[mythtv-users] Any Blu-Ray success stories?

[greg]

Florin Andrei wrote:
> Norm wrote:
>   
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD
>> It mentions the right driver is in the 2.6.26 kernel.
>>     
>
> That's very nice. Upcoming distributions will get that automatically. Cool!
>
>   
>> DumpHD seemed to work but the video was garbled compared to AnyDVD's
>> output.
>>     
>
> I am under the impression that DumpHD relies on a database of keys that 
> you need to keep updated and that may miss the key(s) for just the disk 
> you want to watch. Am I wrong?
>
> I've heard most people say that AnyDVD HD works great for BD decrypting 
> on Windows. I find it hard to believe it will work under WINE, due to 
> the way the application operates, but you never know. Somebody should 
> try it and let everyone know.
>
> Now, according to Internet chatter, DVDFab HD Decrypter is known to work 
> pretty well with DVD under WINE and it's free. It should work with BD 
> under Windows, is my guess. Anybody tried to watch their legally 
> purchased BD with it on Linux yet?
>
> http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm
>
> Of course, even assuming you solve decryption, then just playing HD 
> compressed with AVC or VC-1 (two out of the three codecs used by BD) may 
> not be quite trivial on Linux.
> I know for a fact that interlaced (1080i) AVC, as created by AVCHD 
> camcorders such as Canon HF100, is essentially impossible to play on 
> Linux with the current tools, due to some issues that libavcodec is 
> having with interlaced AVC: heavy artifacting/corruption at random 
> times; it's maybe OK if you just want to do a quick superficial check-up 
> of a clip, but for normal watching it's not usable.
> Perhaps progressive AVC material is playable, but I never tried it. In 
> any case, you'll need a very fast machine.
>
> HD MPEG2 (the third codec commonly used by BD) should be playable on 
> Linux with minimal or no problems on fairly recent hardware. But it 
> seems like it's used mostly for old or foreign movies, according to what 
> my PS3 is telling me on the disks that I watched so far.
>
> VC-1 seems to be used mostly for titles that were initially released on 
> HD-DVD and then moved over to BD (but it's not an absolute rule). It's 
> essentially the same like Microsoft's Windows Media video codec, in HD. 
> I guess libavcodec may be able to decode it? But I'm worried about speed.
>
> Then there's the issue of the sound tracks. AC3 is definitely playable 
> on Linux. So is PCM. Not so sure about DTS and the other common formats. 
> Some disks offer 5.1 (and higher) only in DTS or some other kind of 
> strange formats. I don't want to be restricted to 2.0 audio.
>
> Also, is there any support for .sup subtitles? I rarely use them, but 
> sometimes you just need them. Ever tried to understand what Brad Pitt is 
> saying in the movie "Snatch"? :-) On a standalone player of course the 
> subtitles work just fine, but I'm not aware of any Linux tools that can 
> display them.
>
> Finally, you said you want to watch the whole disk. I'd be happy to just 
> have access to the main title, but fine, let's assume it.
> In some cases you may need to run the weird Java thing inside the player 
> in order to access the whole content. I don't think there's anything on 
> Linux that can currently do that. Correct me if I'm wrong.
> There's quite a few BD movies already that require Java for the menus 
> and games and stuff:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J#BD-J_Enhanced_Movie_Titles
>
> So, the way I see it, we're not even close.
>
>   
There is a nice write up on using Anydvd to rip Blu-ray...

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/High_Definition_Disk_Formats