Overview | Guide | Tech Spec | Review
I have tons of Blu-rays and I keep collecting them all the time such as the newest Spectre 007, The Martian, Spotlight, etc. Sometimes, I backup several Blu-rays to MP4 so that I can watch the movies on my Macbook on the airplane on a business trip. Also, I rip Blu-rays to my Synology DS412+ to stream Blu-ray movies on bedroom TV sets without using Blu-ray Player. Blu-ray is fragile, easy-to-destroyed and expensive if you have bought many. So I often backup Blu-rays and I have tried considerable Blu-ray Ripper applications.
In the many great Blu-ray ripping software, of what impressed me is Pavtube BDMagic. It performed so perfectly in Blu-ray ripping work: fast, easy-to-operation, original quality preserving, rich outputs. A 50GB Blu-ray in 1920×1080 resolution can be downscale to 25 GB movie in MP4 format with original resolution by extracting the main movie and removing extra info in discs, reviews, ads, chapter info, etc. If your devices or media player supports H.265 codec, or your TV is 4K TV, you can get smaller size with high resolution cause H.265 video save half bandwidth over H.264 video on the same video quality. Pavtube BDMagic outputs H.265 MP4, H.265 MKV.
Pavtube BDMagic also outputs 3D SBS video. It will be a surprise feature if you have a VR Headsets or 3D TV. You have 3D MP4, MKV, WMV, AVI, MOV to choose and you can adjust 3D depth by yourselves. Nowadays, streaming Blu-ray on HD TV via TV Box like Apple TV, Himedia Q10 Pro, Nvidia Shield through NAS is popular and Pavtube BDMagic can rip Blu-ray to Apple TV preset and other format for TV Box.
Rip any 2D/3D Blu-rays to 2D/3D video for 3D devices
Pavtube BDMagic is feature-rich in 3D video. It can rip 2D Blu-ray disc, 2D BD ISO, 3D Blu-ray disc, 3D BD ISO to 3D SBS MP4, 3D TB MP4, 3D Anaglyph MP4, 3D SBS MKV, 3D TB MKV, 3D Anaglyph MKV, 3D SBS WMV, 3D TB WMV, 3D Anaglyph WMV, etc. You can choose HSBS MP4, Full SBS video for your VR devices.
Firstly, you should download and install Pavtube BDMagic on your computer. Then insert your Blu-ray discs to Blu-ray drive. Open Pavtube BDMagic and find “File” icon to load 2D/3D Blu-ray movies. Pavtube BDMagic can convert 2D Blu-ray to 3D video, rip 3D Blu-ray to normal 2D video. So no matter which form Blu-ray you input, you can choose any 2D/3D video as your needs from “Format” drop-down list. 
After selected right 2D or 3D format for your multimedia players, you can choose “3DLR” , “3DLRF” , “3DTB” , “3DTBF” and 3D depth to get video more fitting in your devices. For example, if you chose 3D SBS MKV for your Gear VR, you can choose Side by Side (Half-Width) 3D or Side by Side (Full) 3D and adjust 3D depth to get more vivid 3D enjoyment on Gear VR. 
More authentic 3D effect also depends on the video bitrate, frame rate, size. And right audio codec and bitrate can make your audio play without any hassle. In Pavtube BDMagic Settings window, you can adjust A/V parameters. Here we also take Gear VR as the instance. If you want to create 3D SBS video for Gear VR, we recommend using 1280×720 HD resolution to encode your videos. Higher resolutions will not provide any better quality, meaning you’ll waste space and processing power.
We also recommend using a higher bit rate than a typical web stream at that resolution, as the pixels in your video will be magnified on the phone’s screen. The optimal bit rate is content dependent, and many videos can get by with less, but 5 Mb/s should give good quality.
While H.264 is the recommended video coding, H.265 videos can also be played. So if you want a smaller size, you can change video codec to H.265.
3D movies should be encoded “full side-by-side” with a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio. Content mastered at 1920×1080 compressed side -by- side 3D should be resampled to 1920×540 resolution full side -by -side resolution.
Related Tips:
- Watch 3D movies on Gear VR via Galaxy S7/S7 Edge
- 3D Movie on VR Headset Playback Guides, Tips and Solutions
- Media Formats Supported by Gear VR Software
Rip Blu-ray to Apple TV 4/3 with Original Quality
As we mentioned above, streaming Blu-ray via TV Box on Smart TV gets more and more popular. I have an Apple TV 3 and I used to rip my Blu-rays to Plex then stream Blu-ray movies to ATV on my Samsung Smart TV. The key step is to choose right format for Apple TV and the video should be supported by your HD TV simultaneously. Just load the Blu-ray movies by “Load from Disc” button in “File”. Then open Format window. Fortunately, Pavtube BDMagic gives me the optimized preset for my Apple TV 3. 
If you are using Apple TV 4, don’t worry, the preset is also suitable for ATV 4. Or you can select HD MP4 from “HD Video” and adjust profile parameters in Settings. Presets like video size, bitrate, frame rate, audio sample rate, channels can be customized to achieve a better video enjoyment on Samsung TV via Apple TV. Please make sure the audio codec is AAC. For high resolution, adjust video size to 1080p. As for perfect audio effect, keep audio channel to 5.1 sound. after all settings, simply click on “Convert” to extract Apple TV video from Blu-rays. You can store the Blu-ray rips to your Synology DS216, DS1515+, DS416/DS216play/DS216se, etc to stream to ATV later. 
Apple TV Articles:
- No 5.1 surround sound from Apple TV.
- Ripping Blu-Ray To Apple TV 4 On NAS With 7.1 Channels
- Make Apple TV 4 Stream 4K House Of Cards
Rip Blu-ray to H.265(HEVC) and Keep 7.1 sound
H.265/HEVC is a cutting-edge, high-efficiency video codec that’s particularly useful for streaming 4K video. H.265 has several big advantages over H.264, including better compression, delicate image and bandwidth saving. Since my Himedia Q10 Pro supports H.265/HEVC codec so I rip Blu-ray to H.265 video. If your devices or TV doesn’t handle H.265, try not to choose H.265 MP4 as the output. 
There are some tips in ripping Blu-ray to H.265 with Pavtube BDMagic. For subtitles, you can choose desired subtitle at the bottom of the chapter list. You also can add external srt subtitle to Blu-ray movies. As for audio, when you have English, Chinese, Spanish, etc several audio track, you can keep one track at “Audio” choice on the interface. And if your original Blu-ray has 5.1 and 7.1 sound, you can keep it in audio channel choices of “Settings” windows. At the top interface, there is an icon like a pencil, clicking it to open “Edit” window. There you can remove, mute, replace audio and add subtitle.
H.265 Related Articles:
- How To Play H.265/HEVC On Roku 3/4 Without Any Hassle?
- Transcode H.265 To H.264 For Playback On LG TV
- Covert H.265 Music Videos To Full Ms 2008 Server For Home Theater
MakeMKV, DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper and Pavtube BDMagic?
As I said before, I tried many Blu-ray Ripper and a little DVD Ripper since I also have some DVDs. Apart from Pavtube BDMagic, I think there are another two Blu-ray ripping tools that impressed me. One of is MakeMKV and another is DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper.
MakeMKV does really a good job for me for Blu-rays, and it is now upgraded to support for latest versions of AACS and BD+, for now it’s AACS v58. However, Pavtube BDMagic is able to do all MakeMKV can do for ripping Blu-rays and DVDs. If MKV is only choise, both MakeMKV and Pavtube BDMagic won’t let you down. If not, you will probably have to rip Blu-rays twice to get a needed format since MakeMKV only can convert Blu-ray MKV. If you want MP4, you need to transcode the MKV files to MP4 with Handbrake. This will take much longer for the second conversion even thought ripping Blu-ray discs to MKV is fast with MakeMKV. Besides, does MakeMKV support 3D MKV output for your 3D devices? You will know it.
DVDFab Blu-ray Riper is quite limited as well. But it does fulfill a lot of customers’ needs: to decrypt and then free watch any Blu-rays. It even allows you to playback 3D Blu-rays on a 2D display. But an annoying thing is that you need to pay for DVD ripping function and Blu-ray ripping function respectively. And its size is bigger than Pavtube BDMagic. 
Besides above shortness, the most important thing is that I tried too many times to install DVDFab cause each time I install it, I get the message. It is REALLY bothersome! 
A simply comparison chart here:
| Software | MakeMKV | Pavtube BDMagic | DVDFab |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | free | $39.2 | $60 |
| Input File Formats | |||
| Blu-ray Disc/BDMV Folder/ISO Image | √ | √ | √ |
| DVD Disc/Video_TS Folder/IFO/ISO Image | √ | √ | √ |
| Output File Formats | |||
| MKV | √ | √ | √ |
| SD/HD AVI/WMV/MP4/MOV/FLV/VOB/3GP | – | √ | √ |
| H.265 MP4/MKV | – | √ | √ |
| 3D Video | – | √ | √ |
| Copy Features | |||
| 1:1 Full Disc Copy | – | √ | √ |
| Main Movie Copy | – | √ | √ |
| Subtitle Functions | |||
| Select Desired Internal Subtitle Language | – | √ | – |
| Enable Force Subtitle Option | – | √ | – |
| Add External SRT/ASS/SSA Subtitle | – | √ | – |
| Audio Functions | |||
| Keep 5.1 Dolby Digtial Audio | – | √ | – |
| Keep 7.1 Dolby Digtial Plus or DTS Audio | – | √ | – |
| Video Editing Features (trim/crop/merge/split/crop/watermark/effect) | – | √ | – |
In short
Pavtube BDMagic is more powerful than MakeMKV, DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper. It can perfectly rip Blu-ray to any digital files and create backups of Blu-rays with two ways (entire disc copy and directly main title copy). If you have Blu-rays, no matter for wide streaming or just disc protection, Pavtube BDMagic can help you achieve all the goals.
Related Articles:
Really good Blu-ray Ripper BDMagic is. I purchased it 1 year ago but recently I updated it to ByteCopy for multi-track output.