Help With BR Rip & ATV While Keeping HD Audio Tracks

[wildcat1]

All

I have read a lot of posts here and find some coming close to what I am looking for but not fully there so thought I would ask directly.

I would like to do BR rips to use on ATV 3 through Plexconnect hitting 1 of 2 servers (1 Mac Mini and 1 NAS). With that said I love DTS HD/True HD tracks and want to keep those even though I know the ATV cannot process anything more than core.

So with that said, here are the questions:
1) What would be the best mac based workflow to achieve the rip to ensure ATV compatibility but also ensuring keeping the HD audio tracks for future ?

2) Would it be best to encode to MKV or M4v (thinking mkv) ?

3) Any suggested settings for Handbrake to get to around similar size to iTunes HD movies (5GB) but gain the quality edge and keep the HD audio ?

4) If cannot get to 5GB in question 3, what are the best/most used settings to achieve a good quality/size compromise while still retaining HD audio ?

5) Is there any benefit to using MakeMKV then Handbrake vs ripping directly through Handbrake ?

Thanks all

WC

 

[dynaflash]

1) What would be the best mac based workflow to achieve the rip to ensure ATV compatibility but also ensuring keeping the HD audio tracks for future ?

ATV3 compatibility requires mp4. Future compatiblity would require the HD audio tracks I suppose. MakeMKV for ripping the source to your hdd then HB to atv mp4 conversion.

2) Would it be best to encode to MKV or M4v (thinking mkv) ?

For the ATV 3 m4v (mp4) is your only option, Atv3 will not recognize mkv.

3) Any suggested settings for Handbrake to get to around similar size to iTunes HD movies (5GB) but gain the quality edge and keep the HD audio ?

No. I would start with the AppleTV3 preset in HB. I say no because iTunes encodes are not done from Blu Ray nor anything you likely can get your hands on (many times digital studio masters). Blu ray is already compressed. Not the source that iTunes uses. Likely the AppleTV 3 preset is about as good as you are going to get to the source (blu ray) that you can expect.

4) If cannot get to 5GB in question 3, what are the best/most used settings to achieve a good quality/size compromise while still retaining HD audio ?

Answered above. Though again realize that the ATV3 cannot decode TrueHD audio. AAC and AC3 is as good as your gonna get.

5) Is there any benefit to using MakeMKV then Handbrake vs ripping directly through Handbrake ?

Yes, HB can not decrypt copy protected blue ray, it must first be decrypted to a MKV via MakeMKV or some other utility.

 

[wildcat1]

Thanks so much for your response. Just a couple of extra comments. I am able to play MKV through Plexconnect running on the ATV so couldn't I encode into MKV using Apple TV 3 preset in HB and leaving the DTS HD MA track(s) as passthrough in addition to the AAC and AC3 therefore giving me ATV compatibility with future proofing ?

Also any comments/suggestions on changing constant quality/RF for best quality vs size ?

Trying to have 1 file that I can keep future proofing (to a certain extent) and compatibility rather than having multiple files per movie

Thanks again

ATV3 compatibility requires mp4. Future compatiblity would require the HD audio tracks I suppose. MakeMKV for ripping the source to your hdd then HB to atv mp4 conversion.

For the ATV 3 m4v (mp4) is your only option, Atv3 will not recognize mkv.


No. I would start with the AppleTV3 preset in HB. I say no because iTunes encodes are not done from Blu Ray nor anything you likely can get your hands on (many times digital studio masters). Blu ray is already compressed. Not the source that iTunes uses. Likely the AppleTV 3 preset is about as good as you are going to get to the source (blu ray) that you can expect.


Answered above. Though again realize that the ATV3 cannot decode TrueHD audio. AAC and AC3 is as good as your gonna get.

Yes, HB can not decrypt copy protected blue ray, it must first be decrypted to a MKV via MakeMKV or some other utility.

 

[jlc1978]

Trying to have 1 file that I can keep future proofing (to a certain extent) and compatibility rather than having multiple files per movie

Thanks again

Best bet for future proofing is an external drive where you save the Blu Ray MKV's so you can convert them again as needed. That also let you play the MKVs with compatible software if you want.

 

[martinm0]

Thanks so much for your response. Just a couple of extra comments. I am able to play MKV through Plexconnect running on the ATV so couldn't I encode into MKV using Apple TV 3 preset in HB and leaving the DTS HD MA track(s) as passthrough in addition to the AAC and AC3 therefore giving me ATV compatibility with future proofing ?

Also any comments/suggestions on changing constant quality/RF for best quality vs size ?

Trying to have 1 file that I can keep future proofing (to a certain extent) and compatibility rather than having multiple files per movie

Thanks again

Just to put this out there, I rip and encode all my Blu-rays to M4V files that also have DTS-HD tracks. Standalone players like VLC play these files just fine with the DTS tracks added in, but the ATV ignores these and uses the DD5.1 track anytime I run it through the actual ATV or iTunes.

As for settings, I tend to go big since, like you, I want one single file, but I prefer quality over size, so I start with the High Profile setting and add in multiple audio tracks (first is stereo, second is DD5.1, and the last is a DTS HD pass thru). Depending on the movie, I get on average around 5GB-7GB movie sizes. Movies with more digital noise (like older movies with that film grain) can come out huge (12GB-15GB at times). Think my LOTR extended movies are almost 20GBs, but they are also 4hrs+ long.

Not sure if any of this is helpful, but wanted to chime in. Oh, and use M4V over MP4. M4V supports the multiple audio tracks that the ATV uses. You can also just append any file that is MP4 to M4V.