Lord of the Rings + The Hobbit 4K (Finally!)

[Jdurg]

No, don't go jumping to conclusions. We had these same problems with GoT. There seems to be some weird LibreDrive thing going on where these drives just stop reading discs after a while. Power cycle the drive, then put DIFFERENT media types in the drive until it starts reading discs again (dvd, blu-ray, whatever). That'll get you going again.

Heh. Thank you. I did the power cycle and it now it seems to be working again. My apologies for coming off a bit alarmist there. I think that curiosity would be best be suited for outside this thread.

My bad also on not seeing that right there on page 1 of the FAQ. Setting aside my face-palm (my bad folks, that's on me), these movies do look and sound quite good.

[SamuriHL]

Don't worry about it. All good. Just trying to help you get moving forward again. And when you're ripping, pay attention to which disc is in which slot in these cases. You might accidentally rip 2 theatrical versions when you MEANT to rip the extended versions. Not that anyone would be that stupid. Perhaps I'm re-ripping 2 of them as we speak. LOL

[simon_ldt]

I was ripping these just fine until I got to The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition. I put the disc in and the drive spun up and sounded funny. It then slowed to a crawl trying to open the disc before eventually crapping out with: "Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading 'BD-RE HL-DT-ST BD-RE BU40N 1.00' at offset '145031168'".

What has me worried is that my UHD Drive now won't read ANY discs.

<edited-out needless stuff. left in READ THE FAQ initial stuff>

I've had this on a few 100GB discs which have tripped up my drive and then it fails to open discs. Best solution I found is to completely shut down the PC, wait at least 10secs and then fire back up. Basically a full power cycle of the drive fixes it.

It must just lock up on certain problematic discs. Only ever have this issue with 100GB discs. It's gotten to the point now where I get worried when I see its a triple layer. A 50/50 chance it'll rip without a fuss.

[Metallikahn]

How big should the dump files be? I've got the US release from Target. I've currently got Fellowship Theatrical ripping on my Windows PC. I'm trying to rip Part 1 of the extended edition on my unRAID linux based server and I keep getting a "volume key unknown error" when I try any discs on that. It was my understanding that dump files were generally under 100kb if the hash file wasn't yet known. If they were like 3MB, then there was some other issue at play. Mine have all been around 3MB

Any Ideas?

Edit: Disregard. Did some more digging and it appears to be software bug with the linux version of 1.15.3. Guess I'll just have to do it slowly on my Windows pc over the next few days.

[spaced]

Finishing up ripping the extended versions. The - part1, - part2 tag for Plex doesn't seem to work right now for me, only sees part 1, figuring that out but my main issue is bandwidth.

Player is plex via 2019 Shield wired, server is Qnap Plex NAS over dual 1Gb Aggregated NICs (I know this doesn't double my bandwidth but noting it anyway), 24TB ironwolf 8TB drives, no ssd cache. CAX80 modem/router. DV kicks in fine, picture is stellar, Atmos is lovely but when I check the info panel, the bitrate is 80+ Mb/s! That's the most I've ever seen so far. When I play back, I will get stuttering here and there, enough to notice it especially in the spanning wide shots, so I am wondering who else may be seeing this or am I doing something wrong? Literally looks like frame drops due to buffering. Using rips from 1.15.3 direct with no remuxing. Plex is using Direct Play. I want to note no other 4k UHD rip suffers from this with or without DV.

This is on the Shield Pro? And does it always choke on the same scenes? I don't have LOTR yet but I did watch Gemini Man from start to finish without issues and that movie was a beast with bitrate (~90Mb/s avg) as well. If the Shield can handle Gemini Man without issues, then theoretically it shouldn't run into issues with any other movies.

Correct, Shield Pro. I'm using all new short run cat 6 cable as well, so it's either the router or something with my Qnap NAS, or maybe my netgear 8 port switch? Guess it's back to hardware mode. Thanks for letting me know it is possible, it's just a network snag on my end. I get full saturation from my workstation to my NAS when copying files (110-125 MB/s over gigabit), so this may be due to the other switch I use for media components.

Finishing up ripping the extended versions. The - part1, - part2 tag for Plex doesn't seem to work right now for me, only sees part 1, figuring that out but my main issue is bandwidth.

Here's the docs from Plex about naming: https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming ... les/#toc-2

I don't know if spaces and capitalization really matter, but I named mine just like in their docs: folder name contains the movie title and year, each individual MKV file contains the exact same movie title and year, and then (space)-(space)part1.mkv

If you go to the detail page for the movie it should show the full length (both parts combined). But, when you start the movie the progress bar and time remaining will only show for the first part. Once it gets to the end it should automatically start the second and then the progress bar/time remaining will now show how far you are into the second part.

Thank you for your help, I did go through all of that and the only way so far is to have "versions", but I will figure out what the heck I am doing wrong there. If all else fails I will just merge them. I know it's supposed to just work so I must be doing something wrong. Did the spaces for the hyphen and naming, tried pt1, part1, part 1, pt 1, even tried separate folders for the parts. Doesn't auto start the second part, I have to go to "versions" in the menu and select the other stream. Could be worse! Sorry for getting OT, we don't have to continue that part here.

[bendak]

I just noticed these don't have the audio commentary tracks which both the DVDs and blu-rays had (there are 4 per movie on the extended editions). Wonder why they'd remove those... not like they take up much space (192k AC-3). I guess I will add them in from the bluray release. They are really good commentary tracks if you're interested in that sort of thing.

[Cannikin]

Correct, Shield Pro. I'm using all new short run cat 6 cable as well, so it's either the router or something with my Qnap NAS, or maybe my netgear 8 port switch? Guess it's back to hardware mode. Thanks for letting me know it is possible, it's just a network snag on my end. I get full saturation from my workstation to my NAS when copying files (110-125 MB/s over gigabit), so this may be due to the other switch I use for media components.

Hmmm I did a quick test earlier this evening and played the closing scenes of Hobbit: DoS and noticed some frames skipping as well...and I've played Gemini Man at that 90/Mbps with no problem. When there's a ton of action it's not as noticeable but when there something subtle like a slow pan it's really jarring. I'll do some more tests and see if I can find anything. I'll try the disc as well, although I can't imagine there are frames missing there...

Has anyone else noticed anything like that with their rips?

[shawnc22]

Correct, Shield Pro. I'm using all new short run cat 6 cable as well, so it's either the router or something with my Qnap NAS, or maybe my netgear 8 port switch? Guess it's back to hardware mode. Thanks for letting me know it is possible, it's just a network snag on my end. I get full saturation from my workstation to my NAS when copying files (110-125 MB/s over gigabit), so this may be due to the other switch I use for media components.

Hmmm I did a quick test earlier this evening and played the closing scenes of Hobbit: DoS and noticed some frames skipping as well...and I've played Gemini Man at that 90/Mbps with no problem. When there's a ton of action it's not as noticeable but when there something subtle like a slow pan it's really jarring. I'll do some more tests and see if I can find anything. I'll try the disc as well, although I can't imagine there are frames missing there...

Has anyone else noticed anything like that with their rips?

Did you guys double check that frame rate matching is turned on in Plex and that it's working (checking through AVR or your TV's diagnostic menu)?

[bjaurelio]

My Two Towers second disc failed. I pulled it out and looked at it to discover the horror of large scratches in near perfect rings running through the middle of the disc. Time to contact Amazon. Hopefully it won't take too long to get a replacement. I'm finishing Return of the King this morning. I did not see any scratches on it or the other discs that worked just fine.

Update: Ugh, replacement won't come until January 5th. I'm considering ripping the theatrical as pt 2 for now.

[SamuriHL]

It would appear I'm not alone in having the Two Towers discs missing from the steel book set. Someone posted a review on BB's site saying the same thing. BB is useless as they didn't get enough of these sets in to even stock all the stores. Might have to go with a backup plan which will cost me more money but will give me a complete set. I'm rather annoyed but at this point I won't risk an exchange after the other horror stories I've read.

[saf001]

Finishing up ripping the extended versions. The - part1, - part2 tag for Plex doesn't seem to work right now for me, only sees part 1, figuring that out but my main issue is bandwidth.

Player is plex via 2019 Shield wired, server is Qnap Plex NAS over dual 1Gb Aggregated NICs (I know this doesn't double my bandwidth but noting it anyway), 24TB ironwolf 8TB drives, no ssd cache. CAX80 modem/router. DV kicks in fine, picture is stellar, Atmos is lovely but when I check the info panel, the bitrate is 80+ Mb/s! That's the most I've ever seen so far. When I play back, I will get stuttering here and there, enough to notice it especially in the spanning wide shots, so I am wondering who else may be seeing this or am I doing something wrong? Literally looks like frame drops due to buffering. Using rips from 1.15.3 direct with no remuxing. Plex is using Direct Play. I want to note no other 4k UHD rip suffers from this with or without DV.

Do you mind if I ask how you are seeing Dolby Vision?

Running a Sony 950H has display, Plex on Ubuntu server, rip from 1.15.3, and using Shield Pro as the client. Never can see DV only HDR. I've also tried to use the Plex server on Nvidia and do not see it. The only thing that comes to my mind is that I'm routing everything into an older yamaha avr that only supports hdmi 1.4 with its hdmi arc routed to the sony's arc/earc.

I've not received my copies of lotr or hobbit yet but saw this post and was curious.

[sgtblackice]

One thing I don't understand is why the disc can't be backed up until the keys are updated. I understand why I can't open and remux the content of the disc but surely I can backup anything that can be read by windows?

[shawnc22]

Finishing up ripping the extended versions. The - part1, - part2 tag for Plex doesn't seem to work right now for me, only sees part 1, figuring that out but my main issue is bandwidth.

Player is plex via 2019 Shield wired, server is Qnap Plex NAS over dual 1Gb Aggregated NICs (I know this doesn't double my bandwidth but noting it anyway), 24TB ironwolf 8TB drives, no ssd cache. CAX80 modem/router. DV kicks in fine, picture is stellar, Atmos is lovely but when I check the info panel, the bitrate is 80+ Mb/s! That's the most I've ever seen so far. When I play back, I will get stuttering here and there, enough to notice it especially in the spanning wide shots, so I am wondering who else may be seeing this or am I doing something wrong? Literally looks like frame drops due to buffering. Using rips from 1.15.3 direct with no remuxing. Plex is using Direct Play. I want to note no other 4k UHD rip suffers from this with or without DV.

Do you mind if I ask how you are seeing Dolby Vision?

Running a Sony 950H has display, Plex on Ubuntu server, rip from 1.15.3, and using Shield Pro as the client. Never can see DV only HDR. I've also tried to use the Plex server on Nvidia and do not see it. The only thing that comes to my mind is that I'm routing everything into an older yamaha avr that only supports hdmi 1.4 with its hdmi arc routed to the sony's arc/earc.

I've not received my copies of lotr or hobbit yet but saw this post and was curious.

If you believe that to be the issue, then you should bypass the AVR and plug the Shield directly into the TV to see if DV is triggered. Otherwise, double check the version of your Plex client on the Shield; it has to be at least 8.8.

[agressiv]

If you want a single MKV for each extended movie with a flawless scene transition between discs, follow this guide. Be prepared to have a lot of scratch disk for this, preferably on NVMe SSD

• Rip each extended disk to its own MKV, for example, LOTR1a.mkv and LOTR1b.mkv
• Drag Disc 1 into MkvToolnix by itself
• Go into the Output tab.
• Change Split mode from Do not split to After frame/field numbers
• Type in the large value in the list below for the "a" MKV and the smaller value for the "b" MKV
• The destination file can be LOTR1a-clipped.mkv as an example.
• When you click Start multiplexing, it will create two files - LOTR1a-clipped-001.mkv and LOTR1a-clipped-002.mkv
• Repeat for Disc 2.
• You'll see that for the first disc, -002 will be just a couple of seconds of black, while for the second disc, -001 will be just a couple of seconds of black.
• Create a new Multiplexer, and drag LOTR1a-clipped-001.mkv to the list. Right click that video, and do Append files and click LOTR1b-clipped-002.mkv.
• Make sure you don't touch the output section on this merge.
• Click Start multiplexing and verify the output. Dolby Vision should be preserved as well.

Here are the values to plug in under the Output section for the US editions:

Fellowship of the Ring:
Disc 1 - 151967
Disc 2 - 46

Two Towers
Disc 1 - 153305
Disc 2 - 46

Return of the King
Disc 1 - 183540
Disc 2 - 46

If these don't line up for you, load each file into MPC-HC:

• Go to the last visible frame and pause it. Use CTRL and left or right arrow keys until you get the last frame.
• Hit CTRL-G. That will give you a popup of the current frame.
• For Disc 1, you want the last visible frame before it goes black.
• For Disc 2, you want the last black frame before it goes into a visible frame.
• Verify by using CTRL-G and putting in that number as well as the number after it. CTRL-Arrow seeking isn't perfect.

[siriusbox]

If you want a single MKV for each extended movie with a flawless scene transition between discs, follow this guide. Be prepared to have a lot of scratch disk for this, preferably on NVMe SSD

• Rip each extended disk to its own MKV, for example, LOTR1a.mkv and LOTR1b.mkv
• Drag Disc 1 into MkvToolnix by itself
• Go into the Output tab.
• Change Split mode from Do not split to After frame/field numbers
• Type in the large value in the list below for the "a" MKV and the smaller value for the "b" MKV
• The destination file can be LOTR1a-clipped.mkv as an example.
• When you click Start multiplexing, it will create two files - LOTR1a-clipped-001.mkv and LOTR1a-clipped-002.mkv
• Repeat for Disc 2.
• You'll see that for the first disc, -002 will be just a couple of seconds of black, while for the second disc, -001 will be just a couple of seconds of black.
• Create a new Multiplexer, and drag LOTR1a-clipped-001.mkv to the list. Right click that video, and do Append files and click LOTR1b-clipped-002.mkv.
• Make sure you don't touch the output section on this merge.
• Click Start multiplexing and verify the output. Dolby Vision should be preserved as well.

Here are the values to plug in under the Output section for the US editions:

Fellowship of the Ring:
Disc 1 - 151967
Disc 2 - 46

Two Towers
Disc 1 - 153305
Disc 2 - 46

Return of the King
Disc 1 - 183540
Disc 2 - 46

If these don't line up for you, load each file into MPC-HC:

• Go to the last visible frame and pause it. Use CTRL and left or right arrow keys until you get the last frame.
• Hit CTRL-G. That will give you a popup of the current frame.
• For Disc 1, you want the last visible frame before it goes black.
• For Disc 2, you want the last black frame before it goes into a visible frame.
• Verify by using CTRL-G and putting in that number as well as the number after it. CTRL-Arrow seeking isn't perfect.

Why not just use "Append files" in MKVToolnix?