INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 14 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: benn600 on July 05, 2009, 09:54:38 am
-
What is the current status of Blu Ray in Media Center? How difficult is it to rip the discs and can they then be played from MC as conveniently as DVDs are? Is there any chance additional efforts can be made to add Blu Ray support?
-
The final movie file itself (m2ts format) can be played just fine with the right directshow filters. The problem arises in navigating the BD menus.
-
How much progress can JRiver make on this? I know with the iPhone support has been very limited and I don't blame JRiver. Apple really makes some integration a pain. But will we see good Blu-Ray support sometime soon?
-
How much progress can JRiver make on this? I know with the iPhone support has been very limited and I don't blame JRiver. Apple really makes some integration a pain. But will we see good Blu-Ray support sometime soon?
I really hope so. I want to use jrmc for all my media.
-
At the veary least i hope they get it to work to the point that you only will need AnyDVD HD in addition, wich i probably will be using anyway.
-
At the veary least i hope they get it to work to the point that you only will need AnyDVD HD in addition, wich i probably will be using anyway.
I think that's the best anyone can hope for. Playing BD without AnyDVD reliably is said to be near impossible.
-
Jim has stated that Blu-ray support is not a priority at this stage (which is a shame for us Blu-ray users). Any way, you currently have a couple of options to manage and playback Blu-ray content in MC:
1) Blu-ray Disc Playback - Your out of luck using MC, while for the most part there are Direct Show filters available that can handled the Video and Audio Streams on Blu-ray, at this stage there is no Navigation Filters available.
2) Extracted File Playback - There are plenty of threads on the Web on how to extract your desired Video and Audio streams and mux them into a file that can be mangaged and played like any other file (eg search on Blu-ray to MKV).
3) ISO Playback - I use MC to view then launch Blu-ray / HD-DVD iso's that are then mounted by Virtual Clone / played by TMT or PowerDVD then back again including some scripts - have a look at http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43879.0
Thanks
Nathan
-
Jim has stated that Blu-ray support is not a priority at this stage (which is a shame for us Blu-ray users). Any way, you currently have a couple of options to manage and playback Blu-ray content in MC:
1) Blu-ray Disc Playback - Your out of luck using MC, while for the most part there are Direct Show filters available that can handled the Video and Audio Streams on Blu-ray, at this stage there is no Navigation Filters available.
2) Extracted File Playback - There are plenty of threads on the Web on how to extract your desired Video and Audio streams and mux them into a file that can be mangaged and played like any other file (eg search on Blu-ray to MKV).
3) ISO Playback - I use MC to view then launch Blu-ray / HD-DVD iso's that are then mounted by Virtual Clone / played by TMT or PowerDVD then back again including some scripts - have a look at http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=43879.0
Thanks
Nathan
Thanks Nathan for the summary of our options.
The players that DO play BD right now sell very well. But there's constant dissatisfaction with them from the audio perspective. I think it'd be a bit much to expect MC to get it right, while the big boys like Cyberlink and Arcsoft have to bend to the whim of Sony et al with the protected audio pathways for HD sound etc. Perhaps a cool tool for MC14/15 would be ripping of blurays/converting to mkv format with an easy set up and user interface, while preserving lossless sound by converting to FLAC. That's something I'd totally go for. I know of the threads that exist for converting to mkv, but they all require the use of multiple programs, often with command line interfaces, or rudimentary GUIs.
I'd rather have an interface that allows me to check that I want to convert whichever audio track I choose to the MC compatible format I prefer, and hit "convert"... yielding a nice 1080p mkv at the end of it. Kind of like handbrake, but with lossless sound and HD video.
-
I'd rather have an interface that allows me to check that I want to convert whichever audio track I choose to the MC compatible format I prefer, and hit "convert"... yielding a nice 1080p mkv at the end of it. Kind of like handbrake, but with lossless sound and HD video.
Fingers crossed MakeMKV gets the lossless audio too at some point...
-
Fingers crossed MakeMKV gets the lossless audio too at some point...
thanks a lot.. that is a great tip, i dont use bluray, but this makes ripping to mkv a lot easier for me, was still using dvd decript/mkv merge... :P
:)
gab
-
At least it looks like I'll get Blu Ray working to some extent. As crazy as it sounds, I have a bet riding on this. From my research I can rip and convert them to another format--movie only. I'm not quite sure if this qualified as success for my bet but that's mainly because we didn't discuss the details.
-
thanks a lot.. that is a great tip, i dont use bluray, but this makes ripping to mkv a lot easier for me, was still using dvd decript/mkv merge... :P
For the record (in case some other users stumbles over this), MakeMKV works with any blu-ray, outputting one single mkv file. The problem is that for Blu-Ray with lossless audio, it'll only extract the "core track" (lossy) not the whole lossless data. It's unclear to me where MakeMKV it's going, they seem to have some interest in defeating decryption too; it would've been much better if they would focus on solving the lossless audio problem (which already is doable with free tools for Dolby TrueHD but requires third party libraries for DTS-MA), and have everything in one package.
Does anybody have an educated guess how much are the Blu-Ray specs (not licenses but the specs). The big, fat book with everything, BD-Java and whatnot, not just generalities published here and there? $50,000? (it's a number totally off the top of my head since that info is not exactly publicly available).
-
I'm delaying buying exclusively Blu Ray until I can get them integrated into my entertainment system as cleanly ad DVDs.
-
I never understood the "waiting" part - that's one of my big dissatisfaction, aside from encryption, with the movie industry. I'm not impatient, but I do not understand to wait as the movie industry will have it.
There are also things that work at a certain time. Now I'm transitioning my collection to high-def. It is a lot of updating work. Historically this will reach a critical point when pretty much all I wanted to have I'll have it and things will slow down considerably since I'll be looking after only some new releases and whatever back catalog that interest me hasn't been released yet. This started let's say in 2006, we're almost 3 years later. This year and next and maybe another one everything should go really fast, really crazy, really getting most of the things I want.
After that I'll slow down and do something else. Go scuba-diving, write a book, fly to the moon, whatever. I am not going to toy around with my collection day in - day out, waiting, working on it, debating, moving from one ripping technique to another, more waiting, etc. It's just a collection, it is meant to serve me. The sooner the better.
Also, there is the psychological fact - oh, I'd like to have them, the movies are out there, but I'm not enjoying them because, well, I'm waiting. With so much computer power and storage around available relatively cheap these days, screw it. Buy 5 or 10 Blu-Ray readers, rip the streams, write some batch files (as an automation at the very least if not something else, better) to remux the streams, done. Then just watch out for the new releases. When not needed anymore sell the players on ebay or whatever.
Needles to say, it's not the money spent on these things, it's the time they expect you to wait (or make everything so much more difficult to force you to wait) that makes me really mad.
-
Try ClownBD - http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=25818 it does almost everything including transcoding your Audio to FLAC or LPCM but the contain will be M2TS / TS so you don't get subs and chapters.....
-
If it makes any difference: JRiver, please start integrating Blu Ray as soon as possible.
-
Like all things MC - user demand helps drive up the priority ;D
-
Yet another plea from Blu-Ray...
Osho
-
Integration with TMT3 since it supports Blu-Ray folder playback will be great! ;D
-
I've posted over at Arcsoft for those interested.... http://www.arcsoft.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3029
-
Yet another desperate plea for Blu-ray support!
-
Try ClownBD - http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=25818 it does almost everything including transcoding your Audio to FLAC or LPCM but the contain will be M2TS / TS so you don't get subs and chapters.....
jmone,
Thanks for that post.
I tried messing around with ClownBD and it helps to reduce file size significantly! I'm ok with not having menu's and chapters BUT, I can't get the m2ts files to seek properly in MC. MC will fastforward and rewind, but it won't actually show it skipping scenes visually on the screen. It just sits there and then when pressing play again, immediatly jumps to however far forward or backwards it went.
This is not good for me, expecially with just a remote and no mouse control to know how far I have seeked.
Is there anyway to fix this either in MC, or in ClownBD?
-
Yeah, I see the problem as well but I think it is a bug in MC (or at least between MC and the Splitter - I bet you are using Haali). FYI - seeking works fine in Windows Media Player on these files with the Haali splitter.....
Thanks
nathan
-
Good to know.
-
What's the latest on Blu-Ray support? I'd really like to see it added to MC.
-
The latest I presume is that they don't support it. ;)
-
I'd never imagine my self playing a physical disk on my HTPC ever again. Those days are over for me. Maybe just for the ripping part. IF I rent a Blu-Ray disk, I'll use my PS3 to watch it instead.
Off-course, it would be nice with Blu-Ray support in MC, but not if it means higher cost of the application because of a Blu-Ray license.
-
They can have a separate Blu-Ray plugin, built by JRiver, and those interested can pay for it.
-
I'd never imagine my self playing a physical disk on my HTPC ever again. Those days are over for me. Maybe just for the ripping part. IF I rent a Blu-Ray disk, I'll use my PS3 to watch it instead.
Off-course, it would be nice with Blu-Ray support in MC, but not if it means higher cost of the application because of a Blu-Ray license.
Yeah, but the program also needs the support if one has blu-ray-images on disk.
-
I was thinking more of ripping to MKV. I'm pretty sick of using images really. I've used it for DVD's for a long time now. You'll have to use an external app to mount it, and then play it as a disk in MC. You'll not get the play count either. A single file is much better in my opinion.
-
I would also like to request BluRay support. Thank you.
In the meantime I will use MakeMKV and Handbrake.
-
You don't have to use an image for a DVD. You can store the files directly: /VIDEO_TS/ and then you get all the MC tagging abilities.
-
Yes, but after all the posts on this forum it doesn't look like it's as easy as just importing single files. I might be wrong though. A long time since I tried it. I just love to have things in one simple container. I'm not easy to please :)
-
MC actually handles complete DVD rips (VIDEO_TS) as single files. I've been using this feature for quite a while now. They work exactly like single files except in playback when you get the full menu, special features, etc. This is good and bad. If only MC would allow shortcut links to specific titles on the DVD (for example, each show on a television DVD)...then you could have the best of both worlds! Upon selecting a DVD, MC could let you pick an episode, special feature Title, or start at the beginning (full DVD)...oh how amazing would that be!
-
In the meantime I will use MakeMKV and Handbrake.
You are aware that with MakeMKV you don't get the lossless audio, right?
MC actually handles complete DVD rips (VIDEO_TS) as single files. I've been using this feature for quite a while now. They work exactly like single files except in playback when you get the full menu, special features, etc. This is good and bad. If only MC would allow shortcut links to specific titles on the DVD (for example, each show on a television DVD)...then you could have the best of both worlds! Upon selecting a DVD, MC could let you pick an episode, special feature Title, or start at the beginning (full DVD)...oh how amazing would that be!
MC handles DVD ripped files (VIDEO_TS) but there is no magic. Everything is handled through MS DVD Navigator which is a filter that opens the DVD Volume, parses the streams from the vob files, splits them in video, audio, subtitles, sends them to their corresponding pins and also adds playback control to the environment. The filter in question is free and and can be called from any decoding chain. There is no such thing - as in free - for Blu-Ray. All 3 existing solutions - PowerDVD, WinDVD, Arcsoft Theater View - are locked down inside their own application. AFAIK jmone asked somewhere on the Arcsoft forum if the plugin treatment Win MCE got can be extended to other application but there was no reply.
Also, as far as I can tell the navigation inside a Blu-Ray is much more complex, given the Java menus and other tricks; as an educated guess I'd say it's much more than just the DVD VM machine used to just store & process a rather small (by comparison) amount of register values and navigational instructions. There is no connection between the two, so the implied (maybe I'm reading too much into it) argument of "if one works why not the other" is not really valid.
Now, I'm also of the opinion that mkv files are much better. With some observations. If you tag a VIDEO_TS entry that's something that happens internally in MC, you have no externally written tags. The same things happens with MKVs, but that should be possible, if mkv support is actually worked on and not left to collect dust in some development corner.
The other observation is to the people that would cry bloody murder for just ripping only the actual movies to mkv and "what happens to my dear extras?". Well me personally I can't carry less about the extras but I do understand the argument. In that respect mkv does support file linking so there is nothing stopping a certain category of purists to rip the main movies and the extras as separate files and link them in mkv containers. You play the movie (with chapters) and at the end the extras follow. This is not a very well known (and used) feature of MKV but it exists and it works.
So that would create a forever free solution to play Blu-Ray movies NOW. Without waiting or hopping for third-party tie-ins to help with playback/navigation.
-
Won't these commercial Blu-Ray playback programs play a Blu-Ray disc right from your hard drive? Too bad there wasn't just a simple link: here, play this Blu-Ray, close then done...MC could track counts and everything.
-
I can't say where the trend went with recent releases but the way I recall it, since sometime in the second half of 2008 PowerDVD stopped playing Blu-Rays from HDD. It will play back a mounted .iso but not folder/files.
-
VLC plays Blu-Ray from your hard drive great! Just the video files, though.
This is a disaster of epic proportions. I seriously want to stop buying all Blu-Ray and even DVD discs period. Just plain sick of PAYING for a pain in the ***.
-
VLC plays Blu-Ray from your hard drive great! Just the video files, though.
This is a disaster of epic proportions. I seriously want to stop buying all Blu-Ray and even DVD discs period. Just plain sick of PAYING for a pain in the ***.
I can't agree more with your last thought! :) It is very transparent that the movie industry is extremely afraid to let anything in the Blu-Ray world play on a PC. Come to think of it, IF you get to play a Blu-Ray in MC (meaning having the navigation all worked out by the means of using pixie dust or whatever) what are you going to do with the sound? Buy the Asus Xonar for $150 (if you can find it) so you can bitstream inconsistently (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1093445) the audio to your receiver?
Edit: sorry, you can find, but it's $239 on Newegg. A soundcard.
And then they wonder why this Blu thing is not taking off as it should...
-
Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater 3 plays back ripped blu-ray folders menus and all.
-
I'm not going to complain about high-end hardware. People who want the best can buy the expensive equipment and get it all.
The problem is that you can't get this at any price. If this even worked, that would be great. Then you can worry about getting bit-perfect HD Master Audio directly to your pre-amp.
-
What really bothers me is that if you go through different channels, you get different results. I mean they offer downloadable content on iTunes and through other stores. This is basically completely open except for a key...but with that, it will play fine on the computer, probably through any software.
-
Is it possible that MC could recognize Blu-ray as a format, like it does with CDs and DVDs? I mean, under File types one can find CD disc and DVD disc, and assign a handling method, for example an external program. If Blu-ray disc was in the File type list, one could assign an external program to play the disc, which means one could select the Blu-ray drive in Theater view and hit play to play the disc.
I also wonder if it's possible to catalog and play Blu-rays and HD-DVDs that are stored as folders/files on the hard drive. With DVDs you just import the folder or VIDEO_TS file into MC, does Blu-ray/HD-DVD have such a "start file"?
-
How about explaining how I can get MC to simply play m2ts files? Then the basic content could be played. VLC plays them fine.
-
Is it possible that MC could recognize Blu-ray as a format, like it does with CDs and DVDs? I mean, under File types one can find CD disc and DVD disc, and assign a handling method, for example an external program. If Blu-ray disc was in the File type list, one could assign an external program to play the disc, which means one could select the Blu-ray drive in Theater view and hit play to play the disc.
I also wonder if it's possible to catalog and play Blu-rays and HD-DVDs that are stored as folders/files on the hard drive. With DVDs you just import the folder or VIDEO_TS file into MC, does Blu-ray/HD-DVD have such a "start file"?
I store track and manage many of my Blu-ray / HD-DVD's ISO's as follows (look up at my July 06 post above for more details and one day I'll need to update the post it refers to!): But FYI from the wiki this is how you set ISO's to launch
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/DVD_Library_in_Media_Center - Firstly, change how MC13 handles the launching of ISO's: Under "Tools --> Options --> File Types", scroll down to the "Data" Section, Select "Disk Image Files" and change the Playback Method to "External Program (default). MC13 will now use Windows default setting to "mount" your ISO's with your default mounter (eg Virtual Clone Drive / Daemon Tools etc).
Tag your ISO Files: You now need to tag each of your ISO files as Video, Audio etc pending on what view you want them to appear in. To do this select you ISO file(s) and change the "Media Type" Library Field to the correct type (eg, "Video" but could be "Audio" if you ISO your CD's). You can then assign Coverart (if desired) as with any other items in the database.
All your ISO's should now apear in the correct area of TheaterView and will Mount, Launch and Play just as you would expect.
-
How about explaining how I can get MC to simply play m2ts files? Then the basic content could be played. VLC plays them fine.
You should be able to play the m2ts files now if you have the right filters installed. The big issue was with the lossless HD codecs but FFDSHOW now supports them.
-
How about explaining how I can get MC to simply play m2ts files? Then the basic content could be played. VLC plays them fine.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this assumes that one movie = one big m2ts file. That is not a prospect that covers 100% the releases out there, some are spread across multiple files, and then you need the internal Blu-Ray playlist to know what goes where in what sequence.
-
FYI - I'm going to bring all the Blu-ray related stuff into one post at http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=55171.0
-
I store track and manage many of my Blu-ray / HD-DVD's ISO's as follows (look up at my July 06 post above for more details and one day I'll need to update the post it refers to!): But FYI from the wiki this is how you set ISO's to launch
I'm fully aware of how to import and manage ISOs in MC, but my imported DVDs and Blu-ray/HD-DVDs are stored in hard drive folders in their original folder structure (VIDEO_TS for DVDs etc.). Now, the DVDs are handled fine, I just import the VIDEO_TS.ifo file into MC and fill in the correct tags, and it behaves just like any other media file. My question is if the same is possible with the HD formats, in other words, is there a start file in a HD-DVD/Blu-ray folder structure equivalent to the VIDEO_TS.ifo on a DVD, and will MC now, or in the near future, be able to recognize it and execute the appropriate external program?
I know one option is to make images of my imported HD-discs, but I'm just enquiring about the ability to catalog Blu-ray/HD-DVDs stored in their original folder structure without the need for virtual drives to play them back, which means one less piece of software on my computer.
-
Audun - I posted in the other thread something that may work ;D
-
This my method of playing blu ray backups in folder form(not iso's or any other disc image) with an external program
-blu ray backups have a file similar to a dvd's ifo called "index.bdmv"
at this point in time(14.0.140) J river cannot import or play these.
As a work around do the following:
1)in your bluray backup folder create a text file. Call it anything for now
it will sit beside BDMV folder and CERTIFICATE folder
this is also where folder.jpg will sit
2)Change the text file's name to whatever you want. lets say the movie title
3)change the extension from txt to swf
leave the foder.jpg, BDMV folder, and CERTIFICATE folder sitting beside it
5)import the swf into j river and tag it just like any other video
then
You can use an external program to open index.bdmv by the following:
1)go to [options]/[filetypes]
2)set swf(shockwave) video to open with external program (custom)
3)select the program you want to use
4)paste this, quotes included, in the arguments box: "[Filename (path)]BDMV\index.bdmv"
it should play just as if you had the disc inserted
note that you can substitute swf for any unused video format you want.
i have only done this with arcsoft total media theatre, so im unsure if other blu ray software can play blu ray backups.
Also, im not sure if all blu ray folders are structured the same, so far all of mine are
if some are different this will have to be modified/expanded
if you have iso's or img's you can convert them to a folder by unzipping them with archiving software
i have only tried winrar but others probably work too
-
Hi Syndromeofadown,
Welcome aboard - there is a thread that consolidates all the Blu-ray tips in one place at http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=55171.0 - have a read and you will find a similar method described there. If you want please add to it in that thread.
Thanks
Nathan