Burning MKV to DVD

[Klaus]

Quick tutorial to turn a downloaded (or ripped) MKV into a DVD (but in HD) playable by the Playstation 3 or most newer Blu Ray players. The benefit to this over streaming is that the downloaded (or ripped) file is often of a higher quality when played directly on the PS3. Streamed video is usually degraded in terms of bit rate often noticeable on action scenes.

Step 1:
Download tsmuxer
http://www.smlabs.net/tsmuxer_en.html
Download ImgBurn
http://www.imgburn.com

Step 2:
In tsmuxer on input tab click add, browse to the file.
Under tracks click on the first file and change the level to 4.1 or below.
Under output click Blu Ray disk
Click start muxing (should take 2 min)
Two folders are created (BDMV and Certificate)

Step 3:
Open Imgburn
Click Write files/folders to Disk button
Click add folder button (yellow folder)
Add both folders created by tsmuxer
Under options tab change File System to UDF
Only have "Recurse Subdirectories" checked.
Click the burn button at the bottom.

For more info watch this video (the guy sniffles a ton and it bugs me).

[Jomama]

So how much are you paying for blank BR media? I haven't got a BR burner yet.

[Klaus]

I don't have a BR burner yet. I use DVDs for now.

[Jomama]

So how do you fit a HD movie on a 8gb DVD?

[Klaus]

I mostly use this method for downloaded MKV content. It's usually compressed HDTV rips. Like the Lost torrents are all MKV HD quality. Or you can rip a BR movie and compress it to like 6gb for "decent" quality - for a BR rip I just leave it on a external HD for playback.

[Jomama]

Ok, this is what I don't get... If you compress them, are they really still HD 1080P/720P? What was the point of needing bigger media in the first place (BR and HD-DVD) if you can just compress a HD signal to fit on regular DVD...

I just don't get what you lose to compression if its not resolution?

[Klaus]

It's all about bit rate. The compressed HD files are 720 or 1080 most of the time but they have LOW bit rates. You see blocks and artifacts in the picture and low quality audio.

Video
16 kbit/s – videophone quality (minimum necessary for a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture using various video compression schemes)
128 – 384 kbit/s – business-oriented videoconferencing quality using video compression
1.25 Mbit/s – VCD quality (with bit-rate reduction from MPEG-1 video compression)[citation needed]
1374 kbit/s – VCD (Video CD) – audio and video streams multiplexed in an MPEG-PS
3.5 Mbit/s typ - Standard-definition television quality (with bit-rate reduction from MPEG-2 compression)
5 Mbit/s typ – DVD quality (with bit-rate reduction from MPEG-2 compression)
8 to 15 Mbit/s typ – HDTV quality (with bit-rate reduction from MPEG-4 AVC compression)
29.4 Mbit/s max – HD DVD
40 Mbit/s max – Blu-ray Disc