Blu-Ray Ripping

Bottom line is MakeMKV is easy. See below for getting beta keys after 30 day trial.
MakeMKV beta code here https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053
Instructions here https://www.howtogeek.com/161498/how-to-backup-your-dvd-and-blu-ray-movie-collection/
DVDFab beta files here and works but is harder to use.
Blu-Ray/HD DVD Copy Helper free for copying Blu-Ray. Both 64 and 32 bit. It works but ...

You may be better off using LifeHacker's instructions.

I am using a cheap Liteon reader from NewEgg.

DVDFab looks like it will expire except for the HD Decryption part. Copy appears to remain functional even after expiration. It takes around 45 minutes to copy 24GB to the hard drive on my system. It copies a full quality DVD in 10 minutes. Interesting, I had an Avatar BD which would not play on my Integra player and was giving errors on my BD reader. I set DVDFab to ignore all read errors (look in settings) and it copied with a a few minor skips. I was impressed.

HandBreak is the next step for reducing the size of bluray monsters and retaining HD quality. I could not get HandBreak to process the bluray when decrypting with Copy Helper. HandBreak recognized the disk and started the process but seemed to hang on file 3. Maybe I did not give it enough time.

HandBreak works great on the file transfered to the hard disk with DVDFab (after I found the huge 24 GB file) (VLC will play it for testing). I chose MKV packaging. Set the output directory first. Then choose the folder where the mts files are. It will search subfolders and if there are multiple mts files, HandBreak will combine them in the output. Don't try to add all the files in the que, let HB find them. The movie I am currently working on does not require 1920 to look good so I opted for the "loose" 720. I also chose the AC3 pass through. The encoding estimates 52 minutes which is a 10 minute time savings by choosing pass through audio. HandBreak's time estimate appears wonky so I don't really know if it saved time or not. Encoding actually took 1 hr. 10 min. The mkv file size ended up being 1.73 GB. I can see the difference in 720 but it is still very good. File size reduction is staggering.

I must say, on a movie like Avatar the visible quality difference between mkv and m2ts is noticeable.

Now I need some way to play these on HDTV. Can't decide WDTV or Roku or ???. I chose Roku and it plays mp4 files with some pixelation but chokes on large mkv files. The part it plays is great but it folds half way through. Roku's Netflix interface may be worth the price and it does allow some personal media playback. I really need to build a small HTPC.

Alternative ripping:

MakeMKV (here is forum post on beta serial http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053

remux tool

Forced subtitle spreadsheet