2009-04-22, 06:05
This may not be new info for some of you, but for anyone who is interested, I have just successfully ripped the 24bit 96kHz PCM stereo audio track from a Blu-ray disc and converted it to individual flac tracks for playing back on my DS and thought I'd summarise how I did it. It takes a bit of effort, but for those of us looking for hi-res music to feed to our DS's it's worth it.
** UPDATE: I've successfully ripped a few discs now with different methods so I've streamlined the guide below **
The example below is for John Mayer's 'Where the Light Is - Live in Los Angeles'. It contains the concert in PCM Stereo (24bit/96Khz) and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (24bit/96kHz). This example below applies to the PCM stereo track only.
In summary the steps are:
- Rip PCM stereo track from bluray to one large stereo flac file*
- split flac file into individual tracks
- tag files manually (I used mp3tag)
* Previously I extracted to wav then split, and converted to flac. WAV files have a limit of 4Gb though and you are likely to run into problems with 96KHz+ rips on some discs. If you exceed this, the file will only recognise some of the file as music as the file header stores the file size as a 32bit string. To get around this extract direct to flac.
Software required:
- eac3to - This is a command line tool, but there are some good GUIs for it, see here. I used HD DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor v0.6 (get it here). Install the GUI in the eac3to folder.
- UDF 2.5 Reader - if you are using XP, you will need this so that your BDROM drive can recognize the blu-ray disc filesystem. Otherwise the BDROM will show up in XP say as a CDROM drive with no recognisable disc in it. Vista doesn't need this.
- You also need software to enable you to read the encrypted files from the disc. I used Slysoft's AnyDVD HD (this is a functioning trial version but its well worth buying as it also helps ripping music from CopyControl 'CD's).
- a wav file editor to split the decoded flac file into their individual tracks. I used the trial version of Goldwave. It was very easy to use, and can handle flac files.
Method:
1. Make sure AnyDVD is running!
Without this running you won't be able to access the stream files on the Blu-ray disc.
2. Identify the main feature on the blu-ray disc.
There seems to be numerous ways to do this. The audio and video on the disc are stored (together) in .m2ts files. What has worked (so far) for me is to:
- Run HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor
- Specify and output folder on your hard disc for the flac file
- Under the 'Input' section choose the 'Select Input Folder' button
- Browse to the Blu-ray disc drive (for me B:\)
- Hit the blue 'Feature(s)' link/button
The GUI will then run eac3to in the background and should then show the various video and audio streams available under the 'Streams' section of the GUI. So far for me, the 'Feature(s)' area has only had the one playlist and associated m2ts files. I am guessing for some discs there will be multiple playlists here and you will need to choose the one you want.
3. Identify the PCM stereo audio track you want and Chapter information and extract them.
Under the 'Streams' section of the GUI, put a tick in the 'Extract' column next to the stereo PCM stream you want to extract and choose FLAC in the 'Extract As' drop down box. Also put a tick in the 'Extract' column next to the 'Chapters' stream (usually '1'). Then just hit 'Extract'!
This will then (over the next hour or so!) extract a large single flac file and a txt file with the chapter information in it.
4. Use the chapter information txt file to use as cues in splitting flac file into individual songs
The chapter information txt file containts the timecodes for the individual chapters of video and audio contained in the m2ts streams. I used this as a guide for the times at which to split the flac file into the separate songs (we'd ususally call these tracks too but i'll call them songs to avoid confusion with the bluray tracks).
Open your flac file in Goldwave (or other wav editor). In Goldwave, I then went to 'Tool>Cue Points', then using the 'New' button repeatedly, entered all the track start times from the chapter txt file with the 'Name' as 'Chapter 1' and so on. Once all tracks were entered I hit the 'Split File' button (under 'Cue Points'), chose the output folder for my individual flac files, selected 'use cue name for filename' and 'use file's current format and attributes'. Hit 'OK' and this generates your flac files.
5. Tag!
To get the actual track names for tagging I used the back of the Blu-ray box! Note that there are several tracks that are short 'intermissions' between actual songs. If you want to keep these (I didn't) give them your own name when you tag them. I just listened to all the tracks, and named them in mp3tag. Alternatively you could work them out before Step 4 above and enter the names as the 'Cue Point' names so the filenames are already correct... Am sure there is a more scientific way of doing this, but its a start.
Disclaimer
1. Please bear in mind that I have only done this on a few blu-ray discs. I'm not an expert on the format (lol, far from it) and undoubtedly some discs will be different from the ones I've done.
2. The resulting file sounds great to me. I don't have the CD version to compare to (maybe someone else will). I assume eac3to also doesn't do the error checking that something like 'Exact Audio Copy' does when extracting audio from CDs. So you may get the odd crackle or pop if you try and play CounterStrike while ripping the disc ;D
3. Anyway, that's it - apologies if any of this is too long winded, too brief or too confusing. Apologies also if I've forgotten a crucial step, I've done this from memory - please someone let me know if i have!! I just though it was worthwhile sharing as Blu-ray seems to be one of the more likely ways for high-res versions of 'mainstream' music to find its way to the market, and thus onto my DS.
** UPDATE: I've successfully ripped a few discs now with different methods so I've streamlined the guide below **
The example below is for John Mayer's 'Where the Light Is - Live in Los Angeles'. It contains the concert in PCM Stereo (24bit/96Khz) and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (24bit/96kHz). This example below applies to the PCM stereo track only.
In summary the steps are:
- Rip PCM stereo track from bluray to one large stereo flac file*
- split flac file into individual tracks
- tag files manually (I used mp3tag)
* Previously I extracted to wav then split, and converted to flac. WAV files have a limit of 4Gb though and you are likely to run into problems with 96KHz+ rips on some discs. If you exceed this, the file will only recognise some of the file as music as the file header stores the file size as a 32bit string. To get around this extract direct to flac.
Software required:
- eac3to - This is a command line tool, but there are some good GUIs for it, see here. I used HD DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor v0.6 (get it here). Install the GUI in the eac3to folder.
- UDF 2.5 Reader - if you are using XP, you will need this so that your BDROM drive can recognize the blu-ray disc filesystem. Otherwise the BDROM will show up in XP say as a CDROM drive with no recognisable disc in it. Vista doesn't need this.
- You also need software to enable you to read the encrypted files from the disc. I used Slysoft's AnyDVD HD (this is a functioning trial version but its well worth buying as it also helps ripping music from CopyControl 'CD's).
- a wav file editor to split the decoded flac file into their individual tracks. I used the trial version of Goldwave. It was very easy to use, and can handle flac files.
Method:
1. Make sure AnyDVD is running!
Without this running you won't be able to access the stream files on the Blu-ray disc.
2. Identify the main feature on the blu-ray disc.
There seems to be numerous ways to do this. The audio and video on the disc are stored (together) in .m2ts files. What has worked (so far) for me is to:
- Run HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor
- Specify and output folder on your hard disc for the flac file
- Under the 'Input' section choose the 'Select Input Folder' button
- Browse to the Blu-ray disc drive (for me B:\)
- Hit the blue 'Feature(s)' link/button
The GUI will then run eac3to in the background and should then show the various video and audio streams available under the 'Streams' section of the GUI. So far for me, the 'Feature(s)' area has only had the one playlist and associated m2ts files. I am guessing for some discs there will be multiple playlists here and you will need to choose the one you want.
3. Identify the PCM stereo audio track you want and Chapter information and extract them.
Under the 'Streams' section of the GUI, put a tick in the 'Extract' column next to the stereo PCM stream you want to extract and choose FLAC in the 'Extract As' drop down box. Also put a tick in the 'Extract' column next to the 'Chapters' stream (usually '1'). Then just hit 'Extract'!
This will then (over the next hour or so!) extract a large single flac file and a txt file with the chapter information in it.
4. Use the chapter information txt file to use as cues in splitting flac file into individual songs
The chapter information txt file containts the timecodes for the individual chapters of video and audio contained in the m2ts streams. I used this as a guide for the times at which to split the flac file into the separate songs (we'd ususally call these tracks too but i'll call them songs to avoid confusion with the bluray tracks).
Open your flac file in Goldwave (or other wav editor). In Goldwave, I then went to 'Tool>Cue Points', then using the 'New' button repeatedly, entered all the track start times from the chapter txt file with the 'Name' as 'Chapter 1' and so on. Once all tracks were entered I hit the 'Split File' button (under 'Cue Points'), chose the output folder for my individual flac files, selected 'use cue name for filename' and 'use file's current format and attributes'. Hit 'OK' and this generates your flac files.
5. Tag!
To get the actual track names for tagging I used the back of the Blu-ray box! Note that there are several tracks that are short 'intermissions' between actual songs. If you want to keep these (I didn't) give them your own name when you tag them. I just listened to all the tracks, and named them in mp3tag. Alternatively you could work them out before Step 4 above and enter the names as the 'Cue Point' names so the filenames are already correct... Am sure there is a more scientific way of doing this, but its a start.
Disclaimer
1. Please bear in mind that I have only done this on a few blu-ray discs. I'm not an expert on the format (lol, far from it) and undoubtedly some discs will be different from the ones I've done.
2. The resulting file sounds great to me. I don't have the CD version to compare to (maybe someone else will). I assume eac3to also doesn't do the error checking that something like 'Exact Audio Copy' does when extracting audio from CDs. So you may get the odd crackle or pop if you try and play CounterStrike while ripping the disc ;D
3. Anyway, that's it - apologies if any of this is too long winded, too brief or too confusing. Apologies also if I've forgotten a crucial step, I've done this from memory - please someone let me know if i have!! I just though it was worthwhile sharing as Blu-ray seems to be one of the more likely ways for high-res versions of 'mainstream' music to find its way to the market, and thus onto my DS
.