BELOW IS THE OLD INFO....
Ok we all know that mkv2vob is a great program and does many things but it uses a trick just to remux the video to get it to stream to a ps3 which does save time when it works and keeps the original quality. The trick uses TSmuxer to set the AVC lvl in the header to 4.1 which SOMETIMES works with the ps3. Problem is that most 1080p mkvs are encoded with more than 4 frames per reference which bluray hardware and ps3's cannot handle. Also sometimes even 720p mkvs have stuttering or playback issues while just being remuxed. Now mkv2vob does allow you to reencode but it is mpeg2 format which increases the size normally and causes very bad streaming due to the lack of compression. So one use of the following would be to get your video streams bluray complant if your having issues with mkv2vob.
Another use for doing this is of course is to make a AVCHD disk which will play off of a DVD-9 or even a DVD-5 on a bluray AVCHD compatable playback device such as the PS3 and many standalone BD players out there. A big advantage of using AVCHD opposed to just playing a file is the ability for DTS (possibly LPCM 5.1 when TSmuxer supports it) as well as AC3. Also on a AVCHD at least on the PS3 you can have toggible subtitles.
So the optimal solution will be to reencode the video stream from the MKV using x264 encoder into a Blu-ray compliant stream. I will show doing this by using MEGUI front end, you could expireement with other programs that are simular such as Ripbot.
Let us begin our discussion..
1. Extract streams with Mkvextract
Use Mkvextract wizard to extract Video, Audio, and optionally .srt subtitle streams from your .mkv file. We will just concentrate on the video stream here.
2. Determine MKV video size with mediainfo
You want to use medioinfo to look at your .mkv now and determine the size of the video (this is critically important). If the size is anything other than 1280x720 or 1920x1080 then you wil have to resize the video to one of the above resolutions. Many MKVs are cropped horizontally to save space if they are letterbox, so you must look at the resolution wiht mediainfo to see what the 2nd number is. if its 1280x528 for example that means that 96 borders need to be added to the top and bottom to make it compliant:
720-528=192 192/2=96 (formula using 720 or 1080 as the left number depending on your resolution, subtracting the actual height as the second number then dividing by 2 to get your border sizes). remember this number as you will have to add a addborders statement to your avs script you will be creating later.
Also if you are burining this to a dvd-5 or dvd-9 then look at the movie length and make a note of it.
Ok heres where I am going off on a tangent but if your using a dvd-5 or dvd-9 to burn with. I strongly recommend you use 720p resolution even if your source is 1080p. this is due to the limited bitrate you have to use to shrink the size down to get it to fit on a dvd-9 or dvd-5. You can resize the video down to 720p in your avs script also.
3. Mux extracted stream with TSmuxer into a M2TS container
after you extracted the video stream you most likely want to remux it back into a .mt2s file with TSmuxer (do not worry about the audio) just mux the video into a .m2ts file. The reason for this is many times DirectShow has issues with MKV files loaded directly.
4. Create a .AVS Script to use with MEGUI
once you have your remuxed .m2ts file you can begin with your x264 frontend which I will show using megui. the first thing you need to do is create a .avs script. A .avs script is nothing more that a text file with a .avs extension that avisynth uses to do things (avisynth should be installed when you install megui). To create a .avs script you just open notepad and type in commands. The ones I use mainly are used below and should be all you need to resize and/or add borders.
first line should look like below subtituting video.m2ts with the name of your remuxed m2ts file in step 3 above. The 23.96 framerate is standard for bluray if your video is a different framerate you may get by with using a different framerate but it will not be 100% bluray compliant.
Code:
DirectShowSource("C:video.m2ts",fps=23.9759856527702,audio=false)
if you are just loading the video and not resizing it or adding borders then the above line is all you need. save the file as whatever name you want to give it with a .avs extension.
If you need to resize you should add the following 2nd line (again I strongly recommend you resize 1080p sources to AVCHD down to 720p).
the following is to resize a 1920x1080 video down to 720p for your 2nd line of code.
Code:
Lanczos4Resize(1280,720)
If the source is cropped and you just want to restore the borders to make it compliant then use the following code as your 2nd line. Note: The border numbers were calculated using step 2 fomula.
Code:
addborders(0,96,0,96)
If the source is cropped and you want to resize it down to 720p from lets say 1080p then you would use the following for line 2. Note: that the 528 was the original size determined by looking at the mkv with mediainfo in step 2. and the borders were calculated using step 2 fomula.
Code:
Lanczos4Resize(1280,528).addborders(0,96,0,96)
Save your file with a .avs extension.
5. Encode file with MEGUI
Note: Before you open MEGUI make sure to get XolocoTuxmaster's bluray profiles and put them in MEGUI's profiles\video directory first.
Open megui and next to the avisynth script are click on the ... button and browse for the .avs script you created in step 4 above. there should be a delay and a preview of the video should be displayed on a window. Close the preview window leaving megui still open. note: If you do not see this preview then you have done something wrong with the .avs file or there is something not right with your source.
Choose RAWAVC in the file format dropdown on the main MEGUI window.
Choose SA-Bluray profile from the video profile dropdown on the main MEGUI window (if you do not see it then look at note above to put the profile in the correct area).
Now we need to determine what bitrate we are going to need to fit the video on either a dvd-5 or dvd-9 (if you are just going to stream this file or copy it to the ps3 then you can skip this step).
I use Bincsofts Bitrate calculator to determine what maximum bitrate I can use to fit on a dvd-5 or dvd-9. open the calculator and change the output size to either dvd-5 or dvd-9 then enter in the length of the movie that you determined in step 2 using mediainfo. Add at least 6 minutes to the length of the movie to account for the slightly bigger m2ts output (add additional 1 minute if also having subtitles). ie movie length is 1:30:00 so enter 1:37:00 minutes for a movie with subtitles. Now determine the sound quality by using custom and enter in the bitrate (use 630 kbits per sec. for AC3, or 1536 kbits per sec. for DTS for example). the resulting encode at XXXX (Kilobits per sec.) bitrate displayed is what you need from this take note of that number.
Now in MEGUI click the config button next to the bluray video profile and look at the bitrate entry field on the first tab. Enter the number that bincsoft calculated (most likely it will be lower than the default 8000 if using a dvd-5 or could be higher if using a dvd-9). Click ok to close the config. If it asks for you to update you can if you want.
Then click the enqueue button next to the video profile. This will add the job to the second tab of the main MEGUI window.
Now click on the Queue tab on the main MEGUI window and click start to start the encode. This may take a while depending the speed of your computer and how much you are compressing (generally for a 2 hour movie it takes my 3ghz. core2 duo about 3 hours).
6. BD compliant video stream
You now have a bluray compliant video stream and can use TSmuxer (with audio stream and optionally a sup file) to either create a .ts/.m2ts file that plays on the ps3 (have to rename the .m2ts to .mpg or somthing that the ps3 likes though) or most importantly you can use TSmuxer to create a BD structure.
