Playing Blu-Ray and HD DVD Video

I've had a comment on one of my previous posts asking if  Ubuntu Linux can play Blue-Ray Discs.

This is the complete answer to that comment taken from the Ubuntu Documentation from the Ubuntu help website at

It is possible (although a little cumbersome) to play HD DVD and Blu-Ray films on Ubuntu.



Audio in some films may not yet be supported.

The AACS 'Digital Rights Management' (actually, Digital Restrictions Management) system in most HD-DVD and all Blu-Ray discs attempts to stop consumers from exercising fair use rights, including:

• Playing purchased Blu-Ray and HD DVD films using Open Source software.


• Playing films using standard digital (DVI) or analog (VGA) cables and monitors, which generally do not support HDCP DRM, without a 75% reduction in resolution.


• Fast forwarding or skipping advertisements.


• Playing imported films, including when local equivalents may be overpriced or not available.

Blu-Ray or HD DVD player applications require their unique player (or 'device') key to play discs. These keys are issued by AACS-LA to approved manufacturers that implement the restrictions above. This player key can decrypt each film's volume key, which in turn can decrypt the film's content to play it.

However the AACS DRM is ineffective and does not successfully prevent any of these things.

• The player key for the xBox 360 HD DVD drive is known publicly, and has around 500,000 results on Google.


• Player keys for all Windows based software players, such as WinDVD and PowerDVD are known publicly. These can be used to find the volume keys for discs that don't have newer keys than those discovered. While these applications now have new keys (and future HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs won't play with the old keys), it's likely the new key will be discovered too as all players must store their keys in memory at some point.


• The volume keys needed to play many released films are known publicly, due to the above. Even without a licensed player key, Linux HD-DVD and Blu-Ray software can use these to play discs.

Legal Notice Patent and copyright laws operate differently depending on which country you are in. Please obtain legal advice if you are unsure whether a particular patent or restriction applies to a media format you wish to use in your country.

Requirements

None of the software below is supplied or endorsed by Ubuntu.

• An HD DVD drive. The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player works well. Log into Gnome and then plug in the player. DVDs and CDs will work out of the box, HD-DVDs require the additional steps below. OR


• A Blu-ray drive.

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

• A UDF 2.5 filesystem driver (the UDF driver included up to 8.04 Hardy Heron only supports UDF 2.0).

For 9.04 and earlier ONLY

• A current subversion release of MPlayer


• A current subversion release of FFMPEG. Try here for .deb files.

Ubuntu 9.10 contains a version of Mplayer that is capable of reading decrypted Blu-ray files.

Many HD DVD and all Blu-Ray discs use DRM. For these discs, you'll need:

• DumpHD to perform the decryption necessary to play the film.


• The sun-java6-bin package. See Installing Software.


• A current keydb.cfg file, which contains the decryption keys required to your film: keydb.cfg for HD-DVDs, Blu-Rays.


• Around 30GB of temporary disk space for HD-DVDs and 50GB for Blu-Rays.

Easy Alternative

As an easier alternative to the DumpHD method, you can try the MakeMKV program. The program contains a decryption key that has not been revoked, and may have more success in ripping your disc. It is not a perfect solution, however, because the main backend of the program is closed-source, and MakeMKV is not able to remove the BD+ protection on certain discs. Using MakeMKV, however, is often easier than using DumpHD.

A guide to easily initialising and watching Blu-ray discs with MakeMKV can be found here:http://themediaviking.com/software/bluray-linux/

Playing the Movie

1. Put an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc in the drive. The disc should appear on the Gnome desktop.

1. If using HD-DVD, try and play the disc. R&B Films, Fox Pathe/Studio Canal, EMS GmbH and other studios produce HD DVD discs without DRM, allowing them to be played without any of the restrictions mentioned above. The films content is in .EVO files in the 'HDDVD_TS' folder on the disc. Specify the video codec to use:

mplayer -vc ffvc1 /media/KING_KONG/HVDVD_TS/FEATURE*EVO

If you're not watching a movie at this point, the disc needs to be decrypted.

1. DumpHD can decrypt the disc. Ensure you have a large amount of disk space available (around 30GB, and run):

sudo ./dumphd.sh

Select the disc as the source (a directory somewhere beneath /media/Film Name and a directory like /tmp to save the movie content.

You can proceed onto the next step once FEATURE_1.EVO has started decrypting.

1. Play the film from your hard disk. Specify the video codec to use:

mplayer -vc ffvc1 "/tmp/King Kong/HVDVD_TS/FEATURE*EVO"

1. If your disc is a Blu-ray and still doesn't work, it might be protected with BD+; it is possible to decrypt it using these tools.

Playback using VDPAU acceleration

Nvidia 8000 series and above, excluding 8800 cards, support Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU). This allows the Nvidia GPU to take on some of the decoding load.

Mplayer in Ubuntu 9.10 supports VDPAU. You will also need the nvidia-185-libvdpau package.

When you have a decrypted Blu-ray/HD-DVD filesystem on your hard disk, you can run the following command:

H.264 disc

mplayer -vc ffh264vdpau -vo vdpau ~/BDMV/STREAM/00001.m2ts

VC-1 disc

mplayer -vc ffvc1vdpau -vo vdpau ~/BDMV/STREAM/00001.m2ts

MPEG disc

mplayer -vc ffmpeg12vdpau -vo vdpau ~/BDMV/STREAM/00001.m2ts

Mounting Bluray disc iso image

The bluray iso file is in udf format instead of iso9660. Therefore you need to mount it using the udf type:

sudo mount -o loop -t udf path/to/bluray.iso /media/cdrom

Tips

Some files require odd workarounds - for instance, the Pirate Of The Caribbean trilogy requires you to specify the frame rate with the "-fps" option (i.e. "-fps 25" for PAL) and may start with the wrong language selected (you can cycle through them by hitting the # key).

Depending on the speed of your computer, you may need to alter the AV Sync during playback, using the - and + keys.

You can go to full-screen in Mplayer by pressing the F key.

You generally get smoother playback without a compositing window manager (so turn off Compiz).

Some discs (like The Boat That Rocked) require the latest Mplayer from SVN.

Further Reading

Freedom to Tinker article on AACS decryption - A simple explanation of the DRM used in HD DVD and what BackupHDDVD (and BackupHDDVD C++) do.

Linux UDF project containing UDF-2.50_linux-2.6.20.patch, the UDF 2.5 filesystem driver.

Release announcement for BackupHDDVD C++

Doom 9 Forum thread on playing HD DVD disc content with Linux mplayer SVN

Wikipedia article on AACS, used to restrict users rights on HD DVD and Blu-Ray

Why you should boycott Blu-ray and HD-DVD

The Mplayer man page

RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD (last edited 2010-12-13 13:00:05 by Paul Seddon)

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Post thanks to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD

 

Roland

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Desktop Edition vs Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat Desktop Edition

After Installing the Release Candidate of Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat Netbook Edition  yesterday I thought I'd login to the regular Desktop and compare it with the Desktop Edition of Lucid Lynx and the only thing that has changed in this release to the previous release is that the clock is the new clock with the pop down calendar when you left click on it.  The Connection manager still uses the old graphic and the volume control is the old style modern looking on that is present in the previous release and not the old blocky volume control that is in the Unity Netbook Desktop.

Roland

My move from OpenSuse 11.3 to Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition Part 1

Installing Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition

After reading about the impending release of Ubuntu 10.10 on the Ubuntu website and after some Googling to find out what the new features are going to be in the Netbook Edition of Ubuntu 10.10, and finding out that it will have a new Unity Desktop instead of the old Moblin desktop that was in Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition I thought that I would ditch OpenSuse 11.3 for Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition and update to Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition when it is released on Sunday.  I'm currently Installing the Beta of the Unity Desktop on to my running 10.04 Netbook Edition.  I'll add a post about Unity when I've taken it for a test drive.

I'll add part 2 of this two part post on Sunday when I get 10.04 Netbook Edition updated ot 10.10 Netbook Edition.

Roland

My move from Windows 7 to Ubuntu 10.04

The transition from Microsofts Windows 7 Ultimate Edition to Conicals Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition LTS was an easy one and all the hardware.on my Advent 4213 Netbook was detected and setup correctly. The only thing that needed manual configuration was setting up the built in Mobile Broadband modem to connect to T-Mobile UK Web 'N' Walk, but that was a painless operation as all that needs to be done is select your country and Service Provider.

Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition runs fast on the Advent Netbook. The only draw back is the lack of leds for Caps Lock and Num Lock make it hard to tell when Caps Lock and Num Lock are on. I've yet to find a Linux alternative to the Windows only OSD app that comes as part of the pre-Installed Windows software that is installed on the default Windows XP. SP3 Home Edition installation. I've also got to work out how to get my Lexmark X735 Printer and Umax AstraSlim SE Scanner. Also I need to get my head around the Coadweavers Crossover Office Demo to see if I can get all my Windows Apps to work.

There are plenty of free alternatives to paid for Windows apps to be able to cover anything you might need to do without having to use Crossover Office or the fee much more complex Wine Windows emulator.

The only thing that I'm currently struggling to work out is how to install the K Desktop Environment easily as there are a lot of Packages that need to be Installed to get it to work.

My wish list of essential apps are a Linux veersion of Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail App and a Linux version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager, come on RIM please develop a Linix version, there's a Windows and Mac OSX version of BlackBerry Desktop Manager a Linux version would be nice.

Afte a few days of using Ubuntu I've got to say that I really love the clean Desktop of the default Ubuntu Gnome Desktop. It took a bit of getting used to having a panel on the top of the Desktop with an Applications Menu (equivelant to the Windows Start Menu), a Places Menu that contains links to the Home folder and various other folders and Flash Drives e.t.c, a System Menu that has links to System Preferences and System Administration and the Notification. The bottom of the Desktop has a Panel with a link to Show Desktop a Taskbar of open applications and a link to the Deleted Items folder (equivelant to the Windows Recycle Bin). This Desktop setup gives you an in obstructed view of your chosen wallpaper.

The Gnome Desktop is a lot more. Intuitive than the KDE Desktop. If you like a flashy bells and whistles Desktop then the KDE Desktop is for you, but if you prefer a clean and snappy Desktop is for you.

If you want the Gnome Desktop version of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx then head over to ubuntu.com and select eather the Netbook version of 10.04 that is exactly. The same as the Desktop Edition but with a re-designed Desktop interface that's ideal for the smaller screen of a Netbook, or the Desktop Edition of 10.04 that comes in 32 but or 64 but versions.

If you want the KDE Desktop version of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx then head over to kubuntu.org and select eather the Netbook version of 10.04 that is exactly. The same as the Desktop Edition but with a re-designed Desktop interface that's ideal for the smaller screen of a Netbook, or the Desktop Edition of 10.04 that comes in 32 but or 64 but versions.

If your needs go beyond the normal KDE or gnome version of Ubuntu then there is the Server Edition if you need to run a Server of any kind available from
Ubuntu.com and selecting the Sever Edition.

I've now moved over to OpenSuse 11.2