I just purchased the Star Trek: Picard The Legacy Collection [Blu-ray] (54 Disk Set) and want to (1) back up the disks; (2) play them on my TV via AppleTV, while storing the media on a Synology NAS; and (3) be able to play them on either my Mac or iPad Pro when I am away from home.
In the past with DVDs I have made MKV that I then used Handbreak to condense into MP4 files. I am wondering if there is an easier way to do that without (1) losing quality, (2) Having to do multiple versions of the same episode/movie to account for different commentaries (which include both audio and text (subtitles) based)
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Creating and Playing Full Disk Backups of BluRays
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Radiocomms237
- Posts: 371
- Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:23 am
Re: Creating and Playing Full Disk Backups of BluRays
Wow! And I thought the X-Files collection was big at 42 Blu-rays (including the movies but not including The Lone Gunmen, it was over 4TB of storage all up)... But 54 discs is just MASSIVE!
Do they absolutely have to be .mp4 files? Have you tested the various player apps to see if they'll play .mkv's?
The subtitles shouldn't be too much of a problem, just extract them from the .mkv files and keep them in the same folder as the .mp4 they relate to, I'd think any player worth using should allow you to search for subs?
Unless it won't use image-based subtitles, in which case you're up for a whole heap of OCRing to convert them to text!
With the additional audio tracks (like commentaries) I don't think you have many options other than duplicating the .mp4 files?
Do they absolutely have to be .mp4 files? Have you tested the various player apps to see if they'll play .mkv's?
The subtitles shouldn't be too much of a problem, just extract them from the .mkv files and keep them in the same folder as the .mp4 they relate to, I'd think any player worth using should allow you to search for subs?
Unless it won't use image-based subtitles, in which case you're up for a whole heap of OCRing to convert them to text!
With the additional audio tracks (like commentaries) I don't think you have many options other than duplicating the .mp4 files?
Re: Creating and Playing Full Disk Backups of BluRays
I was looking for options other than MP4. Does anyone know of a MKV player for Apple TV?
Yes it is a large collection it contains all 7 seasons of Star Trek the Next Generation, 4 Movies (Star Trek Generations, Star Trek First Contact, Star Trek Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis, and all 3 seasons of Star Trek Picard.
Plus a whole lot more extras.
Yes it is a large collection it contains all 7 seasons of Star Trek the Next Generation, 4 Movies (Star Trek Generations, Star Trek First Contact, Star Trek Insurrection and Star Trek Nemesis, and all 3 seasons of Star Trek Picard.
Plus a whole lot more extras.
Re: Creating and Playing Full Disk Backups of BluRays
Plex works on the Mac, iOS, and AppleTV with .mkv files (assuming the actual encoded video in them isn't too exotic).
Infuse also works.
8player Pro works on iOS and AppleTV. It might work on macOS on an Apple Silicon Mac but I haven't tried it.
I've used all three of these on AppleTV. Almost everything I watch is via Plex on the AppleTV. 8player Pro is used for more exotic stuff, usually fancy encodings of Japanese anime from Japanese broadcast TV.
Re: Creating and Playing Full Disk Backups of BluRays
.mkv files allow for additional audio tracks (.mp4 files do as well). Plex makes it easy to access other audio tracks in a file, so it is fairly simple to get at audio commentary tracks.
Blu-rays generally have subtitles in PGS format. Those can be inside .mkv files as well. Plex on AppleTV is capable of displaying PGS format subtitles without having to transcode on the fly to 'burn-in' the subtitles. That might not be true for all Plex clients, but I only have firsthand experience with Plex on AppleTV, iOS & macOS.
So, for Plex anyway (and I'm pretty sure Infuse and 8player Pro as well; I could check easily enough if it is important) you can just include the subtitle track(s) from the blu-ray right in the .mkv file. You can pick subtitle tracks in Plex just about as easily as audio tracks.
Both audio and subtitle tracks can be named in the .mkv file so you can remember which track is which.
MediaInfo can show you all the details of your media files.
Blu-rays generally have subtitles in PGS format. Those can be inside .mkv files as well. Plex on AppleTV is capable of displaying PGS format subtitles without having to transcode on the fly to 'burn-in' the subtitles. That might not be true for all Plex clients, but I only have firsthand experience with Plex on AppleTV, iOS & macOS.
So, for Plex anyway (and I'm pretty sure Infuse and 8player Pro as well; I could check easily enough if it is important) you can just include the subtitle track(s) from the blu-ray right in the .mkv file. You can pick subtitle tracks in Plex just about as easily as audio tracks.
Both audio and subtitle tracks can be named in the .mkv file so you can remember which track is which.
MediaInfo can show you all the details of your media files.