Transcoding Trouble All Around...

[kpmurphy2448]

I have a Mac Pro with all the editing/encoding tools of Final Cut Studio. I installed MakeMKV, and I'm able to rip and create the .mkv files (which look fantastic) just fine. However, none of the transcoding options I've seen on these forums are working for me. My hope is to rip DVD's and Blu's I've purchased and have digital copies available for my iPad and iPhone.

I've installed VLC, Perian, Handbrake, etc. The .mkv file's icon shows up as a Divx Movie, but it doesn't play smoothly in that player. I am able to play back the .mkv file just fine in VLC, but cannot transcode anything. Installing Perian was apparently successful, but none of the .mkv files will open or play in QuickTime (Player or Pro, I have both - Player just sits there forever and then won't play, Pro tells me it's not a valid movie file). As for Handbrake, I get an error message telling me that "No Valid Source Files" are found when I select the ripped .mkv file. I can get it to recognize movies off the blu-ray disc directly, but at a certain point, when it's scanning the disc, it just sits on item 35 of 38 and never moves forward. I didn't wait forever while doing this, but it was a good 15-20 minutes.

I'd like to have video files I can send to compressor to encode for iPad/iPhone use, since that's the most readily available tool for me AND I've already purchased it.

So, given the tools at my disposal, and the processes I've described above, does anyone have suggestions on how I may accomplish my goal of creating these digital copies for iOS mobile devices? I'm not terribly literate with this kind of thing, so it may be a very simple solution. I hope somebody can help me reach it.

Thanks!

[Smithcraft]

In reality, all this forum covers is MakeMKV.

At some point you appear to have installed Divx, which you should try to remove. Or Get Info for a mkv file and change the behavior to be opened by VLC and that all similar files should be opened by VLC.

The only video player you should really need is VLC. Installing Perian is fine, if you only want to use QuickTime.

For Handbrake, I would recommend the Handbrake forums. Handbrake can not read Blurays that have copy protection schemes, and that is why it is having issues scanning the discs. To note - Handbrake doesn't care for files with more than 16 streams(assuming you are using the 0.9.5 release and not the nightly release), so if you are selecting all of the streams, you might wanna be a bit more selective as to what you want included in the file.

One app I would recommend that you get is MediaInfo. You can use it to see what all is in a media file, and that will help people to help you.

SC

[Icanseestars]

Use a nightly build of Handbrake their official builds are quite old and do not keep pace with other software applications.

[Romansh]

To note - Handbrake doesn't care for files with more than 16 streams(assuming you are using the 0.9.5 release and not the nightly release), so if you are selecting all of the streams, you might wanna be a bit more selective as to what you want included in the file.

To be extract, the limit is 20 streams total (video, audio, subtitles, font file attachments etc.). And as you pointed out, the nighties no longer have this limitation.