Rip Blu-ray to single .m2ts file?

[Scott]

I asked about this in the latest beta thread, but haven't gotten a reply, so I figured I'd ask it again here...Is there any way to rip a Blu-ray to a single .m2ts file? If I use the folder option (with no compression), I get a complicated directory structure with multiple .m2ts files. If I use the disc/ISO option, I get a single .iso file.

I've tried ripping a disc using the folder option with compression (e.g., DVD9 720p), but it's failed on me both times, so I'm not sure what that would have ended up doing had it worked.

At this point, I'd be happy with an uncompressed rip (partially since it only takes an hour), but would like it to produce a single .m2ts file.

If there's no way to do that with DVDFab, is there another program I could use afterwards to merge all of the files/folders into a single .m2ts file?

[W&B]

Is your target hdd in NTFS format? if its FAT32 it will only store files no larger than 4gb mine is NTFS and my attempts with the BD compression of main movie did result in 1 .mt2s file. but not really sure if doing main movie only with no compression but I will find out later after I rip a BD I bought today to test. will post back later with results. (note: if you reformat your hdd you will lose all info on the drive so back up any files you don't want to lose)

UPDATE: just ripped a BD main movie only with no compression and ended up with one .mt2s file 17+gb in size.

[Scott]

No, I've got NTFS as well. I just tried it again and got the same result (a complicated set of directories/files with multiple .m2ts files). I'm selecting "Main Movie", choosing one audio track and no subtitles, and choosing BD50 as the output option. The resulting directories/files were under 20GB (FWIW, the movie was Ratatouille).

I'm trying it again now but this time choosing BD25 1080P as the output, though I don't see how that should make any difference, since the uncompressed movie was already under 25GB.

I looked through all of the option screens and didn't see anything about merging the files to get a single .m2ts file, so I don't know what I'm missing.

Just to confirm, by "no compression" you mean that you're selecting BD50 as the output, correct?

[W&B]

Just to confirm, by "no compression" you mean that you're selecting BD50 as the output, correct?

correct BD50 was the output I selected also, I think I know what it is. You're using the included VSO burn engine within Fab? d/l IMGBurn and please follow Troy512's video on how to set it up to work with Fab and then I have just a couple other settings to change within IMGBurn also.

[Scott]

Ah, thanks. I'll give that a try.

[W&B]

cool, post back with results and if still no joy I'll go through every setting I have within imgburn with you because I promise I am ending up with 1 .mt2s file lol

[Scott]

OK, I discovered that I already had ImgBurn installed, but DVDFab wasn't using it. Since it was an older version I upgraded to the latest version, then followed your instructions. But it's still created a complicated directory/file structure with multiple .m2ts files. So I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

[touchdown_1]

I asked about this in the latest beta thread, but haven't gotten a reply, so I figured I'd ask it again here...Is there any way to rip a Blu-ray to a single .m2ts file? If I use the folder option (with no compression), I get a complicated directory structure with multiple .m2ts files. If I use the disc/ISO option, I get a single .iso file.

I've tried ripping a disc using the folder option with compression (e.g., DVD9 720p), but it's failed on me both times, so I'm not sure what that would have ended up doing had it worked.

At this point, I'd be happy with an uncompressed rip (partially since it only takes an hour), but would like it to produce a single .m2ts file.

If there's no way to do that with DVDFab, is there another program I could use afterwards to merge all of the files/folders into a single .m2ts file?

If I am understanding you correctly, TsMuxer should be able to do that for you.

[GregiBoy]

I would expect a complicated structure. Please read this.

http://www.videohelp.com/hd

[W&B]

Just to be clear I am still ending up with multiple folders but in main movie mode, in the stream folder i end up with one .m2ts file. what size files are yours? 4gb or less? Not doubting you but double check your Target drive that you select within Fab and make sure its formatted to NTFS. I am completely stumped why I can compress a 35+gb .m2ts to a single file larger than 4gb and everyone else can't, not really sure if it even has anything to do with imgburn (actually I don't) anybody else got any ideas? only settings within Fab that even come close to splitting up files is under the dvd to dvd tab in settings but that shouldn't have anything to do with Blu-ray?

Edit: these are my personal settings for ImgBurn but still not sure if ripping Blu-ray to HDD other than ISO as the target has anything to do with ImgBurn. like I said stumped here

[Scott]

I would expect a complicated structure. Please read this.

http://www.videohelp.com/hd

OK, but my intent is not really to burn discs, but simply to rip my movies to a format which I can store on my hard drive and stream to something. Traditionally, I've ripped standard-def DVDs to .ISO files to stream to my classic XBox's running XBMC. I will take a look at TsMuxer, but as far as DVDFab is concerned, I'm guessing that DVDFab will eventually support ripping to a single file via the Blu-ray to Mobile option.

[Scott]

what size files are yours? 4gb or less? Not doubting you but double check your Target drive that you select within Fab and make sure its formatted to NTFS.

My drive is definitely NTFS. For the past year I've ripped standard-def DVDs to a single .ISO file onto this drive, with several movies exceeding 4GB's. I'm pretty sure that some of the multiple .m2ts files were over 4GB as well, but I can't verify that right now because I deleted them. My most recent attempt (using the newest beta) was to try out the compression (DVD9 720P) again, because that didn't work for me previously. This time the compression worked (well, it says it succeeded but I haven't tested out playing the movie yet), but it still produced multiple .m2ts files. I will take a look at your settings.txt file, though. Thanks.

BTW, do you have things in your other directories, or are they all empty (except for the STREAM directory with a single .m2ts file)? I'm new to Blu-ray ripping, but as I mentioned in my last post, my ultimate goal/desire is to rip to one, and only one, file to simplify storing these things on my hard drive.

Do movies in the .m2ts format always require these "extra" files (e.g., certificate)? If so, perhaps my goal should be to convert these to a different container? Or perhaps I should just learn to live with having my movies be folders/subfolders instead of a single file? I guess I really shouldn't care so much about it being a file vs a folder, should I?

Sorry for all of the rhetorical questions.

[W&B]

Yeah i have other things in the directories within some folders and others are empty but i deleted them and can't say for sure what they was or which folders they were in. I tested the single file I ripped with and without compression with PowerDVD 8 selecting "open media files" and navigating to the stream folder, works good for me. I think the other folder/files is for the burning process to Blank BD disc but I could be wrong, seems I am having lots of "blonde" moments here lately. something probably so simple its not funny, I'm going to test this new beta out tonight just to make sure I'm not imagining things, sorry I wasn't more help.

Edit: maybe its how i'm doing the original rip. My process is to select .ISO as the target but i also have Fab set to not delete the Temp folder when finished. thats where i get my single .m2ts file within the titleBD\BDMV\STREAM folder? i thought i ripped straight to folder before also. just ripped Terminator 2 to a .ISO and had the single file in the temp folder and going to test compression to BD9 750p could be your same process, i'm just grasping here lol

[Scott]

I downloaded TsMuxer but that app is certainly not noob-friendly. It looks like it wants to make me downconvert my audio, too, which I don't want to do. I guess I need to read up more on the purpose/use of this app.

Meanwhile...I installed MPC Home Cinema and tested playing my files. Video looked swell and the audio was working fine as well, but it played my chapters out of sequence, which got me to worrying that DVDFab had chosen the wrong movie track to rip. I later discovered that if I chose "Play DVD" (or something like that) from the menu, that it then seemed to get the chapter sequence info correctly.

Right now I'm re-ripping Ratatouille with no compression (that should take about an hour) and will later re-rip it at DVD9 1080p so as to take an up-close look at the PQ on my computer monitor. FWIW, my compressed DVD9 720P rip took a bit under 5 hours, which is better than I feared, since I turned off GPU acceleration and I'm working with a dual-core Athlon (about 2GHz, I think) w/2GB of RAM. If they get GPU acceleration working, I'm hoping that I can get even better speeds, but, hey, I could kick off a movie per night to rip/compress and live with this.

[touchdown_1]

I downloaded TsMuxer but that app is certainly not noob-friendly. It looks like it wants to make me downconvert my audio, too, which I don't want to do. I guess I need to read up more on the purpose/use of this app.

Meanwhile...I installed MPC Home Cinema and tested playing my files. Video looked swell and the audio was working fine as well, but it played my chapters out of sequence, which got me to worrying that DVDFab had chosen the wrong movie track to rip. I later discovered that if I chose "Play DVD" (or something like that) from the menu, that it then seemed to get the chapter sequence info correctly.

Right now I'm re-ripping Ratatouille with no compression (that should take about an hour) and will later re-rip it at DVD9 1080p so as to take an up-close look at the PQ on my computer monitor. FWIW, my compressed DVD9 720P rip took a bit under 5 hours, which is better than I feared, since I turned off GPU acceleration and I'm working with a dual-core Athlon (about 2GHz, I think) w/2GB of RAM. If they get GPU acceleration working, I'm hoping that I can get even better speeds, but, hey, I could kick off a movie per night to rip/compress and live with this.

Scott muxer is uesr friendly once you have played with it a few times,to use it go to the folder where your BD file is, open the folder, then drill down to the BDMV file open that, then drill down to stream open the stream file and look for the largest file there, it will be eight figures, take note of the file number.
Now open muxer click on the add button then import that one file, remove every thing but the H.256 and the AC3 files, half way down check the Blu-ray button, open the browse select where you want the muxed file to reside, click the start muxing button.
Done, you now have one file audio and video.