Can someone tell me how Plex handles, if it does indeed handle, a full blu-ray? For example, I want to start ripping my collection with no compression. Will I be able to access the menu and special features, etc?
Well, I’m no ninja… but I think the general consensus is to use MakeMKV to rip/transcode the video from a BluRay disc to MKV format (no quality hit, just puts stuff in a different container ((I think)) ). Only thing is you’d lose menus, if you’re into those.
I’m looking for a full blu-ray experience, so menus would be nice. Is there no way to make that possible?
no there is not a way to make menus work. just like dvd menus will not work in plex
for special features and etc you will have to rip them as separate movies and manually edit metadata to put them in the library as there are not any scanners/agents for special features
I recommend abandoning that endeavor. The only software that gives you full menus is tmt5, powerdvd, and winDVD, which are all only available on Windows. They also have cinavia, which means they won't play rips of newer movies with cinavia protection (only the actual disk).
If you want full menus, just use the old disc with a standard blu-ray player. If you want to play blu-rays off your hard drive or stream them around your network and to your mobile devices using Plex, use makemkv. There is no quality loss. You just lose menus.
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Thanks for all te great replies. I have always just used the default settings on the ripper. What would you say are the best settings to use for maximum quality with no loss?
To elaborate a bit more… I usually rip everything because I would view them all on my laptop or portable devices anyway. I’m interested in getting the best quality possible now because in the next couple of months I plan on purchasing a newer TV and I want to be able to stream to it via AppleTV from Plexapp on iOS.
Will I get the best quality to show or will the AppleTV/iPhone act as a bottleneck anyways? If its the latter I will just stick with Blu-Ray.
Also, how is sound affected? Will I get the best quality if it is ripped and using those devices?
Are you talking makemkv? Makemkv does no encoding, so there’s no way the diminish the quality. What I do when I rip with makemkv is select the main feature (generally the largest track), and then manually select the HD audio track. That way I also have the HD audio track for devices that support it. I think there’s an option in makemkv’s settings menu that tells it to always include the forced subtitles. I do that as well.
The AppleTV and iPhone likely won’t be able to play the blu-ray mkv directly, and Plex will transcode it on the fly. Keep in mind transcoding full blu-ray rips requires a very powerful PC (a recent Intel Core processor like the i3, i5, and i7 will likely suffice).
With transcoding there is always a quality loss. However, you can adjust the quality settings in the Plex app to your desire. With a high enough quality setting, you probably won’t notice any video or audio quality loss. If you must stream the movie without transcoding, it’s best to have a full Mac/Windows client with a wired (not wireless) connection on your network. I think some of the Google TV devices might be able to play blu-ray rips without transcoding as well.
Hmm. Thanks. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I think my best option would be to use makemkv and let plex transcode for my devices but have my computer set up directly to the tv. Although…I would prefer to use a device connected to the TV because I feel it’s better than have to use a keyboard and mouse.
Ill look into the google tv device. Thanks again.
Why not set up a remote control to drive Plex when your computer is connected to your TV? Relatively easy to do with Windows or Mac. Possibly even easier with the advent of [Flirc](http://flirc.tv).
Also, AFAIK, even with Google TV devices that support the necessary audio and video codecs, the Plex app still doesn’t support PGS subtitles within the mkv. That means unless the subtitles are already burned into the movie, you will have to transcode those movies. So, for example, if you ripped the Avatar blu-ray to an mkv, in order to see the Navi subtitles you would need to transcode, which diminishes the quality. So, if you want to watch blu-rays mkv’s without any quality loss, your only real option is a PC or Mac connected directly to the TV. Also keep in mind that the Windows and Mac Plex clients do not support TrueHD and DTS-HD audio, so you will have to use the lossy AC3 and DTS audio.
So if I connect the PC to the TV then I’m looking at having to use something other than plex in order to get the lossless audio? Is this something plex can add support for in the future or is it impossible?
That is correct. Plex could certainly add support in the future, but nobody knows when. It's been requested for a long time now. The latest version of XBMC (12.0) supports HD audio.
Alright. I’m gonna have to find that request thread and give it my vote.
Btw, you may find this interesting. It allows you to access Plex through XBMC. There are some limitations. Not all the Plex channels work (although XBMC has add-ons of its own), and the remote on the Plex iPhone and Android applications won’t work.
There’s also this. The Dune Player supports HD audio and all the other necessary codecs for playing blu-ray mkv’s. I haven’t tried that piece of software though.
Thank you. I'll be pretty busy this weekend deciding the future of my media... :P
Best I can do now is start ripping them correctly with the best audio and video quality settings possible.
Thanks to all of you who participated in this thread.
Hmm… along these lines, for future proofing…
Assuming I use makemkv to switch from ISO blu-ray files to mkv files - I realize it doesn’t lose any data, but how hard is it to reverse the conversion? Say, if Plex or other players were to gain the ability to utilize the ISO files in the future. Since no data is lost, it seems like it would be doable, but I haven’t seen this discussed anywhere.
Thanks!
Lost data (menus, extras, etc) would remain lost. You could always re-rip the disc though…
Thanks - that’s what I needed to hear.
I’ll have to keep separate archives of the “virgin” rips (plus the discs), but can move copies of it all to mkv containers for use.
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