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[SamuriHL]

So, Nev.....any chance we'll see blu-ray menu support added to MC?    Would be sweet to add more blu-ray functionality to make it a truly unique experience.  Just something to consider. 

[Hendrik]

I doubt it. It would be weeks, if not months, of work for something that might throw us into legal hot water and/or cost tens of thousands in license fees.
Would need a serious commitment to do it, and I'm not sure thats something we want at this point, especially keeping linux and mac in mind, which also eventually want video support, and can't use DirectShow.

Of course maybe Matt disagrees, and its on his list of long wished-for features that he'll pitch at me next year.....

[InflatableMouse]

You folks must be thinking (or even testing) about Linux and Mac, how to support video or MC20

Will we see LAV on those platforms or are you considering using existing stuff? I don't think Madshi has any plans supporting those platforms so we'd need another renderer .

What about Haali?

[Mike Noe]

Lately I've had to go back to Windows for some things and I am amazed (yet again) at the level quality of video playback with LAV/madVR/MediaCenter vs. VLC or Mplayer on Linux.  Just the smooth motion option alone in madVR is enough for me (for FullHD playback).  Even my kid can spot frame drops or other anomalies in VLC(or MPlayer) that just simply don't occur on the Windows side.  Granted, this may not just be player (playback chain) issues, but I just don't believe it's possible to get the level of quality that LAV/madVR/JRiver provide currently on the Linux platform.  It's a formidable goal post, to be sure.

[SamuriHL]

Well, I was just thinking it'd be something to differentiate MC a bit more vs things like VLC and other freeware products.  Menu support would be a really useful feature to have to make a more complete blu-ray playback.  Especially for things like episode discs.  Just something to consider. 

[Matt]

I'd be more interested in turning on DVD title play for playback so that DVD would work like Blu-ray: no promos, we wouldn't have those weird Microsoft DVD Navigator bugs like not playing from certain drives, we wouldn't fail to play with convolution enabled, etc.

In other words, I like how BD works.  If menu support took a few days, sure.  If it's a lot bigger project, I'd rather put it into intercom support

[SamuriHL]

Definitely not a few day project I'm afraid.  So yea, not a priority which is ok.  I had to try. 

[InflatableMouse]

What you don't trust Matt he can do that in a few days? Just watch him! I think he's coding it right now ...

Next post in this thread from Matt:

NEW: Bluray and DVD menu support.

[SamuriHL]

ROFLMAO!  I've been called a miracle worker in software engineering, but, this doesn't seem like a "quick win" type of project.  BD menus are extremely complicated unfortunately.  HDMV menus would be fairly easy and other products such as XBMC already support them, but, java menus are only now becoming available in libbluray.

[mojave]

The Reference 2 Blu-ray Demo Disc thread at AVS is about a demo disc that has been created with clips from movies. Once user said,

The menu is supported by XBMC... Sweet!

Evidently XBMC has some sort of menu support. I had to open each m2ts file to figure out what it was, rename it, import into JRiver, and tag for series/season to make a view that lets me easily play the disc.

[SamuriHL]

XBMC has supported HDMV menus for quite some time now.  That's one of the reasons I bring it up...I don't want to see MC "fall behind" (and guys, I use that phrase in quotes because it's not THAT big of a deal).  I just wanted to get a temperature reading for doing it.  If there are higher priorities, it's all good.

[mojave]

Leawo Blu-ray player says its is "powered by XBMC," but it just recently added support for BD-J menu support:

What's New in Version 1.4.0.47 (Nov. 18th, 2013)
1.  Added support of BDJ disc menu display and fixed the problem of partial disc menu being unable to play back

[SamuriHL]

That tells me they're using libbluray to power it.  Nice.

[Matt]

So is it possible libbluray, at some point, would offer everything we need?  I believe this is already what's being used to support BD title play.

[SamuriHL]

It certainly seems that way, Matt.  Not sure what it would take.

[Hendrik]

So is it possible libbluray, at some point, would offer everything we need?  I believe this is already what's being used to support BD title play.

Well, libbluray is pretty low level, it just spits out a MPEG-TS stream and information for RGB overlays, and you need to deal with a lot of things yourself.
Especially in DirectShow thats a big headache. Without DirectShow it would probably be much, much easier, because you can just directly talk to each other.

Its certainly much less effort then starting from scratch, but still at least 2 weeks worth for a first draft, i would guess, plus ongoing fixes later on of course.
I'm not opposed to doing it, it would be a fun technical challenge, but needs a clear commitment.

[SamuriHL]

If I remember right, XBMC isn't using DirectShow?

[Hendrik]

Thats correct.

[SamuriHL]

Cheaters!    LOL

[rpalmer68]

OK, so dumb question;

Could MC use the non-DirectShow way to present just the menus and then use DirectShow to play the correct title?

[jmone]

Its certainly much less effort then starting from scratch, but still at least 2 weeks worth for a first draft, i would guess, plus ongoing fixes later on of course.
I'm not opposed to doing it, it would be a fun technical challenge, but needs a clear commitment.

Sounds like a 2 week weight loss challenge.... what have we to lose!

I've tried to keep a low profile on this stuff for a few months and as Matt originally suggested when agitating for a this, he asked me to try training the family on just using the existing MC menu support.  I was sceptical as everyone was used to just pressing a "Menu" button, then selecting your choices.  I have to say Matt was 90% correct and in most cases this works fine.  The last 10% is still the problem as without a real menu you are still fumbling around trying to guess any of the following:
- Forced Subtitles (the ones that are not flagged as forced)
- Alternative vs Theatrical Endings
- Episodes on TV BD's
- "Bonus" content

All of these can really only be addressed by the logic in the Menu.  Now I don't care if it is just HDMV menus or Java menus or both or even another way of presenting this logic but it is a real limitation for the "Average" user that just wants to put in a disc and select any of this stuff reliably.  

One Q: I understand that HDMV menu support is more straight forward but do all disks have HDMV or are some Java Only (but then Gen 1 HW players would not get any menu either).  If HDMV is on all (or most) discs then just supporting reading and presenting this logic even as a part of the existing MC Menu system would be a great benefit.

My 2cents
Nathan

[Hendrik]

From my experience many discs require Java, and don't have a HDMV fallback.
Of course you could use something like AnyDVDs "Speed Menus" to replace the Java menus with HDMV menus, but they don't do a perfect job on the special types of content you mentioned either.

Java Menu support in libbluray is still growing, and while it works on many discs already, it also doesnt work correctly on many others. Its a work in progress.
Admittedly I don't know how well it works yet exactly, since i lack the means to test. But i do read their changelogs occasionally to see whats happening.

[jmone]

TBH I'm not keen on the "Speed Menu" option either.  I was under impression (easily wrong) that all disks should have a HDMV menu but can optionally have the Java one.  For me the real benefit would be getting the logic out more than replicating the Look and Feel. 

[JimH]

I wonder if we could build an online database of user submitted menus and then use it when a movie or disc starts.

[AndrewFG]

I wonder if we could build an online database of user submitted menus and then use it when a movie or disc starts.

Perhaps that would risk trouble with the studios concerning redistribution of copyright material?

[JimH]

I don't think they would care about menus.

[jmone]

We did discuss at one time using YADB to hold such info that users could submit.  From memory there were a couple of issues discussed at the time in addition to the time and effort to mod YADB and have a GUI, and in particular how to handle Multiple Versions of the disc released around the globe that are different.  The irritating thing is all of this info is on the disc, we just can't get at it.

[glynor]

I don't think they would care about menus.

Their stupid knows almost no bounds.

[InflatableMouse]

I don't think they would care about menus.

Well they care about subtitles created from scratch by listening to the audio track, so I'm not talking about 1:1 translation from copyrighted subtitles. Sites offering these are being taken down too.

Not saying your idea is per a problem per se, I like the idea but I do think you're on thin ice.

[SamuriHL]

The idea of a database is doomed to fail I'm afraid.  There are just too many disc variations across regions to make it viable.  Even things like screen pass protection make it difficult.

[jmone]

I see there has been some more updates to libbluray (and the direct show packaging).  Is it getting interesting yet or still too buggy for MC?

[SamuriHL]

That'd be sweet.

[jmone]

Still keeping tabs on the Doom9 thread and it seems that there has been some more advancement and renewed interest from other devs (incl Zoom Player, Madshi)..... including a potential effort to get it working with EVR/madVR (but we will see). 

[SamuriHL]

That would be nice.