Blu-ray to NAS

Revised June 2, 2012


I've had a lot to learn getting music and video files stored on and playable from my network.

• After several months I finally realized the players I've been using were not capable of DTS-HD Master Audio or of multi-channel PCM.  I was looking at the WDTV Live Plus forum to see if my WDTV supports 7.1, and I found that it doesn't support DTS-HDMA. I was getting up to 6.1 DTS, but not lossless Master Audio, and no 7.1.  This prompted me to give MPC-HT another try. After quite a bit of setup configuration, I now see DTS-HD Mstr on my receiver 
• Full Disk / ISO copy assures that will have useable file(s). Also any extras that may someday want to see.  Lacking a good ISO copy, ISTM could copy undamaged chapters from 2 discs and combine into single movie file
• TSMuxeR works much faster when using unencrypted source (incl mounted .iso) than when using Passkey source
• Beware if 1st stream file in a playlist has no audio.  TSMuxeR and DVDFab output may have no audio at all!
• It's entirely possible to bypass ISO creation and TSMuxeR, and feed DVDFab output directly to Handbrake for MKV creation
• Handbrake will not "passthru" THD or LPCM.  For THD, use mkvmerge to combine HB video with audio track from .m2ts.  For LPCM, let HB encode to "Flac (ffmpeg)" (mkvmerge does not recognize LPCM tracks)
• LAV Audio Decoder used by MPC-HT does not bitstream (i.e. pass-through) LPCM (from .m2ts file) or FLAC.  The output codec for both is PCM (ISTM there should be zero quality loss)
• If Sound > Realtek HDMI Output > Configure is set to 7.1, 5.1 PCM output will go to the back rather than the side speakers!  The workaround for this bug is to configure as 5.1 unless 7.1 is needed for a (rare) 7.1 PCM output (3:10 to Yuma is my only example).  This brings up several things of interest (applies to both PCs):
• With PC Sound configured to 7.1, RX-V867 shows 3/4/0.1 for 5.1 or 7.1 PCM
• The Realtek 5.1 speaker configuration incorrectly shows the speaker icons in the back, 7.1 shows all properly. The 5.1 speaker configuration test properly outputs to the side speakers
• Perhaps some future Realtek driver update will properly handle the situation of 7.1 speaker setup with 5.1 PCM source.
• An alternative to all of this would be to convert any 7.1 LPCM to a format that could be bitstreamed.  However Handbrake has a maximum "6 Channel Discrete" Mixdown option for AC3 (ffmpeg).
• MPC-HC installation notes (May 21,2012):  I installed MPC-HC on my recent HTPC build, which will become the primary way I watch .mkv movies.  Up until now, I have been using my "main" PC, connected to the receiver with HDMI over Cat5e.  MPC-HC installaton is not "hard" once understood, but can be extremely confusing because most people including myself do not use it as a completely "stand alone" program, and there are many different possible configurations.  The following is what I have done on both PCs.
• Download and install LAV filters (curent now is LAVFilters-0.50.5.exe)  I choose x64 files only, but for some reason the installation went to the Program Files (x86) directory on the HTPC only (maybe I had specified on the other PC)
• Download dtsdecoderdll.dll and place it in the LAV Filters\x64 directory.  I had a version of this file as part of the ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme software that came with my Hauppauge HD-DVR.  That version is probably fine, but I got the later version anyway.
• Download and install MPC-HC (64bit).  I unchecked "translations" during install.
• on first run, get message "Please download and install the latest DirectX runtime"
• Download and run dxwebsetup.exe (latest is v.9.29.1974 4/18/2011)
• This appears to install a lot of "old" files, but search shows that this is correct and is indeed needed by MPC-HC.  It is interesting that the install only took a few minutes on the HTPC.  I remember a much longer process on the other machine
• Make the following changes to MPC-HC options:
• Internal Filters, uncheck: Matroska and MPEG/PS/TS/PVA
• External Filters, add: LAV Splitter, LAV Splitter Source, LAV Audio Decoder.  Set all of these to "Prefer"
• Double click LAV Audio Decoder.  Check all Bitstreaming Formats, but NOT "Use DTS-HD Framing for all DTS types"  Update: do not check Dolby Digital (AC3) or Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3).  If these are checked, will get no audio for these formats.  There may be something I'm not getting right which causes this to need to be done.
• In Sound > Playback, check HDMI Output Properties (see note above re 7.1 & 5.1 PCM)

Win 7 boot after image restore or partition re-size

Revised: April 22, 2012
A problem occurs when restore a bootable partition image to another location and then boot from that location.  The partition which was the boot partition when the image was made will retain the C: drive designation, and the new boot partition will assign itself another letter.  This is a “schizophrenic” system – who knows where new software would install, etc.

The classic fix for this problem is to unplug the original drive before the first boot of the “new” partition.  A more elegant regedit procedure follows, including other routine steps required:

-                  Restore image to new partition

-                  The new partition will have the same name as the original.  Rename it to my standard “DriveID Partition#”

-                  Verify that it is set as active partition

-                  Assuming the new partition now is x:, “bcdboot x:\windows /s x:” (check: bcdedit /store x:\boot\bcd). This is not necessary if are also restoring the 100MB System partition and marking it as active

-                 Regedit

-             Click Hkey_Local_Machine

-             Click File / Load Hive

-             X:\Windows\System32\Config\System (i.e. registry to modify)  (live registry is HKLM\System\Mounted Devices)

-             “Give the baby a name” like XXX

-              Open the key HKLM/XXX/Mounted Devices

-              Fix any problem, or just delete them all (can’t delete (default))
   -   Remove C: from source partition
   -   Add C: to target (or will happen during first boot?)

-              Click XXX

-              Click File / Unload Hive

-                     Restart, edit BIOS to boot from new partition

The "normal" way to use Acronis is to image the current boot partition, but I've always had a gut feeling that it may somehow be better to image my primary (SSD) Windows installation while booted from elsewhere. I will probably continue to do both as long as I continue to multi-boot.


If the restore is due to a disk boot failure but files are still accessible, consider copying the following:
  -  Bookmarks
  -  Desktop
  -  Taskbar (pinned)
  -  Start menu (all locations, incl pinned)


I should remind myself here to be more diligent about test restores.  My SSD stopped booting 4/4/2012, but restores of recent backups revealed many orphaned files and would not boot. I.e. the file system was damaged in a way that it would still boot, but not image properly. The most recent backup I had that would restore and boot was from 2/25/2012, and even that had chkdsk errors for unindexed files.


Related to this, I should also remind myself not to rely on a "testing" partition for very long, as it becomes more difficult to transfer back to the active (SSD) installation.


Separately, not resulting from a restore, I had non-boot and "This Copy of Windows Is Not Genuine" issues after using EaseUS to re-size one of my Win7 partitions. Following the above procedures fixed. (I assume the problems resulted from the partition GUID changing)