What does the new BluRay support mean?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

How does this work with audio tracks? Does Sage automatically pick one that it can support and if so is it likely and/or possible to have a disc that *doesn't* have an audio track that Sage supports?

DTS HD and True HD: No problem with anything I've tried so far other than there may not be a track to you liking if you are hooked up to a TV wo amp. Locks onto primary audio track but can be changed with menu.

LPCM: I only have one disc that has LPCM with only stereo audio as an alternate track and that's "The Man Who Fell To Earth". It throws my HD-200 into la la land (complete with looping) even affecting the video rendering. It seems that if the HD-200 doesn't understand the primary track there's a problem.

But Hey! One out of 150 isn't too shabby.

[PLUCKYHD]

I am going by what I read an another post saying they were working on pcm as the chipset they had couldn't bitstream.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

But do they work, last time I tried the one with Arcsoft, it just crashed everything. It's like they made them then realized they don't work and never took them out.

Crashing in GraphEdt doesn't mean it won't work; just means it doesn't work in GraphEdt. Lots of filters crash GraphEdt, some on purpose.

A filter is a COM object, it can do whatever it wants depending on what process (or if a debugger is attached) loads it.

Originally Posted by stanger89

The apps themselves don't even use them, since DirectShow can't be a secure path.

As long as the samples are passed b/w filters still encrypted (remember the video card does the decryption, decode, and render), I don't see why they couldn't use directshow for playback. If the app only worked on Vista I think you could make a no-DirectShow argument; but since that's not the case...

If you look at all the filters that Cyberlink has that are named in a way that suggests that they are purpose built for HD DVD/BR playback; that's a lot of work to do to just "realize it doesn't work" and throw away.

[briands]

Originally Posted by briands

Just confirmed for my self as well with Blue Planet... sweet!!!

Now if you could just get the server to recognize a usb BR drive plugged into the port on the extender....

hmmm... not such good luck with POTC 3... occasional stutters... may be my hardware though. I am sharing my BD/HD-DVD drive in a Win7 client through the server to the extender. It is Gb though

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by briands

hmmm... not such good luck with POTC 3... occasional stutters... may be my hardware though. I am sharing my BD/HD-DVD drive in a Win7 client through the server to the extender. It is Gb though

I just played the first 10 min of POTC3 on mine with no problems so far. If you saw any stutter in the first 10 mins it must be on your end.

My BD player is in my SageTV server.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I don't see why they can't bitstream.

It's not HDMI 1.3.

Originally Posted by babgvant

Crashing in GraphEdt doesn't mean it won't work; just means it doesn't work in GraphEdt. Lots of filters crash GraphEdt, some on purpose.

OK, has anyone, anywhere made one of them work?

As long as the samples are passed b/w filters still encrypted (remember the video card does the decryption, decode, and render), I don't see why they couldn't use directshow for playback. If the app only worked on Vista I think you could make a no-DirectShow argument; but since that's not the case...

But they aren't, they can't, DirectShow doesn't support encryption, and doesn't support ways of preventing filters from being inserted (not to the satisfaction of AACS at the very least). Blu-ray players have to be writen specifically to utilize a COPP (Certified Output Protected Path) and for audio PAP (Protected Audio Path), which as near as I can figure requires bypassing DirectShow.

This is why TheaterTek, Zoomplayer, and the other Dshow 3rd party player developers don't support Blu-ray, because you can't just latch onto other party's filters like you could with DVD.

There was talk at one time that PVP-OPM in Vista would open the door to making "filters" akin to the DVD days where you'd be able to make a "Blu-ray decoder pack" that would provide just the guts, upon which 3rd parties could build a player, but that whole thing doesn't seem to have materialized.

If you look at all the filters that Cyberlink has that are named in a way that suggests that they are purpose built for HD DVD/BR playback; that's a lot of work to do to just "realize it doesn't work" and throw away.

Yeah, I remember seeing them from when I had TMT installed, all I know is they don't work in 3rd party apps, no 3rd party dev has managed to use them, so if they are functional, they only work in PowerDVD/TMT.

[Vaskill]

Biggest benefit: My Hauppauge HD-PVR recorded movies that I back up to DVD-9 as AVCHD will play back natively. Great!

PS. The reason DTS MA and True HD play back on computers (with out PAP) is because the codecs are backwards compatible. They both allow playback of DTS core and DD core unencrypted. There is only one Audio card / software player combination that currently supports PAP, and that is Asus/TMT.

http://usa.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=14102

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, has anyone, anywhere made one of them work?

The interfaces necessary to make it work are undocumented, it would be very difficult to make it work without that information. More importantly, there's not much reason to put the time/effort into it because the import parts work. Why burn 100s of hours trying to reverse engineer something that just gets you menus?

Just because you or I can't do something, doesn't mean it can't be done.

Originally Posted by stanger89

But they aren't, they can't, DirectShow doesn't support encryption,

How do you know that? And it can, just not explicitly. DirectShow passes data around in samples, it is completely agnostic to what's actually in the samples. As long as the two filters can agree on what's contained within it, it will work. There is no reason that the bits in that sample can't be encrypted.

Originally Posted by stanger89

and doesn't support ways of preventing filters from being inserted (not to the satisfaction of AACS at the very least).

While I can't speak to what it takes to satisfy the AACS, it is possible to prevent filters from joining a graph (IAMGraphBuilderCallback), and it is even easier to block filters from being loaded when it's not in a specified process, or block connection to anything but a specific filter.

I've never written a directshow filter that implements these scenarios, but I have written directshow filters, and worked extensively with the framework. Depending on how fancy you want get, there are all sorts of things that a developer can do to ensure that someone else can't use their filter. You still have full access to everything that the underlying (Win32) platform has to offer, even though it's running inside of the DirectShow pipeline.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Blu-ray players have to be writen specifically to utilize a COPP (Certified Output Protected Path) and for audio PAP (Protected Audio Path), which as near as I can figure requires bypassing DirectShow.

My understanding is just that the data needs to be encrypted at each point along the processing bus. While it's not included OOTB in DirectShow, I see no reason to believe that it isn't possible (keep in mind that MS plays back CableCard content which has similar restrictions using DirectShow) to provide the level of support required to certify the pipeline.

Originally Posted by stanger89

This is why TheaterTek, Zoomplayer, and the other Dshow 3rd party player developers don't support Blu-ray, because you can't just latch onto other party's filters like you could with DVD.

Building your own Blueray engine is expensive, and not just the licensing, working with A/V streams is a highly specialized and costly skill set.

MS provided (and documented) the basic building blocks for DVD playback on a PC (BYOD[ecoder]); they didn't do the same with Blue Ray. That's why smaller, less specialized ISVs don't support BR.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, I remember seeing them from when I had TMT installed, all I know is they don't work in 3rd party apps, no 3rd party dev has managed to use them, so if they are functional, they only work in PowerDVD/TMT.

They aren't useful, but they do exist (all I was pointing out earlier).

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Works like a charm on the HD-200 with any dvd hd software loaded/resident. Drive needs to be one of your movie import folders. Sage audio language selection menu works as well.

I played a Blu-Ray disc structure mostly fine off my hard drive. Have to admit though, I'm not sure how to access the "Sage audio language selection menu." Probably something obvious, but can somebody enlighten me? Is there a particular button I need to press on the remote?

I did get some stuttering and slowdown at time playing the disc, especially (but not limited to) the start; that's the only one I have to test though.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

I played a Blu-Ray disc structure mostly fine off my hard drive. Have to admit though, I'm not sure how to access the "Sage audio language selection menu." Probably something obvious, but can somebody enlighten me? Is there a particular button I need to press on the remote?

Press the Options button (EDIT) during playback and a menu will appear. If more than one audio track exists you'll see the audio option in the menu.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The interfaces necessary to make it work are undocumented, it would be very difficult to make it work without that information. More importantly, there's not much reason to put the time/effort into it because the import parts work. Why burn 100s of hours trying to reverse engineer something that just gets you menus?

It's not just menus, it's chapters, it's following playlists for seamless branching titles (like Hancock).

Just because you or I can't do something, doesn't mean it can't be done.

True.

How do you know that?

That's my recollection from everything I've read for the past few years. That it's simply not possible to build a "Directshow" Blu-ray player, and by that I mean something like Sage, TheaterTek, Zoomplayer do for DVD because it was not possible to secure the DirectShow path. It's not possible to prevent, with certainty, 3rd parties from inserting filters in the pipeline.

My recollection was/is that PVP-OPM is required for the sort of secure path required by AACS, ie verified, signed filters and the level of handshaking to ensure that security.

Seems that COPP and PAP are protected paths to the hardware that bypass normal DirectShow paths, and PowerDVD and the don't use their own filters for in-app playback.

And it can, just not explicitly. DirectShow passes data around in samples, it is completely agnostic to what's actually in the samples. As long as the two filters can agree on what's contained within it, it will work. There is no reason that the bits in that sample can't be encrypted.

OK, but I say that rather defeats the purpose of DirectShow, which is to have a plugable, extensible filter architecture.

While I can't speak to what it takes to satisfy the AACS, it is possible to prevent filters from joining a graph (IAMGraphBuilderCallback), and it is even easier to block filters from being loaded when it's not in a specified process, or block connection to anything but a specific filter.

But all those can be spoofed AFAIK, probably without great difficulty.

My understanding is just that the data needs to be encrypted at each point along the processing bus.

It's a bit more than that I believe, there are numerous robustness requirements, you not only have to be encrypted, but you have to be able to show that it won't be compromised.

While it's not included OOTB in DirectShow, I see no reason to believe that it isn't possible (keep in mind that MS plays back CableCard content which has similar restrictions using DirectShow) to provide the level of support required to certify the pipeline.

I kind of wonder what they really do since it's a special version of Windows, special Bios, etc, etc....

Building your own Blueray engine is expensive, and not just the licensing, working with A/V streams is a highly specialized and costly skill set.

But (asside from security) it shouldn't be that much different than DVD, Cyberlink makes a "filter pack" with a navigator filter, then all anyone else has to do is wrap around those providing things like transport controls, directional controls, colored keys. This is roughly the way DVD works (as I understand it), and given the popularity of this for DVD, I'd be surprised no one has made one if not for the security issues.

They aren't useful, but they do exist (all I was pointing out earlier).

Well, regardless, the end result is really the same, the foundation just not there for Sage to build Blu-ray support on the PC without starting from the ground up building their own navigator filter.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's not just menus, it's chapters, it's following playlists for seamless branching titles (like Hancock).

That's a nitpick which doesn't really change the gist of the point I was making (the video plays, the rest is gravy).

Btw, if you use EAC3TO on the disc structure, you can create a single file from the playlist.

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's my recollection from everything I've read for the past few years. That it's simply not possible to build a "Directshow" Blu-ray player, and by that I mean something like Sage, TheaterTek, Zoomplayer do for DVD because it was not possible to secure the DirectShow path. It's not possible to prevent, with certainty, 3rd parties from inserting filters in the pipeline.

I don't mean to be rude, but putting something in print doesn't make it true. If it's properly implemented you can get close enough to certainty.

If DirectShow is unsuitable by design, why would both Cyberlink & ArcSoft waste their time on throw away filters, then admit to the everyone with a copy of GraphEdt that they are stupid by including the dlls, and registering them with the installer?

Originally Posted by stanger89

My recollection was/is that PVP-OPM is required for the sort of secure path required by AACS, ie verified, signed filters and the level of handshaking to ensure that security.

Seems that COPP and PAP are protected paths to the hardware that bypass normal DirectShow paths, and PowerDVD and the don't use their own filters for in-app playback.

These things can be implemented in the decoder filters (similar to how DXVA works, but for different reasons).

I think the fact that you (pl) can't get it to work in GraphEdt is an artifact of the security measures doing what they should.

Originally Posted by stanger89

OK, but I say that rather defeats the purpose of DirectShow, which is to have a plugable, extensible filter architecture.

Frameworks are supposed to be extensible, implementations running on that framework don't need to be. If your requirements are such that you defeat on of the design goals of the framework, I don't see how that is a serious concern for anyone on the development team.

Originally Posted by stanger89

But all those can be spoofed AFAIK, probably without great difficulty.

It depends. Sure you can rename graphedt to "recode" for some (seriously what was the point of that "security" measure), but if the samples are encrypted with a hidden key, or some a "secret" is required to even make the connection it's much more difficult.

DirectShow doesn't change the fact that you own your PC, if there's a key on the box it's just a matter of time and effort before it exposes itself.

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's a bit more than that I believe, there are numerous robustness requirements, you not only have to be encrypted, but you have to be able to show that it won't be compromised.

Wasn't PDVD compromised almost immediately upon release? If you're clever enough, you can always force a crash during playback and fire up windbg and crawl through the memory looking for the keys.

Originally Posted by stanger89

I kind of wonder what they really do since it's a special version of Windows, special Bios, etc, etc....

The BIOS is for key storage. BR stores it's keys differently, which as we know is insecure even w/o directshow.

Originally Posted by stanger89

But (asside from security) it shouldn't be that much different than DVD, Cyberlink makes a "filter pack" with a navigator filter, then all anyone else has to do is wrap around those providing things like transport controls, directional controls, colored keys. This is roughly the way DVD works (as I understand it), and given the popularity of this for DVD, I'd be surprised no one has made one if not for the security issues.

I've written an application that uses the MS DVD Navigator to do all the menu stuff, you don't need Cyberlink for that. You just need the decoder.

It's also important to think about context, at this stage (roughly 2 yrs after the release) where was DVD playback on the PC?

[jkohn]

It's not HDMI 1.3.

That's lame if true. Bitstreaming would have been the best option. I have to think the chances of Sage being able to get a license to decode DTS-MA HD or Dolby TrueHD with full resolution are close to zero, after all Cyberlink and Arcsoft can't do it.

[jkohn]

I don't mean to be rude, but putting something in print doesn't make it true. If it's properly implemented you can get close enough to certainty.

Everything that I've read about DirectShow is pretty conclusive that you can't get the sort of protection the BluRay folks want. You may think it's possible to get the protection "close enough", but even if you're right that it's technically possible that doesn't mean that Sage or anybody else will be able to get a license to do it, if Sony and the gang say 'no'. Also keep in mind, it's one thing for a few college students working on an open source codec to do something like that, but quite another for a real company to do it with a real product. If it were possible to release a direct-show based BluRay player without getting sued into oblivion, don't you think somebody would have done so by now? I'm pretty sure Andrew over at TheaterTek would love to release a BluRay solution if it were possible, his product has been effectively killed by this issue.

If DirectShow is unsuitable by design, why would both Cyberlink & ArcSoft waste their time on throw away filters, then admit to the everyone with a copy of GraphEdt that they are stupid by including the dlls, and registering them with the installer?

There are plenty of uses for those filters besides studio-released BluRay titles.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by jkohn

That's lame if true. Bitstreaming would have been the best option. I have to think the chances of Sage being able to get a license to decode DTS-MA HD or Dolby TrueHD with full resolution are close to zero, after all Cyberlink and Arcsoft can't do it.

jkohn,

This is a misconseption there is no difference in sound quality from bitstreaming or pcm it has been proven in articles i have read.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, I'm going to throw Hancock "raw" at it and see what happens, it's a playlist of 19 m2ts files....

Have you tried this yet? I've just ripped my Blu-Ray disc of Wall-E which contains 203 m2ts files and although it works it does have a blip when it changes to the next m2ts file. I was wondering if this is normal or just my rip/setup.

edit: I should also say that I've only upgraded the firmware on the HD200 and not updated the server to the latest beta.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by jkohn

Everything that I've read about DirectShow is pretty conclusive that you can't get the sort of protection the BluRay folks want.

How authoritative is your source? Please tell me it's not Wikipedia or a collection of random forum posts.

Originally Posted by jkohn

You may think it's possible to get the protection "close enough", but even if you're right that it's technically possible that doesn't mean that Sage or anybody else will be able to get a license to do it, if Sony and the gang say 'no'.

I'm not an expert, but my opinion on the topic is framed by years of programming DirectShow applications; including transcoding, playback, and custom filters.

Originally Posted by jkohn

If it were possible to release a direct-show based BluRay player without getting sued into oblivion, don't you think somebody would have done so by now?

I think both TMT and PDVD are DirectShow BR players.

Originally Posted by jkohn

I'm pretty sure Andrew over at TheaterTek would love to release a BluRay solution if it were possible, his product has been effectively killed by this issue.

Building the necessary components is expensive and complicated (look at how long it took Cyberlink and ArcSoft to get it stable). Does TheaterTek build it's own filters, or are they buyer?

BTW, there's no need for anyone to build a OSS BR navigator with all the DRM intact. There are already applications that can parse the disc structure (EAC3TO for e.g.); and now the Sage extender does it as well. The same information used by these applications could be used to create a DirectShow navigator filter.

Originally Posted by jkohn

There are plenty of uses for those filters besides studio-released BluRay titles.

What would you use the "Cyberlink BDROM Navigator", "Cyberlink HD/BD Mixer", "Cyberlink HDDVD Navigator", or "Cyberlink Video/SP BD-HD Decoder" for?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by jkohn

That's lame if true. Bitstreaming would have been the best option. I have to think the chances of Sage being able to get a license to decode DTS-MA HD or Dolby TrueHD with full resolution are close to zero, after all Cyberlink and Arcsoft can't do it.

Both PDVD and TMT can decode DTS-MA HD & Dolby TrueHD; TMT can even bit stream them with Xonar HW.

More importantly, lossless audio is lossless; doesn't matter where it gets decoded (as long as the decoder works properly).

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Both PDVD and TMT can decode DTS-MA HD & Dolby TrueHD; TMT can even bit stream them with Xonar HW.

I said, with full resolution. Unless you're using the Xonar with TMT, you don't get full resolution audio from either of these players. They downsample to 16/48.

More importantly, lossless audio is lossless; doesn't matter where it gets decoded (as long as the decoder works properly).

Well, that may be a big 'if' as we've all seen the numerous bugs in the software players over the past couple of years. On the Windows platform in particular, outputting PCM is less optimal because the Windows mixer and volume control is still in the loop unless the application uses WASAPI exclusive (which neither TMT or PowerDVD does). Some pre/pro's can't can do full DSP processing on high-res PCM inputs so doing the decoding at the pre/pro is beneficial there. Also PCM is more susceptible to jitter.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I said, with full resolution. Unless you're using the Xonar with TMT, you don't get full resolution audio from either of these players. They downsample to 16/48.

I missed the "full resolution" part, sorry.

Originally Posted by jkohn

Well, that may be a big 'if' as we've all seen the numerous bugs in the software players over the past couple of years.

All sw has bugs, it's likely that the programmers at whoever makes your AVR are just as good/bad.