Advice for beginner

[bobt47]

Hello
Total newbie to all this, but am very much interested in backing up my Bluray discs, Are there any guides to help eliminate any possibilies of wasting expensive discs.
This is what i have picked up so far:
Use a quality branded writer
Use quality branded discs
Burn at half the rated speed of the discs
Replace VSO engine with Imgburn
Set up UDF2.5 (not sure what that is)
Use a virtual drive to test the burn ( not sure what that is either)
Am I right in thinking that any backups will only play in the supplied bluray player software ie cyberlink PowerDVD in my case, or would the discs play in a stand alone bluray player ?
I would appreciate any tips or advice so I dont end up with dozens of coasters as in the early days of DVd burning.
thank you in advance
bobt47

[Kannkor]

Not sure how new you are...
But you must have a Blu-ray burner (as opposed to a standard DVD burner).
Good discs never hurt.
Burn at half the speed.. eh.. I can't tell the difference from full speed to half speed... having said that, I generally do burn at half the speed.
Definitely ImgBurn! +++++
UDF2.5 - Never heard of it.. So it's either default or not "needed".
Use a virtual drive to test - I personally have never done it.. but I won't get my panties in a knot if I waste a $2 disc... DVD Fab offers a nice (and free) ISO mounter that you can use to mount, then use something like PowerDVD to test (I bet VLC would work too).
Once backed up to disc, they should play in most blu-ray players.
I have successfully played all my Blu-rays in my PC blu-ray burner, my PS3, and a standalone Blu-ray burner from LG. I have actually not found a Blu-ray device that could not read the burnt disc (I'm sure there are some).

As for advice... As many of the walkthroughs say.
Rip FULL DISC blu-ray to an ISO to your HD.
Then burn from the ISO to the blu-ray (I personally do Main Movie only).

[crackinhedz]

UDF 2.5 is the file system for the Bluray format, UDF 2.6 is for HD-DVD etc.

Blu-ray specifies the use of UDF 2.5 as a convergent friendly format for both PC and CE environments to enable seamless interchange between PC Blu-ray drives and CE Blu-ray recorders.

[crackinhedz]

How to Burn BD-R/RE with ImgBurn

Burn AVCHD disc with ImgBurn

[Hawk]

Also if you are looking for standalone blu-ray player. Do not buy if it is made by Sharp company.

If you are curious the answer is simple sharp players doesn’t allow blu-ray playback unless AACS is present on disc. (AACS is copy protection which FAB removes during copy)

[bobt47]

Ripping full disc

Thank you for your replies !
Kannkor could you please help a little more !
You advise to make a full disc rip first to an iso and then use imgburn to burn it.
I too would want to rip just the movie so in a lot of cases the movie can be fitted on a BD-R25 without any shrinking but I thought this was done first at the ripping stage because if I was to rip the whole movie and then use imgburn to locate the full iso it would do that that and burn the whole disc ?
Also
Is there a way I can get imgburn to burn automatically after the rip so that i could leave it on overnight.
Also
I its 2 hours to rip just the movie say 23Gb, Is this usual ?
Thank you again !

[Complication]

The forum search is your friend. This thread has info on integrating Imgburn to work with DVDFab:

http://forum.dvdfab.com/showthread.php?t=12

Just select BD25 as the output size and DVDFab will compress or not compress as needed.

[Kannkor]

bobt47,

You rip the entire disc to your HD (as an ISO).

Then you use the ISO as your source, then select to burn only the main movie from there. Therefore you only get the main movie, however you want to rip the entire disc to HD for the best success.

[arcadeforest]

I guess I'm a little different then most members on here. I have backed up my Blu Ray discs onto a home theater pc. Don't mess with backing on physical media. I use DVDFAB to rip the main movie and then Ripbot to compress into a MP4 H264 720P file anywhere between 2-4 gigs in size. I then put them on my home theater pc with movie watching access through Windows Media Center / Media Browser. It essentially puts my movie collection into a DVR style format. I'm very impressed with the results (720P, 2-4 gigs in size). Is it the same as full blown 1080P straight from the disc? No, but its very very close and in the end if I want the full experience (or the extras) I'll just throw my disc in the player to watch. This way I've got my movies backed up, easy access to watch, no worries about the kids messing the disc up, and have the original if I want to watch it that way.

[crackinhedz]

I would rip the "main movie" only to your hard drive, keep it at BD50 size...then load the main movie only into dvdfab again, and compress it down to BD25.

This will save the wear and tear on your BD drive.

Also, compression to BD25 size could take quite a while depending on your PC specifications.

[Boston Joe]

FWIW, The only time I had trouble burning a BD was when I switched the engine to imgburn. Could have just been a one off, but I switched back and all was fine. The VSO engine has worked fine for me through almost 4 months of ownership of a burner and DVDFab.