How do you rip movie bonus discs/extras?

[RedPill]

I'm curious what software and settings you use to rip the bonus disc and extras from a movie (bluray bonus discs)?

I'm especially interested in the settings you'd use for such.

[RobertX]

The same way you would rip a DVD for its movie.

Fire up a DVD ripper program like Handbrake (www.handbrake.fr), have it load the disc, pick which segment you want (typically each bonus clip is a segment in itself), and make it do the job.

EDIT: Remember that most retail discs have encryptions and region coding. Get something like AnyDVD or, in GNU/Linux, get the libdvdcss library installed before you use a ripper.

[cuteputta]

rip the disc with a dvd ripper but I recommend Handbrake and Format Factory

[RobertX]

Is Format Factory free?

Just wondering.

[bob5695]

OP is talking about ripping blurays, not dvds.

[RobertX]

As far as I heard, Handbrake does Blu-Rays too.

[RedPill]

Thanks for the replies. I've got handbrake, I'm just curious what quality settings the "pros" use for the extras.

And in the same vein, I guess I'm sort of asking how the pros rip their blurays -- like, do they mostly use Handbrake? And then particularly, what qualities/settings do the pros use?

e.g., do they prefer constant bitrates or variable? Multiple passes? RF setting? x264 "tune"? H.264 "Profile"? H.264 "Level"?

[mubshrali]

i use Handbrake and Format Factory ........

[gcjm]

Thanks for the replies. I've got handbrake, I'm just curious what quality settings the "pros" use for the extras.

And in the same vein, I guess I'm sort of asking how the pros rip their blurays -- like, do they mostly use Handbrake? And then particularly, what qualities/settings do the pros use?

e.g., do they prefer constant bitrates or variable? Multiple passes? RF setting? x264 "tune"? H.264 "Profile"? H.264 "Level"?

Encoding settings are subjective and tend to be defined by the encoder's intentions, specs and understanding.

Most blu-ray main features are simple encodes. By simple I mean that they are presented as 'progressive' film at 23.976 fps / 24 fps / 25 fps. As such there is no need for inverse telecine, deinterlacing, deblending, understanding of field orders, MBAFF encodes, etc. This is true of most modern releases..

Blu-ray extras aren't always 'progressive', they are sometimes presented at 29.97 fps, may be interlaced, require inverse telecine, they may be encoded using MBAFF (macroblock-adaptive frame-field), which means there will be some serious tweaking involved. Particularly when it comes to old movies with old extras, or releases with extras scratched together from various sources and countries. New mainstream releases don't tend to have this issue.

I've spotted "pros" using Handbrake, but more serious encoders would use MeGui, or a software which allows comprehensive tweaking of x264 and the film's frames. There are plenty available, of varying epicness.

x264 is complex. The best way to learn is to dive in, read, practice, review, read some more, practice, etc. Handbrake is a tool which allows just that. Drop in a source file press go and out comes an encoded video. Handbrake is somewhat tweakable; the advanced settings allow the user to script additional x264 parameters, but not enough for 'serious' encoding and not enough for some blu-ray extras.
MeGui is a more advanced tool for tweaking x264, field order, frame rates and plenty more. It allows users to create AviSynth scripts which can deal with inverse telecine, ghosting, blending and endless other problems which come with encoding.

Want to know the "pro's" settings?
Grab a copy of MediaInfo. Open a downloaded movie from an encoder you appreciate and you'll see a list of x264 parameters, like this:

Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:-3:-3 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=4 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=4 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=9956 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=40000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

Then this will help > http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/X264_Settings

It's a learning curve.
If you're happy to 'just get involved' then handbrake is an excellent start off point with 'professional' results.. If you want to get 'up to your eyeballs' in x264 you'll need a more serious tool, such as MeGui (not to imply that MeGui is complicated, but it does allow you to focus on every step of the encode whereas handbrake prefers to 'take care' of things itself).

You could have everyone post their personal settings and scripts (not that I think folks would do), but I can almost guarantee they will all be differing for various reasons. One man's meat, etc.