# Anyone RIP Blu-Ray to feed TiVo?



## jhimmel (Dec 27, 2002)

I was wondering if I got a Blu-Ray drive for my PC if I could RIP the titles and play them in HD on my S3's?

Are any of you doing this?
Recommended software?

Thanks!
Jim H.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

For any unencrypted video on your PC pyTivo works extremely well.


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## Da Goon (Oct 22, 2006)

do it all the time. have a look around the doom9 forums.


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## RonDawg (Jan 12, 2006)

While it may be technically possible, you'd quickly eat up hard drive space, you'd lose all the interactive extras, and if the disc has it you'd also lose any BD-Live features.

Also, TiVo is capable of 1080i max, so if your TV is 1080p capable you'd also be losing a bit of picture quality.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Da Goon said:


> do it all the time. have a look around the doom9 forums.


I looked around doom9, but it gets confusing very quickly. Is there any step by step guide to getting video from a Blu-Ray disc to a TiVo S3?


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## ajayabb (Jan 12, 2007)

You might get some more eyeballs in the Home Media Forum.:up:


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

generaltso said:


> I looked around doom9, but it gets confusing very quickly. Is there any step by step guide to getting video from a Blu-Ray disc to a TiVo S3?


I do it... have done it. It is *NOT* an easy process. Here is what you lose by ripping a Blu-ray and playing on TiVo.

1. No DTS or DTS-HD Uncrompressed audio
2. NO Dolby Digital HD Uncrompressed audio
3. No 6.1 or 7.1 audio
4. No BD-Live 1.1 or 2.0 features.
5. No 1080p at the high bitrates (25, 30 & even 50 mpbs or faster.)
"Horton hears a who" is 35mpbs.

I use pyTiVo to serve my Blu-ray rips to my TiVo. You can maintain the M2TS files that you rip from your blu-ray disk. Here are the issues you have.

1. The average file size is 20gb to 35gb.

2. The video encode is either MPG2, H.264 or VC1. All video has to be converted to MPG2. If the M2TS file is using MPG2 video. An average 25gb 2hour movie such as "Casino Royale" takes as much as 4 hours to transfer to your TiVo. A H.264 or VC1 encode can take as much as 8 to 10 hours for a 2 hour 25gb movie.

3. Issues that I have had include issues between what TV's/TiVo plays at (29.97fps) 30fps and what Blu-ray discs are using 24fps (23.98fps). This conversion from 24 to 30fps if not done right can create major judder once played on the TiVo.

4. Other issues that cause problems are the bitrate. When I have converted the bitrate of a blu-ray that was encoded at 30mbps down to what the TiVo an play 20mbps. Their is a *NOTICEABLE *quality loss. I have *YET *to make my Blu-ray Rips of *"LOST"* look as good as what I recorded from the original broadcast OTA channel.

As a result I currently no longer rip Blu-ray's until a easier better solution comes along. However here is my process.

1. Use anyDVD HD to rip the blu-ray to your hard drive. This takes about 1 to 2 hours.
2. Use eac3to to demux and convert DTS/DD-HD audio to DD5.1 and video file
This takes about 1 to 3 hours to complete
3. Use TSMuxer to REMUX the audio track back with the Video Track into a TS file. This can be done in about 45 min
4. Use pyTiVo to convert & Transfer the newly created TS file to your TiVo. This is the part that will take abotu 4 to 12 hours to complete.

Times are totally dependant on the speed of your hard drive, Blu-ray drive, network speed & cpu speed.

If you have further questions... please feel free to PM me.

TGC


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## berkshires (Feb 22, 2007)

Can the Series 3 Platform TiVos' hdmi port output 1080p24 for better viewing on a 120Hz TV?


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## A J Ricaud (Jun 25, 2002)

berkshires said:


> Can the Series 3 Platform TiVos' hdmi port output 1080p24 for better viewing on a 120Hz TV?


Currently 1080i/60 is the max for HiDef Tivos.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

berkshires said:


> Can the Series 3 Platform TiVos' hdmi port output 1080p24 for better viewing on a 120Hz TV?


Not currently. Some speculate that it could be done with a software/firmware update. But it has yet to happen if it can.

TGC


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Thanks for all that info TGC! So when you're all done and get the video transferred over to the TiVo is it still noticeably better than a regular DVD? Or are you better off just going with a regular DVD and being done with it?


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## berkshires (Feb 22, 2007)

generaltso said:


> Thanks for all that info TGC! So when you're all done and get the video transferred over to the TiVo is it still noticeably better than a regular DVD? Or are you better off just going with a regular DVD and being done with it?


Anything that would not be ideal from a blu-ray RIP should be just as non-ideal on a DVD RIP, ie. 24p to 60i, etc.

The BR is going to give you a much better picture due to higher resolution. Therefore BR will be superior in some ways and equal in others to DVD.


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## Aflat (Aug 29, 2005)

I do it all the time, but I do compress into a MKV file, so I do lose some quality there, but it is still better quality then the DVD's. The entire MKV is about 10-15 gigs, and if you have a device that supports MKV correctly(not tivo), you get correct sound, chapters, even subtitles, but no BDLive. But I can stream a 2 hour movie to a Tivo in almost realtime, I have to pause it for about 5 minutes, then I can play straight through.

I use AnyDVD and ripbot264. It's pretty idiot proof by default, but you can tweak it to get better settings as well.


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

TexasGrillChef said:


> ...Here is what you lose by ripping a Blu-ray and playing on TiVo....The video encode is either MPG2, H.264 or VC1. All video has to be converted to MPG2.


Not true, the Tivo plays h264 HD as well.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

generaltso said:


> Thanks for all that info TGC! So when you're all done and get the video transferred over to the TiVo is it still noticeably better than a regular DVD? Or are you better off just going with a regular DVD and being done with it?


Well that all depends on several factors. This is what I have noticed in "_*General*_". Yes, there are exceptions to the rule.

Is the Blu-ray movie your ripping filmed in HD? ie.... "Casablanca" or "Dr. NO" on blu-ray isn't going to be the same quality as say "Casino Royale" or "Iron Man" on blu-ray.

*Example...*

*1. *I have noticed when playing the DVD version of "Dr. No" and the blu-ray version of "Dr. No" on my Blu-ray player. That the blu-ray is _*MUCH*_ better than the DVD version. I own both. Although they claim to have remastered "Dr. NO" for the blu-ray release as well.

Now when I converted and transfered over the DVD version of "Dr. No" 
(6.6gb) and the Blu-ray version of "Dr. NO" (24.3gb) the *COLOUR* clairty was much better. Brighter, more vivid, more realistic, the sharpness & detail though was about the same. That is the picture sharpness and the amount of detail in the blu-ray picture and the dvd picture of the files transfered to the TiVo were about the same. The *ONLY* thing that was better in the TiVo transfer of the blu-ray copy was the *COLOUR*.

The thing about "Dr. No" though is it was filmed in 1963(?) & even though for the blu-ray release it was "re-mastered". It was still filmed prior to any "HD" capability.

*2.* I then of course tried "Casino Royale" which of course has a DVD and Blu-ray version. This film was of course filmed with the idea that it would be released in blu-ray. So things were done on the production side to keep "Casino Royale" as pristine & HD as possible.

When I converted and transferd over the copies of "Casino Royale" in the DVD version (7.3gb) and the Blu-ray version (24.8gb) the differences were the same as "Dr. NO". Colour was MUCH better on the blu-ray version than the DVD version. The sharpness and detail on the blu-ray version was better than the DVD version but honestly not that much. The improvement from DVD to Blu-ray on the sharpness and detail on "Casino Royale" was bigger improvement than on "Dr. NO" where the sharpness and detail only had minor improvement over the DVD version.

As a result... under *CURRENT* consumer available software/hardware capabilites and ease. I have decided *NOT* to bother with ripping Blu-ray's to my NAS. Why? because the time & effort needed to rip/convert/transfer the movie to my TiVo isn't worth the quality that I actually receive on my TiVo as the end result.

I don't think the fault is with TiVo. I think the main problem currently is unlike DVD's there *isn't *any one program yet that can easily rip and convert a blu-ray movie. There are *MANY* DVD programs out there that can rip & convert in one easy step, not so for Blu-ray. Once a "1 step" rip and convert program is available for Blu-ray AND the Intel I7 CPU is cheaper then I might reconsider.

I currently have both Blockbuster & Netflix plus a stand alone Blu-ray player for my Home theater system. As a result, currently it is just easier _AND_ faster to get a blu-ray movie and play it on blu-ray player than it is to rip it and save it for later. It takes about 18 hours to transfer a blu-ray movie to the TiVo. Using Blockbusters in-store exchange program I can get a blu-ray movie for no additional cost and back home before the Blu-ray transfer to the TiVo is even 5% completed!

Eventually, Someday in the future. Network, Internet speeds will be fast enough, cheap enough to be able to handle HD streaming at 50mbps and full 1080p at realtime speeds. Sadly.. that day ISN'T today.

You have asked a great question. I am surprised not more people have responded to this thread with comments, suggestions & questions.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

TGC


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

berkshires said:


> Anything that would not be ideal from a blu-ray RIP should be just as non-ideal on a DVD RIP, ie. 24p to 60i, etc.
> 
> The BR is going to give you a much better picture due to higher resolution. Therefore BR will be superior in some ways and equal in others to DVD.


Not allways.

One thing I HAVE noticed. The DVD version of a movie is always 29.97fps (30fps). The Blu-ray version of at least 30 Blu-rays I have looked at always has the frame rate at 24fps. (23.98fps).

Converting 24fps to 30fps can create some viewing issues. Some programs are better at this conversion process than others.

TiVo *CAN* Play both it seems. Although I don't think it handles 24fps very well.

Blu-ray IS better than DVD. The problem is with the SOFTWARE you use to convert the movie in to play on your TiVo.

With DVD, no reencoding need to take place. All that is needed to be done is to Join the VOB files into one file and convert to MPG. No reencoding of the Video/Audio stream needs to be done.

Blu-ray though... The Video *AND* audio stream need to be reencoded. (Exception, if the Video stream is MPG2, then theoretically you wouldn't need to reencode the video). Because their is re-encoding taking place with the Blu-ray movie stream. Quality can be affected. This is where the Software can be of importance. Some software is better than others in this coversion/Reencoding process.

One thing I HAVE noticed. Is audio quality is ALMOST ALLWAYS better from the Blu-ray rip than the DVD rip. Because the conversioon of a DTS-HD uncompressed audio, or DD-HD uncompressed audio to the AC3 (DD5.1 compressed). This of course still depends on the conversion program your using. I have used eac3to for the audio conversion.

TGC


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

Aflat said:


> I do it all the time, but I do compress into a MKV file, so I do lose some quality there, but it is still better quality then the DVD's. The entire MKV is about 10-15 gigs, and if you have a device that supports MKV correctly(not tivo), you get correct sound, chapters, even subtitles, but no BDLive. But I can stream a 2 hour movie to a Tivo in almost realtime, I have to pause it for about 5 minutes, then I can play straight through.
> 
> I use AnyDVD and ripbot264. It's pretty idiot proof by default, but you can tweak it to get better settings as well.


What program are you using to transfer to your TiVo? pyTivo or TD+?

Is your TiVo wired or wireless?

TGC


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

Laserfan said:


> Not true, the Tivo plays h264 HD as well.


I think you misunderstood. I think...

What I was trying to say is...

Blu-ray Video is either MPG2, H.264 or VC1.

TiVo will play h.264 or MPG2 video streams.

If you use pyTiVo it will convert the streams to MPG2. This at least is what my pyTiVo install is doing with H.264 streams. If pyTiVo can directly transfer the h.264 stream then I obviously do not have my pyTiVo install correctly configured.

I don't know if TD+ transfers a file to your TiVo in h.264 (Other than TiVoCast, and RSS feeds) Although it *won't *transfer a Blu-ray rip that was h.264. It converts it to MPG2.

I confirmed this directly by tranfering a h.264 file using TD+ and transfering it back. So it did convert it to MPG2 either on it's way to the TiVo or it's way back.

TGC


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

For *streaming* (without transcoding) you can use mpeg2, h.264 or a very limited variety of VC-1 AP. However coming from Blu Ray you have to select the proper audio track to go with the video. For mpeg4 with h.264 you can include the 6 channel AC3 audio track. Then you have to move the moov atom to the front of the file using qt-faststart util or similar.
For audio to accompany VC-1 AP it can only be 2 channel WMA audio so that's something you would have to generate and mux in with the video to get it working.

So at the very least to avoid transcoding you need general purpose tool to pull out the various elementary streams from the Blu Ray .m2ts file and then in some cases manipulate them and then mux them back together in the right container format.


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## husky55 (Feb 2, 2008)

I now know enough about this subject to never even attempt anything with BD. So much time, so much hassle and so little reward.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

TexasGrillChef said:


> The thing about "Dr. No" though is it was filmed in 1963(?) & even though for the blu-ray release it was "re-mastered". It was still filmed prior to any "HD" capability.
> TGC


FYI - It was filmed and not recorded. Film is better quality than any HD standard currently being used commercially so remastering from the original film will yield the best results possible. Film is the standard by which HD should be judged so if a BD movie comes even close to film quality then you've really got something remarkable. The only thing that's altered is the audio since none of the current surround recording formats were available when many classic movies were originally filmed. Your Blu-Ray version of Dr.No should definitely look better than your standard DVD version or you should return it for a refund.

For those of you that are daunted by the huge file size associated with Blu-Ray, you might be interested in checking out the latest app by jDobbs posted at Doom9 called BD-Rebuilder. jDobbs developed DVD-Rebuilder, which happens to be probably the best app available for shrinking standard DVDs with no perceptible loss of picture quality. He has brought the same magic to BD-Rebuilder in that it allows you to shrink the size of any Blu-Ray disc to fit on either a DVD-5 or DVD-9 disc with no perceptible loss of quality. You can do it on the full BD disc or select a movie only option. I tried it with The Dark Knight and the results were absolutely amazing. BD-Rebuilder is avaibale as a free download but it's currently in beta release only, so expect a few bugs to crop up. One caveat is that it takes an extremely long time to process a BD movie. The Dark Knight took 24 hours to process, but then I was doing it across a home network which no doubt slowed things down a bit.



husky55 said:


> I now know enough about this subject to never even attempt anything with BD. So much time, so much hassle and so little reward.


It's a shame then that you'll never really know what you're missing. Blu-Ray on a big-screen HDTV with a quality sound system is what home theater is all about. The time involved in dealing with Blu-Ray mostly deals with what you're doing with it. The process I described above is a set it and forget it type of process so you're only sitting in front of your PC for a few minutes to get it going. There is actually very little time spent interacting with most of the processes involved.

FWIW - uploading a Blu-Ray rip to a Tivo is counterproductive, IMHO. If you're looking for some means to rip BD discs for playback later, there are much better approaches to the method that putting them on a Tivo. I've got all my BD rips stored on an unRAID server. I can stream them to my HTPC for playback on my HDTV.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

jhimmel said:


> I was wondering if I got a Blu-Ray drive for my PC if I could RIP the titles and play them in HD on my S3's?
> 
> Are any of you doing this?
> Recommended software?
> ...


Why dont you just play it from the blu-ray player? Its lot easier


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

If Tivo sold a unit that had a Blu-Ray player I'd by several of them right now.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I don't own a BD player nor will I. Do have a drive in my workstation. All the BD that we rent or own have been transcoded to the tivo via pytivo. Full resolution and we can watch them in either the HT or bedroom HDTV. I will admit that our systems are 'only' 720P and DD5.1 but the tivo handles that just fine.

Figuring out the processing to prepare the movies for tivo took some time but now that it works, its easy and runs in the background or overnight. It is rare that I want to watch a BD the instant I have it in my hand from the postman...


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## Dancar (Oct 8, 2001)

mr.unnatural said:


> For those of you that are daunted by the huge file size associated with Blu-Ray, you might be interested in checking out the latest app by jDobbs posted at Doom9 called BD-Rebuilder. jDobbs developed DVD-Rebuilder, which happens to be probably the best app available for shrinking standard DVDs with no perceptible loss of picture quality. He has brought the same magic to BD-Rebuilder in that it allows you to shrink the size of any Blu-Ray disc to fit on either a DVD-5 or DVD-9 disc with no perceptible loss of quality. You can do it on the full BD disc or select a movie only option. I tried it with The Dark Knight and the results were absolutely amazing. BD-Rebuilder is avaibale as a free download but it's currently in beta release only, so expect a few bugs to crop up. One caveat is that it takes an extremely long time to process a BD movie. The Dark Knight took 24 hours to process, but then I was doing it across a home network which no doubt slowed things down a bit.
> 
> It's a shame then that you'll never really know what you're missing. Blu-Ray on a big-screen HDTV with a quality sound system is what home theater is all about. The time involved in dealing with Blu-Ray mostly deals with what you're doing with it. The process I described above is a set it and forget it type of process so you're only sitting in front of your PC for a few minutes to get it going. There is actually very little time spent interacting with most of the processes involved.
> 
> FWIW - uploading a Blu-Ray rip to a Tivo is counterproductive, IMHO. If you're looking for some means to rip BD discs for playback later, there are much better approaches to the method that putting them on a Tivo. I've got all my BD rips stored on an unRAID server. I can stream them to my HTPC for playback on my HDTV.


Or I could just buy a Blue Ray DVD player and connect it to my HDTV


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

Dancar said:


> Or I could just buy a Blue Ray DVD player and connect it to my HDTV


Yes, this of course works. I prefer to watch video from my tivo since I have it routed through a distribution amp that can display on all of my tvs at once. Because of this, I prefer to rip all of my DVDs to hard drive and upload to my tivo. (This will likely be true when I decide to dive into bluray.) It is also handy because it is easier to flip through a bunch of electronic names than it is to find which disc I want to watch. Obviously, to each his own. I am interested in the video manipulation and electronic storage and the ability to watch on any TV in my house, so I rip my DVDs.

Jason


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

txporter said:


> I prefer to watch video from my tivo since I have it routed through a distribution amp that can display on all of my tvs at once...


But...is it HD you're sending to all your TVs, or just SD (composite)?


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

Laserfan said:


> But...is it HD you're sending to all your TVs, or just SD (composite)?


Component.


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## Laserfan (Apr 25, 2000)

txporter said:


> Component.


:up: I hadta confirm.


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> FWIW - uploading a Blu-Ray rip to a Tivo is counterproductive, IMHO. If you're looking for some means to rip BD discs for playback later, there are much better approaches to the method that putting them on a Tivo. I've got all my BD rips stored on an unRAID server. I can stream them to my HTPC for playback on my HDTV.


I would have to agree with you currently 100%. Current TiVo standards (HW/SW) don't allow the TiVo to provide the quality and speed nessary to make playing Blu-ray rips worth the Time & effort.

I have several Promise NS4300N Raid 5 NAS systems as well. So I have plenty of storage space for my home movies, photo's, music, & DVD/BD rips.

My original idea like I am sure several other people here purpose was is to cut down on the number of "Boxes" needed in our home theater system. Much nicer to just turn on the HDTV & your TiVo and watch what you want. Then having to switch back no forth between your TiVo and "media player".

I have a popcorn hour that plays my BD rips *VERY* nicely. Just don't really want to buy 2 more for my other TV's as well. Especially since those I really would prefer a 1 box does everything type solution.

My true solution for now... is to just keep playing my Blu-rays on my Blu-ray player. One thing it will do that you won't get from any Blu-ray Rip... is BD-Live 2.0!

However.... Give it time... in a few years I think the TiVo will easily be able to handle a Blu-ray rip.

TGC


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

txporter said:


> Yes, this of course works. I prefer to watch video from my tivo since I have it routed through a distribution amp that can display on all of my tvs at once. Because of this, I prefer to rip all of my DVDs to hard drive and upload to my tivo. (This will likely be true when I decide to dive into bluray.) It is also handy because it is easier to flip through a bunch of electronic names than it is to find which disc I want to watch. Obviously, to each his own. I am interested in the video manipulation and electronic storage and the ability to watch on any TV in my house, so I rip my DVDs.
> 
> Jason


I currently do that as well with my SD-DVD's, Home Movies, Family Photos, Music collection. I have several Raid 5 NAS systems that keep everythign nice and easy. DVD rips maintain full quality when riped and transfered to the TiVo.

I would love to do Blu-ray as well. However.... There is to much *QUALITY *loss in process. At least with *MOST* of the movies I want to watch on Blu-ray anyways. TiVo currently _can't_ decode/play uncompressed audio, DTS audio, or 6.1/7.1 surround either.

Eventually some day... we will have it all in our TiVos... just not today. 

TGC


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## NullQwerty (Jan 20, 2009)

TexasGrillChef said:


> Their is a *NOTICEABLE *quality loss. I have *YET *to make my Blu-ray Rips of *"LOST"* look as good as what I recorded from the original broadcast OTA channel





generaltso said:


> Thanks for all that info TGC! So when you're all done and get the video transferred over to the TiVo is it still noticeably better than a regular DVD? Or are you better off just going with a regular DVD and being done with it?





berkshires said:


> Anything that would not be ideal from a blu-ray RIP should be just as non-ideal on a DVD RIP, ie. 24p to 60i, etc.
> 
> The BR is going to give you a much better picture due to higher resolution. Therefore BR will be superior in some ways and equal in others to DVD.





TexasGrillChef said:


> Not allways.





TexasGrillChef said:


> Well that all depends on several factors





TexasGrillChef said:


> DVD rips maintain full quality when riped and transfered to the TiVo.


Great thread...just trying to sort this out. I know that BluRay rips played on the Tivo have quality issues. What's the final word on DVD rips though? From the quotes above, at first it seemed like DVD rips also have quality issues and are not as good as an OTA channel recording. But then at the end it seemed like DVD rips play just as good as if you had the original disc in a DVD player.

So, for DVD rips, is there any video or audio quality loss when playing it from a rip using the Tivo, versus playing the original disc in a DVD player (assuming when you rip it, you don't compress it)? Also, are the colors, sharpness, detail, etc. just as good?

Thanks!


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