Topic: Any plans for Blu-ray menu support? (Read 11599 times)

Sesam · « **on:** April 29, 2015, 03:14:34 pm »

The lack of Blu-ray menu support is the only reason why I have to keep another media player installed. With movies I don't usually care about the menu. But when it comes to concerts and TV series on Blu-ray discs, it can be quite useful to be able to skip to the song/episode you want to see.

I know there are some huge complications adding this feature. But it appears there has been quite a lot of progress lately made by open source developers reverse-engineering this. Realistically is functional BD menu support going to be added to MC in the near future, or is it still a pipe dream?

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #1 on:** April 29, 2015, 03:22:08 pm »

Due to circumstances beyond their control they can't add menu support to MC. There's legalities involved, I believe.

Sesam · « **Reply #2 on:** April 29, 2015, 03:58:21 pm »

Quote from: Awesome Donkey on April 29, 2015, 03:22:08 pm

Due to circumstances beyond their control they can't add menu support to MC. There's legalities involved, I believe.

I know that the Blu-ray format is ridden with license fees, drm and legal issues etc.. But I was under the impression that some people have managed to reverse engineer the menus and get around the licensing issues? That is what I assumed when I noticed that the latest VLC version 2.2.0 lists "Support for BD-Java menus and overlay in Blu-Ray" as a feature. The VideoLan organization as far as I know have been strict about not trespassing copyright laws and likely aren't paying licensing fees, so they must have got around it somehow?

astromo · « **Reply #3 on:** April 29, 2015, 04:22:15 pm »

Quote from: Sesam on April 29, 2015, 03:58:21 pm

I know that the Blu-ray format is ridden with license fees, drm and legal issues etc.. But I was under the impression that some people have managed to reverse engineer the menus and get around the licensing issues? That is what I assumed when I noticed that the latest VLC version 2.2.0 lists "Support for BD-Java menus and overlay in Blu-Ray" as a feature. The VideoLan organization as far as I know have been strict about not trespassing copyright laws and likely aren't paying licensing fees, so they must have got around it somehow?

Don't know but maybe it's because they're open source (?) and effectively don't have commercially deep pockets that make them worth taking on.

With the TV series that I have on disc, I just rip them to individual video files. Then I use MC's tagging and renaming features to get them into the right format so that "Get Movie and TV Info" will drag meta data from TVDB.

Regarding concerts are you aware that MC has access to the chapters that are typically configured within movie videos? It's pretty easy to jump to the next chapter. That's why I rip movies as well and get their meta data from TMDB via MC. The advantage is that all the advertising junk and various notices are cut out of the equation.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #4 on:** April 29, 2015, 04:34:57 pm »

If there was a third-party .dll (plugin) that MC could load (the user would have to find and install it) to add menu support, maybe? Somebody could look at the libbluray source code, I suppose. Call it libbluraymenus!

DanielBMe · « **Reply #5 on:** April 29, 2015, 04:37:19 pm »

Quote

With the TV series that I have on disc, I just rip them to individual video files. Then I use MC's tagging and renaming features to get them into the right format so that "Get Movie and TV Info" will drag meta data from TVDB

.

How do you know what the episode number the episode is? I've found the episodes are not usually in order. So when ripping, there's no real way to know what episode is what.

mattkhan · « **Reply #6 on:** April 29, 2015, 04:46:06 pm »

Quote from: DanielBMe on April 29, 2015, 04:37:19 pm

How do you know what the episode number the episode is? I've found the episodes are not usually in order. So when ripping, there's no real way to know what episode is what.

I put the bluray into a player that supports menus and compare episode lengths, this uniquely identifies the majority of episodes IME. The ones that remain involve comparing the content at specific points in the episode, usually the 1st 2-3 seconds are innocuous and sufficient to work it out. I don't find that most discs, of modern BD boxed sets at least, are out of order though certainly enough of them are to make it v tedious work and you have to verify anyway (given that you can't trust them to be in order even if the mpls filenames are numerically ordered as you expect).

astromo · « **Reply #7 on:** April 29, 2015, 04:50:52 pm »

Quote from: DanielBMe on April 29, 2015, 04:37:19 pm

.

How do you know what the episode number the episode is? I've found the episodes are not usually in order. So when ripping, there's no real way to know what episode is what.

Interrogate TMDB and do a match up. Yes, it's tedious but I ripped umpteen CDs to set up my audio library, so it's an extension of that. Once you're over the hump it's care and maintenance after that.

Sesam · « **Reply #8 on:** April 29, 2015, 05:03:50 pm »

Quote from: astromo on April 29, 2015, 04:22:15 pm

Don't know but maybe it's because they're open source (?) and effectively don't have commercially deep pockets that make them worth taking on.

With the TV series that I have on disc, I just rip them to individual video files. Then I use MC's tagging and renaming features to get them into the right format so that "Get Movie and TV Info" will drag meta data from TVDB.

Regarding concerts are you aware that MC has access to the chapters that are typically configured within movie videos? It's pretty easy to jump to the next chapter. That's why I rip movies as well and get their meta data from TMDB via MC. The advantage is that all the advertising junk and various notices are cut out of the equation.

The problem is that I have a quite massive Blu-ray/DVD collection, and I want to have a 1:1 ISO archive backup of the discs. While I could rip TV Show Blu-rays into episodes, I would end up doubling the storage space I need.

I'm aware of the particle and chapter features. But the main reason why I want to see Blu-ray menus of Concert discs is because they have the song names for the chapters. So I would have to type in song names manually for each chapter, that is not realistic considering the size of my library and how labour intensive it is.

Anyway, if JRiver for whatever reason will not be able to include Blu-ray menu support. How about if VLC could somehow be used as an external blu-ray player or just for handling the menus. And I mean in a more integrated fashion than just launching VLC when playing a movie. Maybe somehow VLC could be used to stream just the video and the MC OSD could be overlayed on it, and the key/remote pressed sent to VLC for navigation?

eddyshere · « **Reply #9 on:** April 29, 2015, 06:55:09 pm »

Quote from: Awesome Donkey on April 29, 2015, 04:34:57 pm

If there was a third-party .dll (plugin) that MC could load (the user would have to find and install it) to add menu support, maybe? Somebody could look at the libbluray source code, I suppose. Call it libbluraymenus!

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=92141.0

The answer i got at that time. Bd menu support ... My beloved topic since mc17...

rec head · « **Reply #10 on:** April 29, 2015, 08:11:17 pm »

Quote from: DanielBMe on April 29, 2015, 04:37:19 pm

.

How do you know what the episode number the episode is? I've found the episodes are not usually in order. So when ripping, there's no real way to know what episode is what.

This is not a great method. As far as I can tell there really is no good way but here is what I do after ripping the disc:
-Load disc into my stand alone player and go to the episodes menu
-go to the first scene of episode 1 and hit pause (you may have to hit "next chapter" to get past the opening sequence if they all start the same)
-take a picture of the TV with my hand in front of it indicating the episode number
-go to next episode
-repeat
-in MC play the first scene of a file
-figure out which episode you are looking at
-in MC rename the Series field Season field and Episode Number ---you can select all of the files to rename the series and season at once

Inefficient but accurate.

oh, and a standalone player costs the same or less than software and just works. I still have a music BD that I can't rip or view on the computer. They play 3D without much hassle too if you're into that.

jmone · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2015, 05:07:48 am »

FYI - There is a thread here on the topic - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=74351.0

Adding the feature is not related to any licencing requirements but rather:
- it is not considered a priority to JR at this time, and
- Hendrik is aware of the the open source filter, follows the thread on Doom9 but ... see the thread for comments.

Sesam · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2015, 05:48:07 pm »

Quote from: jmone on April 30, 2015, 05:07:48 am

FYI - There is a thread here on the topic - http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=74351.0

Adding the feature is not related to any licencing requirements but rather:
- it is not considered a priority to JR at this time, and
- Hendrik is aware of the the open source filter, follows the thread on Doom9 but ... see the thread for comments.

Interesting thread, what I gather from the comments is that Hendrik used to have a little faith in the open source filter. But his last truly negative comment was from a couple of years ago, and it appears significant progress has been made since then. I tried myself the latest VLC build (had to activate Blu-ray menus manually, as they are disabled by default), expected a total buggy mess, but to my surprise the couple of discs I tried it with, displayed the menus identically to a fully licensed Blu-ray player.

So I still have faith it will eventually be possible in MC, I remember back in the day it appeared impossible for an open source player to display DVD menus or even play the discs in the first place. And look at where we are now

jmone · « **Reply #13 on:** April 30, 2015, 06:18:42 pm »

Hendrik is the man to convince

stewart_pk · « **Reply #14 on:** April 30, 2015, 07:43:33 pm »

This and 3D support are the two big gaping holes in JRiver.
I don't see how anything else into the future should take priority over them but that's just me.

Daniel Warner · « **Reply #15 on:** July 13, 2015, 06:45:35 am »

Quote from: stewart_pk on April 30, 2015, 07:43:33 pm

This and 3D support are the two big gaping holes in JRiver.
I don't see how anything else into the future should take priority over them but that's just me.

I agree. I am convinced that if it is a resources/funds issue, if you start pre-orders of bluray support, you'll get plenty orders to fund it (Self crowd-funding if you will). You could even start a 'proper' crowd funding project if you need to be totally convinced before you go ahead.

WeeHappyPixie · « **Reply #16 on:** July 13, 2015, 01:37:20 pm »

If real bluray support was added then JRiver would need to use Cinevia protection. I for one would definitely never upgrade if JRiver did this. Cinevia is just nasty.

Daniel Warner · « **Reply #17 on:** July 13, 2015, 01:42:19 pm »

They could have an option to use it or not if you choose to purchase the blu-ray add-on or not.

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** July 13, 2015, 01:53:44 pm »

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but there won't be any big changes in Blu-ray support unless the conditions change significantly.

Daniel Warner · « **Reply #19 on:** July 13, 2015, 01:58:14 pm »

Could you elaborate?

JimH · « **Reply #20 on:** July 13, 2015, 02:06:22 pm »

Expect no change.

Daniel Warner · « **Reply #21 on:** July 13, 2015, 02:09:03 pm »

Sorry to go on, but what conditions need to change, what did you mean?

MC has the potential to be a perfect 'one-stop-shop' media application but without this feature, many users of HTPCs have to resort to using other software.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** July 13, 2015, 02:20:46 pm »

Sorry to close the door on this, but it's not something that will change anytime soon.

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Author Topic: Any plans for Blu-ray menu support? (Read 11599 times)