collection using RipIt, which places the .VOB files into a VIDEO_TS folder and then packages this into a .dvdmedia image which is natively playable in the OSX DVD Player app. As far as I am aware, RipIt produces a 100% bit-perfect rip of the original disc.

It appears that I am in the minority, as most people seem to use Handbrake to rip and convert their DVDs into a format compatible for playback in iTunes. I am not an expert so please correct me if I am wrong, but using Handbrake to rip/convert involves lossy compression which reduces both the video and audio quality of the original media, which in my circumstances is unacceptable.

I'd therefore like to know if there is any software available for the Mac that can rip a Blu-Ray disc without applying lossy compression to the video and audio, like RipIt can for DVDs?

PS - I will be viewing the ripped content exclusively on the same computer that I used to rip it, therefore I do not require conversion to formats suitable for streaming to mobile devices or Apple TVs.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

MakeMKV can help you, but also know, that DVDs and BluRays already use lossy compression like MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, thus further compression, with the right settings, will yield smaller files while retaining the same video and audio quality.

How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X​

 

[E.Lizardo]

I would like to rip my growing collection of Blu-Ray movies and concerts to my Mac for easy access, retaining the highest level of picture and audio quality possible.

Quality is of number one importance to me, and so I avoid lossy forms of conversion wherever possible. I like to keep my media in their original format. I have ripped my DVD collection using RipIt, which places the .VOB files into a VIDEO_TS folder and then packages this into a .dvdmedia image which is natively playable in the OSX DVD Player app. As far as I am aware, RipIt produces a 100% bit-perfect rip of the original disc.

It appears that I am in the minority, as most people seem to use Handbrake to rip and convert their DVDs into a format compatible for playback in iTunes. I am not an expert so please correct me if I am wrong, but using Handbrake to rip/convert involves lossy compression which reduces both the video and audio quality of the original media, which in my circumstances is unacceptable.

I'd therefore like to know if there is any software available for the Mac that can rip a Blu-Ray disc without applying lossy compression to the video and audio, like RipIt can for DVDs?

PS - I will be viewing the ripped content exclusively on the same computer that I used to rip it, therefore I do not require conversion to formats suitable for streaming to mobile devices or Apple TVs.

Make MKV and a huge stack of hard drives.

 

[ToTo Man]

Seems like Make MKV will do the job then .
Is there a list of compatible external blu-ray drives / writers or will any external drive work?

 

[phrehdd]

MakeMKV can help you, but also know, that DVDs and BluRays already use lossy compression like MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, thus further compression, with the right settings, will yield smaller files while retaining the same video and audio quality.

How-To: Automating DVD & Blu-Ray (Backup, Encoding & Tagging) for Mac OS X​

Not to be disrespectful but compressing an already compressed file that starts out lossy will absolutely NOT retain the same video quality when it comes to blu-ray. Given that audio and video are "streams" one might be able to keep the audio but certainly will lose something on the video end. This is not a subjective but a fact. On the subjective side, many may not see the degradation that occurs given their particular form of outputting the files.

MakeMKV is a very useful tool. It would be a good place to start. One thing to be noted, OSX does not support HD audio (DTS-Master as an example). A Mac can properly pass through HD audio if another OS is used such as Linux or an MS OS. The limitation on HD audio is something Apple is aware of and elects not to support it. This is similar to PS3 not playing VC-1 m2ts files.

 

[ToTo Man]

Not to be disrespectful but compressing an already compressed file that starts out lossy will absolutely NOT retain the same video quality when it comes to blu-ray. Given that audio and video are "streams" one might be able to keep the audio but certainly will lose something on the video end. This is not a subjective but a fact. On the subjective side, many may not see the degradation that occurs given their particular form of outputting the files.

MakeMKV is a very useful tool. It would be a good place to start. One thing to be noted, OSX does not support HD audio (DTS-Master as an example). A Mac can properly pass through HD audio if another OS is used such as Linux or an MS OS. The limitation on HD audio is something Apple is aware of and elects not to support it. This is similar to PS3 not playing VC-1 m2ts files.

Thanks, this is good to know.

 

[Michael CM1]

Seems like Make MKV will do the job then .
Is there a list of compatible external blu-ray drives / writers or will any external drive work?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TVAU0E/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the drive I bought a few weeks ago. Nothing flashy but it seems to work perfectly. Some of the more expensive ones are faster and add BD writing, but it sounds like you just need to rip to a hard drive.

I use HandBrake to convert mine down to a manageable file size (about 1-2GB per hour of video), so can't help you on what will get you the least lossy conversion. You're going to run up a huge hard drive bill if you want the exact level of BD quality since those .mkv files are about 7-8GB per hour with the two audio tracks.

 

[ToTo Man]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TVAU0E/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the drive I bought a few weeks ago. Nothing flashy but it seems to work perfectly. Some of the more expensive ones are faster and add BD writing, but it sounds like you just need to rip to a hard drive.

I use HandBrake to convert mine down to a manageable file size (about 1-2GB per hour of video), so can't help you on what will get you the least lossy conversion. You're going to run up a huge hard drive bill if you want the exact level of BD quality since those .mkv files are about 7-8GB per hour with the two audio tracks.

Thanks, I should have mentioned that I'm in the UK, I'll check out Amazon's UK site to see if they have similar models.

I suppose I'd be pushing my luck to hope that there is an external drive in the <£60 price bracket with silver finish instead of black?

 

[Michael CM1]

Thanks, I should have mentioned that I'm in the UK, I'll check out Amazon's UK site to see if they have similar models.

I suppose I'd be pushing my luck to hope that there is an external drive in the <£60 price bracket with silver finish instead of black?

I just did a conversion on pounds (British Pound Sterling, is that right?) to dollars and saw that 60 pounds is $90. I paid $40 for mine. I know I saw white ones available for about the same price. To get silver, you might be pushing it. I think most of what I saw was black and white.

 

[bruce9876]

You can also try using Magic Mac Blu-ray Ripper to rip the Blu-rays to your hard drive, either in the original format or other popular ones.

 

[blanka]

Best thing is to use MKV and include only the DTS-HD-MA sound track.
It plays fine in XBMC or VLC as those programs pass-through the DTS-core over optical. But the container keeps all the audio data in maximum quality and the original unaltered video stream!

In my experience, keeping BluRays with MakeMKV is not too bad on the hard drive. Most movies with one HD audio stream are just 10-15GB, not much worse than recoded HD downloads. Maybe 3D films go to the full BR capacity, but I never buy 3D films so no idea.

Oh, and for drive: just grab a no-name 20 bucks USB powered one of Ebay. They work fine.

 

[Pyromonkey83]

Best thing is to use MKV and include only the DTS-HD-MA sound track.
It plays fine in XBMC or VLC as those programs pass-through the DTS-core over optical. But the container keeps all the audio data in maximum quality and the original unaltered video stream!

In my experience, keeping BluRays with MakeMKV is not too bad on the hard drive. Most movies with one HD audio stream are just 10-15GB, not much worse than recoded HD downloads. Maybe 3D films go to the full BR capacity, but I never buy 3D films so no idea.

Oh, and for drive: just grab a no-name 20 bucks USB powered one of Ebay. They work fine.

This.

Although in my experience most movies that I have ripped in 100% Blu Ray glory have been closer to 20-25 GB for the full movie. The Avengers, Dark Knight Trilogy, and Star Wars Series were all well over 25 GB, not even including special features.