Final Cut Pro X supports importing directly from a large amount of popular camcorders or digital still cameras. But as for Canon XF footages, this becomes a bit tacky that you can not natively import and edit .mxf wrapped footage from the XF100, XF105, XF300 and XF305 cameras in FCP X flawlessly. A newbie may feel disappinted when the FCP X failed to import recordings from Canon XF105 or XF300 while experienced users will convert the Canon MXF to something Final Cut Pro X can edit natively, say Apple ProRes 422 encoded MOV format. Along with some help from the third-party software. Video Converter Varies, a recommended one is Pavtube MXF to ProRes Converter for Mac.

Specially designed for video zealots who use Mac OS (Compatible with Mac OS X Lion), this program helps you encode your clips with Apple ProRes 422 (FCP 6 or above is recommended), Apple ProRes 4444 (*.mov), Rewrap (*.mov), DV-PAL (*.MOV), Apple InterMedia Codec (*.mov), Avid DNxHD (*.mov), DVCPRO50-PAL/NTSC (*.mov), etc. Then you can import the output files in Final Cut Pro X directly without rendering, but you should make sure you select the right codec and parameters to encode. Below is how.

Guide -Transcode Canon XF MXF footage to Apple ProRes 422 for Final Cut Pro X under Mac OS X Lion

Step 1. Install and run this MXF to Final Cut Pro X Converter to your Mac Lion, add you video files.

Step 2. Click on “Format“, select “Final Cut Pro” category, then choose “Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)”.

Tips. The video and codecs are all from the FCP X you installed into your Mac, so the output quality is FCP X level.

Step 3. Start converting Canon mxf footage to FCP X ProRes by clicking “Convert”.

Some more helpful features of the app:

1. Settings- click to set video resolution(1920×1080/1440×1080/1280×720/720×480), bitrate（from 1Mbps to 20Mbps）, frame rate (24p/30p)

2. Editor (next to “Add” icon)- click to set deinterlace, denoise, mute, volume up, trim, crop, etc.

Load/Import converted Canon XF MXF footage to Final Cut Pro X

Step 1. Start up Final Cut Pro X, follow “File > Import > Files”.

Step 2. Browse to the converted .mov video in the “Import Files” window. Press “Open” at the right bottom.

Once the conversion completes, you can can import Canon MXF footage to Final Cut Pro X successfully and get down to video editing.

When talking about HD media player, you must think of the WD TV Live Plus, Popcorn Hour or Apple TV, but have you heard of LaCinema Classic HD? The LaCinema Classic HD is a perfect HD multimedia hard drive player which combines Full HD 1080p playback with excellent format compatibility and DLNA media server functionality. It supports to play almost all the video formats, but Blu-ray is not included. The reason is simple. Blu-ray movies can only be played in special Blu-ray players.

So, does it mean that you can not play Blu-ray movies on LaCinema Classic HD? No, you can rip Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD for enjoying. What you need is to convert Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD compatible video: Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper – the best Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD ripper.

With Pavtube Blu-ray to HD Media Player ripper, you can easily rip Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD with high video quality for playing. So, Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper is also called LaCinema Classic HD Blu-ray video converter.

Guide: Convert Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD without quality loss

To be prepared: Download a trial of Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper. If your computer hasn’t Blu-ray drive, you’ll need to connect an external Blu-ray drive before conversion.

Step 1: Run Pavtube LaCinema Classic HD Blu-ray video converter, and click “Load Disc” button to import Blu-ray movie files from copy-protected Blu-ray Disc.

Step 2: Click the format bar under the file list, then you will find many output formats for you to choose from. Here you are recommended to choose HD Video >> MKV HD Video (*.mkv).

Step 3: Click the convert button to start to convert Blu-ray to LaCinema Classic HD MKV video. After the conversion, you get click the open button to get the converted MKV videos on your hard drive of PC.

Last Step: Play 1080p MKV on HDTV with Lacie Classic HD

Play ripped Blu-ray movie on your HDTV in two easy steps: connect the 2TB hard drive of LaCinema Classic HD to your computer to easily store your movies, and then connect LaCinema Classic HD to your TV for instant playback. You’ll be able to store and enjoy your 1080p MKV and many more file types on any TV. As lossless Blu-ray conversion takes up more than 4TB, you’re advised to use NTFS file system to store ripped 1080p MKV into external HDD.

SubRip allows you to rip DVD subtitles with their timing as a text file. It converts vobsub(sub and idx) to srt text subtitles(vobsub to srt / sub to srt / subtosrt / sub2srt ) at ease. Yet the program can do more for you. In fact it is capable of converting Blu-ray .sup subtitles to .srt as well with OCR option. Below is some info about the Subtitle Converter – SubRip

PROS:
Rips DVD Subs, Image Subs, PNG Subs, and HARD-CODED SUBS!
Learns well when training.
Can be modified (using semi-source) by knowledgeable user to do non-Latin text.

CONS:
Hard to extend to non-latin text by average user
OCR has difficulty reading the odd Sub file now and then. Indispensable tool for foreign language films.
Slower than some rippers.

Compatible OS:
Windows XP, 2000, Vista

Guide- Converting PGS .sup subtitles to .srt using SupRip .
SupRip v1.16 Download (Windows ONLY, Mac users you can have a try with this app if you’re ripping Blu-ray to Mac, which lets you convert Blu-ray .sup subtitles straightly from Blu-ray Disc)

1. Start SupRip, load the SUP file with the “Open” button.

2. Click “Auto-OCR” to automatically scan the whole file and leave any unknown characters alone.

3. Go to the SRT tab

4. Review the subtitles and statistics. Change some options there if you want.

5. Save the SRT file with the “Save” button

How to name multiple srt files so that the language shows to select:
1) name the subtitles exactly as the video stream. E.g. 00033.m2ts-> 00033.srt
2) give an id to subtitles with different languages. E.g. name English subtitles xxx.en.srt and German subtitles xxx.de.srt

What’s annoying- there are lots of spelling mistakes and indistinguishable characters when Auto-OCR is used, and you have to proof and correct them one by one.

Alternative PGS subtitles tool download- BDSup2Sub (details in Doom9 forum)

Alternative Blu-ray ripping tool download- ByteCopy (which converts PGS to VOBSUB when ripping Blu-ray to MKV-guide)

Reference: homehdmediaplayer.com

PlayStation 3, PS3 in short, is not only an expensive game console but also an excellent video player. It is regarded as the best, most value-added and full-featured Blu-ray player. Moreover, PS3 can be connected with several kinds of external devices, such as Video iPod, Sony Memory Stick, CF Card, SD Card, Mini SD Card, Hard Disk and USB Flash Drive. So you can add your loved compatible-videos to the devices and play them on PS3. Then how to get movies off Blu-ray Discs for playback with PS3? Don’t fret! Just get some help from the third-party software If you wanna rip/stream Blu-ray to PS3 and create your own favorite movie collections.

As mentioned above, in order to put and play Blu-ray movies on your PS3, we need to use a 3rd party tool to rip and convert Blu-ray movies to PS3 compatible formats. Blu-ray ripping software varies. When it comes to getting the raw content of a Blu-ray disc onto your PlayStation 3, Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper is about as good as it gets. It is easy to use for editing and conversion and makes great quality copies of my Blu-rays for PS3 playback. To summarize in short, Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper equals to: Blu-ray to PS3 ripper + Blu-ray to PS3 converter + Blu-ray editor + Blu-ray disc burner.

Below is a simple guide for directly convert Blu-Ray to PS3:

Step 1: Download the free trial of the Blu-Ray to PS3 Ripper software. Install and run it.

Step 2: Click “Add” icon to load your Blu-ray movies into the program.

Step 3: Choose a PS3 video format as your output file format.

Click on Format bar, select “PSP/PS3” from the list and in the submenu you could select the output PS3 video format. Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper offers you three different resolutions for PS3 MPEG4: 480p, 720p and 1080p (HD). Then hit on the small folder icon to specify an output folder.

If you wanna rip Blu-rays to PS3 with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, just choose “PSP/PS3″ > “PS3 Video AC3 5.1 (*.avi)” format. The format is designed for users that wanna get Dolby Digital 6 channels audio when streaming Blu-ray rips to PS3.

Step 4: Rip and Convert Blu-ray to PS3.

After finishing the above settings, check the files needed to convert in the file list, and click “Convert” button to start ripping and converting Blu-ray movies to PS3 videos.

Tips: This software also supports clipping Blu-ray movies, joining several segments into one big file and editing some simple video effects. With it, you can create your custom Sony PS3 video files from Blu-ray movies easily.

OK, done. To transfer ripped files from PC to your PS3 device, you have to ensure your PS3 is attached to the computer. Now you can transfer the ripped videos to your PS3 in the most suitable way for you. There you have it. Pretty Simple! Now just feel the freedom to experience and view the 1080p Blu-ray movies on PS3 with high quality!

Popcorn Hour A-210, the succssor of PCH A-200, is a leading network media jukebox (NMJ) for the time being. It pumps out virtually any video format, including various video, audio container formats and ISO, IFO file and support for more than 100Mbps bitrate- that’s meet the specification of Blu-ray movies. However, Popcorn Hour A-210 does not naturally support Blu-ray Disc playback due to licensing. To get the Popcorn Hour NMT A-210 play Blu-ray movies, you have to crack the Blu-ray copy-protections and rip Blu-ray to HDD first.

There are different ways for backing up Blu-ray- you can rip a Blu-ray to BDMV, BD ISO, MKV or .m2ts streams without degrading the Blu-ray quality. The Popcorn Hour A210 and A-200 are capable of playing all of them. Actually the A-210 is a very good BDMV media player. And they perform even better when playing MKV files.

Here I’d show you how to rip Blu-ray to ISO for NMT A-210/A200 Playback:

Software for Windows: Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper trial for Windows, ImgBurn for Windows
Software for Mac: Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper trial for Mac

A. Rip Blu-ray Disc to BDMV and CERTIFICATE folder with Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper.
Step 1. Just connect BD drive to your computer, and place in source Blu-ray Disc. Run Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper software. Click “BD/DVD ROM” to import Blu-ray movie.

Step 2. When the movie is loaded, click “Full Disk Copy” button to make a quick and full copy of the Blu-ray movie. Once it’s finished you’ll get two directories, one is BDMV and the other CERTIFICATE.

B. Create Blu-ray ISO from BDMV and CERTIFICATE folders with ImgBurn
A detailed guide is provided in a previous post. Click here to learn how to make Blu-ray ISO for Popcorn Hour A210/A200 playback.

Some tips for playing Blu-ray with Popcorn Hour NMT boxes:

1. The PopCorn Hour A210/A200 does not play Blu-ray menus (not yet, but probably will). So when playing Blu-ray ISO, the NMT A-210/200 plays the MAIN FEATURE ONLY. If you copy Blu-ray to .m2ts streams, you can copy the main feature only, leaving out menus and extras. This will save some storage for you.

2. The PopCorn Hour A-210/A-200 does not play the Blu-ray subtitles (PGS encoded .sup subtitles) either. So you’ll have somee troubles understanding the lines when a foreign language is spoken- like Navi language in Avatar Blu-ray movie. I’ll wirte a post later to explain how to rip Blu-ray for PopCorn Hour A-210/A-200 with playable subtitles. Keep an eye to my blog if you’re interested in playing Blu-ray movie subtitles with PopCorn Hour A-210/A-200.

3. A Blu-ray movie can contain Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, PCM 5.1, Dolby True HD 7.1, DTS-HD 6.1/7.1 audio. So better check out your A/V sound system before you rip a Blu-ray and make sure the audio can be played correctly. It’s not a plesurable thing when you play a ripped Blu-ray without hearing sound from speakers. Make sure your AV receiver decodes the audio before ripping, or convert the Blu-ray audio to something that can be handled, e.g. AC-3 5.1 audio. Many Blu-ray rippers can encode Blu-ray. If you’d like to trans-code audio without changing the orginal video, Pavtube ByteCopy is your choice.

Related Links:
2 clicks copy/rip Blu-ray Disc to BDMV with Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper

ImgBurn- Best Freeware to Burn Blu-ray ISO from BDMV

Popcorn Hour A210 vs A200: what’s the difference?

Review: Popcorn Hour A-210 (NMT+ HD Meida Player)

Can WD TV Live Plus play Blu-ray in ISO, M2TS(BDMV) and MKV format?

Yes. The A-200/A-210 boxes can down-mix both TrueHD and DTS(MA) to stereo for playback when connected directly to a TV (a review FYI). In fact the Popcorn Hour NMT boxes provides considerate support to multichannel audios.

PopCorn Hour A-200/A-210 supported audio formats:

AAC, M4A
MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
WAV
WMA
FLAC
OGG

PopCorn Hour A-200/A-210 supported audio codecs:

Dolby Digital
DTS
WMA, WMA Pro
AAC
MPEG-1 Layer 1,2,3
MPEG-4 AAC-LC, HE-AAC, BSAC
LPCM
FLAC
Vorbis

PopCorn Hour A-200/A-210 pass-through audio codecs:

DTS
DTS-HD MA
DTS-HD HR
Dolby Digital
Dolby True HD
Dolby Digital Plus
DTS
DTS-HD MA
DTS-HD HR
Dolby Digital
Dolby True HD
Dolby Digital Plus

According to the Blu-ray Disc Format Specifications, a Blu-ray disc could contain LPCM as well as Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Lossless, DTS digital surround and DTS-HD audio formats. And you can see that all the audio codecs can be decoded or passed-through by the PopCorn Hour A-200. So when rip a Blu-ray to PopCorn Hour box, just remain any audio tracks you like (except LPCM in MKV).

To play a Blu-ray on PopCorn Hour, follow any of these guides(all let you keep HD audio when ripping a Blu-ray):

Rip a Blu-ray to MKV

Rip a Blu-ray to BD ISO

Rip a Blu-ray to BDMV

Blu-ray Ripper tools: AnyDVD HD, Blu-ray Ripper, ByteCopy, MakeMKV.

There are many programs out there that allow you to make copies of your Blu-rays and let you watch them with a WD TV or Popcorn Hour HD media player. Most of you are likely familiar with the excellent Handbrake for ripping standard Def DVDs, but while the latest version of the software has added some support for reading Blu-Ray folder structures, it cannot yet decrypt the Blu-Ray discs the way it can with regular DVDs, so you’ll need to add an intermediate step. The software recommended here is Pavtube Blu-ray Ripper.

Specially designed for Blu-ray video zealots, the top Blu-ray Ripper for HD Media Player is the programs that can achieve all kinds of Blu-ray ripping tasks. It is easy to use for editing and conversion and makes great quality copies of my Blu-rays and DVDs. It can help you convert Blu-ray into a HD media player file with 1080p high-qualified pictures.

The following guide tells you how to rip blu-ray to 1080p DivX AVI video, which would down the file size to around 10GB and meanwhile still looks stunning on HDTV using HD media player like WD TV HD Media Player, Seagate HD media player, Netgear NeoTV 550 Ultimate HD Media Player, video DVD player, or even your BD player.

Download and install Pavtube Blu-ray to HD Media Player Ripper(Trial)

The process is straightforward. Insert the Blu-ray disc, click on the “Format” bar to choose “HD Video -> DivX HD (*.avi)” as output format. The DivX HD format gives out video of 1920*1080, 8000kbps, 30fps, which works well with the HD media players and plays spellbinding picture on 48′ HDTV. To further improve the video quality, you may click on “Settings” and set video bit rate up to 1200kbps or 18000kps. To shrink the output file size, you may set video bit rate and frame rate down.

Once the above mentioned steps are finished, you can click the big button “Convert” button to rip Blu-ray to 1080p DivX AVI video. When the conversion task is completed, you are able to get the final output files by clicking “Open” button with ease. Now you have backed up the protected commercial blu-ray movies to 1080p AVI videos, just feel free to play/watch Blu-ray movies with WD TV HD Media Player in 1080p video quality or other players.

Roku just announced a major update coming to all of its Roku 2 players (Roku XS, HD, and XD ) with a slew of new features to.

The two biggest additions we noted were support for MKV playback and mobile support for an official Roku iPhone app. But there’s no official local streaming channel for MKV yet, only USB playback is listed. That’s not all however, as 3D game performance has been upgraded with new titles arriving soon to take advantage of it, while WiFi, Bluetooth remote battery and audio performance have all been tweaked. Hit the company blog for the official list of tweaks and keep an eye peeled for v4.2 build 1006 rolling out over the next couple of days to experience them firsthand.

You can now easily compress a DVD or Blu-ray Disc movie to MKV format and play it from attached USB drive with Roku XS, HD or XD box.

for the Kindle Fire.. is there a way i can upload dvd movies to the Android-based tablet? what kin of conversion do i need? what’s the best format setting when ripping dvd to kinlde fire?

As we all know, DVDs are encrypted with copyright protection. In order to get a DVD into a digital video for playback with Kindle Fire, we have to get some help from the third-party softare. There are many programs out there that allow you to make copies of your DVDs and let you watch them the way you want to view them. Most of you are likely familiar with the excellent Handbrake for ripping standard Def DVDs, but while it cannot decrypt the DVDs. so you’ll need to add an intermediate step. The software recommended here is called Pavtube DVD Ripper for Mac.

To be honest, the Mac DVD to Kindle Fire Converter is easy to use for editing and conversion and makes great quality copies of my DVDs and DVD iso/ifo images. It really enriches my digital entertainment on the Kindle Fire by downloading and copying DVDs to the Android Tablet. I am very pleased with the application, it exceeded my expectations and I am very happy with it. The audio/video synchronization is very good, the size of the subtitles too. The program is on sale at the company’s New Year Promotion through Dec.5 2011 to Jan. 16 2012 if you choose this option.

Below is simple guide ripping DVD to Kindle Fire for playback under Mac OS X Lion.

1. Install and run top DVD to MP4 Converter for Kindle Fire on your Mac. Load your DVD files.

2. Choose video format for Nook Tablet. Here I recommend you select “Nook Color (*.mp4)” in “Android” category. This profile is specially designed for Nook color, but still suitable for Kindle Fire.

3. Click “Convert” Button to start the conversion from DVD to Nook Tablet MP4 video on Mac OS.

Customize best settings for Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire plays MP4 and VP8 video only, so you can choose “Common Video>> H.264 Video (*.mp4) format. The format exports 480p .mp4 video with pretty good picture and compresses a 100min DVD movie to 2-3GB. In that case the Kindle Fire holds only 3 or 4 movies only. To down-size output file, you can click “Settings” and set lower bitrate.

If you’d like to put 10 movies to Kindle Fire, set video bitrate down to 1000kpbs so that a 100min movie would be reduced to around 800M. Note that when you lower bitrate, you lower video quality meanwhile.

Once the conversion completes, transfer the result video to Amazon Kindle Fire via MAC. Then you can watch DVD movies on Kindle Fire with best HD video quality as you like. Hope this article helps.