BD Ripper (3D Plus) Picture is stills but Audio works

[taralom]

I've tried to convert a BD movie (Stealth) to PS3 (MKV and MP4) but the file is a bit too large. I'm not real knowledgeable so please help in simple terms.

I tried reducing the file size in the options but it stops at about 87% complete and if I try the file it shows one frame with full audio and the frame will change once every 10 minutes or so to correspond with the current time frame of the movie. I tried another program like this one but it only converts 3 minutes for the trial and it worked fine. I've also tried converting to AVI (which converts fine and plays on my computer) first and also tried copy the BD to file then converting. All converting take my computer 5-6 hours (is this based on computer specs, I've listed them below) A few people that I know use this program and rave about it so I wanted to ask for help before using a different program. I'm still in my 30 day trial period.

My goal is to put my BD collection on an external HD concested to my PS3 to play my movies so I don't have to swap BD discs. I have played a few titles that I have from someone else that work fine so I know the drive and PS3 are set.

Here are my specs
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.22 GHZ
2 GB Ram
NVIDIA Geforce 6800XT
Windows XP SP2

I'd like to know how to convert BD files so I can play them on my external HD through my PS3 with the correct files size?
Playing these files is there a decrease in quality?
Does my computer system dectate how long the conversion tales?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'm not really up to speed on this technology.

[IPopov50]

I've tried to convert a BD movie (Stealth) to PS3 (MKV and MP4) but the file is a bit too large. I'm not real knowledgeable so please help in simple terms.

I tried reducing the file size in the options but it stops at about 87% complete and if I try the file it shows one frame with full audio and the frame will change once every 10 minutes or so to correspond with the current time frame of the movie. I tried another program like this one but it only converts 3 minutes for the trial and it worked fine. I've also tried converting to AVI (which converts fine and plays on my computer) first and also tried copy the BD to file then converting. All converting take my computer 5-6 hours (is this based on computer specs, I've listed them below) A few people that I know use this program and rave about it so I wanted to ask for help before using a different program. I'm still in my 30 day trial period.

My goal is to put my BD collection on an external HD concested to my PS3 to play my movies so I don't have to swap BD discs. I have played a few titles that I have from someone else that work fine so I know the drive and PS3 are set.

Here are my specs
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.22 GHZ
2 GB Ram
NVIDIA Geforce 6800XT
Windows XP SP2

I'd like to know how to convert BD files so I can play them on my external HD through my PS3 with the correct files size?
Playing these files is there a decrease in quality?
Does my computer system dectate how long the conversion tales?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'm not really up to speed on this technology.

In general, your concept is great, and that's what most of us are doing. However, your particular concept has serious flaws:
aa. PS3 limitations. Despite the fact that PS3 works as BD player, it's a really bad media player. It's a gaming console, it's not a media streaming unit.
You can make it work, and lot of people likes their PS3 so much, they willing to make a significant quality sacrifices just for the chance to see their PS3 streaming their favorite movie. If you do some quick search on this forum, you will see how much heartburn PS3 causes to their owners. It's all because PS3 is not a mediaplayer, nor designed for it. My suggestion is to purchase a real mediaplayer (there's bunch of them, most of them around $100-150) and build your media theatre around it. GrgiBoy is you best resource on this forum for mediaplayers.
bb. Significant quality loss , especially in sound, is inevitable with streaming to PS3.
cc. Your computer is too weak for serious video conversions. It's good enough for rips and remuxes, but conversion will take probably 18-24 hrs per movie. (your videocard is not CUDA, so you can't take advantage of DVDFab GPU Acceleration).

My suggestion would be to get yourself a sizable external storage HDD, mediaplayer, remux all your BDs into MKV container, place them onto external HDD storage, and play using media player without any loss in quality.

[GregiBoy]

I totally agree with IPopov.

Do yourself a favour and take the PS3 out of the mix.

There have been great reports on the forum about the Argosy player in th US and it is available from Best Buy for under $100 and it reportedly plays anything that you can throw at it whereas the PS3 has limitations because of Sony's attempts to prevent playing of media from non-BR sources.

PS: Do NOT go the WDTV route as I have seen nothing but problems from these players.

[taralom]

Thanks for all the speedy feedback.

For the media player, can I just attach a External usb drive to it and play from that (is that what you guys are talking about) and if so since I already have some files in MP4 but they are larger than 4GB will those work or is the file format limited.

Also, what would be the best format that would be a smaller file size than BD, but lose the least amount of picture quality and sound quality (I guess I'm saying best quality for a reduced size)

Thanks again!!!

[IPopov50]

For the media player, can I just attach a External usb drive to it and play from that

Yes... or you also can delver your content over wired LAN

since I already have some files in MP4 but they are larger than 4GB will those work or is the file format limited.

Yes, MP4 is fine. That's the beauty of mediaplayers - unlike game consoles, mediaplayers can play almost anything, including MP4 and other formats, some of them you probably never even heard of.

Also, what would be the best format that would be a smaller file size than BD, but lose the least amount of picture quality and sound quality

Best container (format) out there is MKV. DVDFab is offering two options for this container in BD to Mobile mode: "Remux" and "generic".
"Remux" will give you uncompressed content with no loss of quality, but trimmed off unwanted audio streams, subtitles, etc. For some content it would mean reduction in size almost in half comparing to the original disc.
"Generic" will give you content in desired compression either by size of the file or quality.

[taralom]

OK did some searching and look into the media players, I think I understand and it does sound a lot easier.

Last 2 questions?
To clarify MP4 through a media player has no file size limit it can be larger than 4GB
Second do I need to upgrade my computer now or can I get by it just will take longer to convert.

Thanks again for your help explaining.

[IPopov50]

Last 2 questions?

I'm sure these two questions are not your last

To clarify MP4 through a media player has no file size limit it can be larger than 4GB

MP4 is a container and could be as large as it needs to be. MP4 is not the best container, and I insist you to look at MKV and use MKV from now on...

Second do I need to upgrade my computer now or can I get by it just will take longer to convert.

No, you don't have to upgrade your computer now. You should be OK with what you've got, but it would take a long, long, long time to convert a movie.

[taralom]

LOL on the last question...

Thank you so much for your quick help and answers. Well those were my last questions for now, and I will definitely take your advice on the MKV.

Thanks again.

[GregiBoy]

There is one constraint that has been forgotten here.

Some media players require the hard disks to be FAt32 formatted and if this is the case an ~4Gb limit on the file size applies.

Thoroughly check the documentation on the player that NTFS format is supported and this restriction will then not apply.

[taralom]

OK thanks for that note, I did look into the Argosy player and the one I was looking at can use booth hard disk formats. This definitely sounds like the way to go, It looks like I can play all my sons home movies in the formats there in too instead of having to convert them into a different file format.