Freemake!

[CaptainHawk1]

I haven't seen any threads about this yet so I wanted to share and since it is an HD Software I stuck it in here. Mods, if you feel it belongs in 3rd Party, feel free to move it accordingly.

I've been using Freemake for over a year for pretty much all of my video format conversions. It's an incredibly simple program and works right of the gate every single time. I just found out recently that the program has been updated recently to support BD as well and so I gave it a test run with Unstoppable and it worked like a charm and only took 2 hours for the whole project to complete. It does have some limitations and mine hung up during the conversion process at 99% but I clicked pause and then unpaused it and it finished the conversion and asked for the blank BD. This really is a perfect little piece of simple software for the novice user and it worked seamlessly with AnyDVD HD. Some notes:

1. First, you'll need to know where your files are. It doesn't have any kind of functionality to look for the largest file on the BD if you're looking to copy the main title only. What I did this time was just do a Select All and throw everything into Freemake from the "Stream" folder as it was just easier to sort through the crap and delete what I didn't want that way then find the needle in the haystack in the folder itself. Once in Freemake it was very quick to find the right file and discard the rest (also has drag and drop, but it doesn't work with BD however Copy and Paste works just fine).

2. It does downgrade the HD Audio to AC3 and I don't know why and unlike the other video formats it doesn't allow you to control the output format.

3. The copy it created came out flawlessly, however, I did notice what seemed to be a very high rate of compression from 27 GB to 20 GB wheras as 25 GB BD can hold 23.5 GB. I looked at the files that Freemake created on the disc and they are very tiny so I'm curious as to why a 26% compression rate when a compression rate of 13% would have sufficed. Unlike the other format conversion options, there is no way to change the output size on BD. Hopefully, this is something they will address.

4. You can't do a 1:1 copy of a disc however you can copy all the individual titles and Freemake will create a menu for them if you want it to and it has a couple of different style options. I haven't taken advantage of this feature yet but I intend to and based on this product exceeding my expectations, I can't see why it wouldn't work perfectly for episodic television and if you wanted to keep special features.

5. This is just the tip of the iceberg with this software. You can use it to download videos from sites like YouTube and convert them or convert pretty much any other video and audio format.

This isn't an all-in-one solution to achieve CloneDVD functionality for BD like we assume will be incorporated in CloneBD however, like CloneDVD it is incredibly easy to use and for the folks that aren't particularly tech savvy, and as long as they have AnyDVD HD and this until CloneBD is released, it's a great simple (even if limited) alternative for the novice.

6. They have a Beta version as well that apparently has something to do with video card technology and it makes the process twice as fast. I didn't have any luck getting it to work for flash video I was downloading and converting so I just gave up in on it and used the standard software.

Freemake

 

[Adbear]

Not massively impressed, gives no options to allow you to choose compression. on Blu-ray you have 2 options SL BD-r or DL BD-r, what's the point of DL BD-r?. The fact that it does it so quickly would imply it's using fast dirty encoding, either constant bitrate or quick 1 pass variable, neither of which I'd ever use for shrinking Blu-ray. Best to stick to BD Rebuilder which gives you a lot more quality settings and offers 2 pass variable as well as keeping HD audio and actually telling you what language the audio and subtitle tracks are.

 

[CaptainHawk1]

Not massively impressed, gives no options to allow you to choose compression. on Blu-ray you have 2 options SL BD-r or DL BD-r, what's the point of DL BD-r?. The fact that it does it so quickly would imply it's using fast dirty encoding, either constant bitrate or quick 1 pass variable, neither of which I'd ever use for shrinking Blu-ray. Best to stick to BD Rebuilder which gives you a lot more quality settings and offers 2 pass variable as well as keeping HD audio and actually telling you what language the audio and subtitle tracks are.

I think you're missing the point on this. I didn't suggest it as being massively impressive, I suggested it as being a simple to use alternative for people who aren't comfortable with a program as complicated as BD Rebuilder, and yes, believe it or not, there are more people out there than not who would find BD Rebuilder complicated. For goodness sake, it requires the installation of three other third-party programs (which you wouldn't know unless you read the 'Read Me" file which most people don't do) just to make it work and then you have to configure those as well (at least AviSynth) and that's not even getting into the settings that on the program itself that are complete techno-babble for the average consumer.

For myself, I don't mind it at all and I understand it, but I recognize the fact that most people aren't like me and want user-friendly, easy-to-use software with has as little complications as possible, despite limitations. This is why Apple products have such a loyal following and not for nothing, this is exactly why CloneDVD 2 is such a popular product (not the limitations of product, the simple, easy=to-use interface).

The are a few reasons I suggested Freemake as an alternative:

1. It does a great job for all video/audio conversions in general and even allows file combining and some basic editing.

2. It works every time.

3. It's flippin' Free

4. It's incredibly easy to use and has a professional/commercial-style easy to understand interface, just as CloneDVD 2 does (not suggesting that the interfaces are similar but they are both very easy to use and understand even for the most technically illiterate).

Here's the problem as I see it. The greatest advantage of CloneDVD 2 has for consumers is how incredibly simple it is to use and this is why it is so appealing to more novice users. Of course the functionality is great but it's the ease-of-use that sets it apart. I taught my four year-old daughter how to use it once and now everyday I come home from work and I have stacks of unlabeled Disney movies all over the place.

I have lifetime subscriptions to both CloneDVD 2 and AnyDVD and I made a point in 2008 to upgrade to AnyDVD HD so I could ensure that I got in under the wire for free lifetime updates despite the fact that I didn't even buy a BD Burner until April 2010. For more than three years we have been patiently waiting for a CloneBD product to emerge to work hand-in-hand with AnyDVD HD, but instead we have been forced to use often complicated third-party software that requires other complicated third-party software when the simple fact is that the vast majority of users, the people who don't post on the forums, are willing to sacrifice some quality and features for ease-of-use. I'm not complaining about the wait, mind you. It is what it is but I recognize that a lot of people just want something simple that will work which is why I threw this out there.

As I noted in the first post, it doesn't have the best features as BD Copying really isn't the point of the software, but it works and it made a perfect, error-free copy the first time I tried it that worked in my BD Drive, my PS3
and my standalone. People are free to do with it what they will, but I recommended it because I've personally enjoyed it for a year and now that it works with BD, it seemed appropriate to mention it.

 

[Adbear]

In BD rebuilder you don't have to read the 'read me' file to know you have to install 3 third party apps, it's on the download page on the doom9 forum, it tells you exactly what to do. You don't have to set anything up in AVIsynth, and I've never bothered to set up the settings he recommends for Mpeg2 or audio in FFDshow and never had a problem with over 500 shrinks using it.
The basic settings are very simple with the options of going more in depth to get better results if you prepared to take about 5 minutes to read and figure out what they do. I wouldn't say they were 'techno babble' unless you consider a menu that gives you different quality and disc size settings 'techno babble'
You also get to keep the HD audio as well as see what language the tracks and subtitles are in.
BD rebuilder also lets you just load in the disc folder which is a lot easier than having to find the correct movie file and also essential on seamless branching titles and gives an output without glitches between the files.

When doing a small amount of compression like you did on yours then using quick encoding is not so bad although it tends to come out slightly soft and usually has blocking, but when you need to do a lot of compression to take it down to fit on a single layer these 'quick encode' methods tend to do a very poor job.

I'm just pointing out Freemake's flaws for using with Blu-ray and that as it stands it doesn't do a very good job

Oh and BD rebuilder is also free

 

[Bowhunters]

Yep, as Adbear said just go here - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716 and install the latest version of BD-Rebuilder on the Doom9 forum, follow his step by step and use the provided links to install the correct versions of the Assoc. programs.

Following the provided step by step and using the provided links makes it very simple installing BD-Rebuilder.

Also as mentioned Rebuilder does a great job shrinking movie files and maintaining video quality, I do 'Movie Only' on the copies I make and i've shrunk 35-40GB movies down to fit a BD-25 and still had outstanding quality.