What does the new BluRay support mean?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jaminben

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.

Yeah, it appears to not start playing. I'm planning to just rebuild it, it will save me 20GB anyway.

Originally Posted by babgvant

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?

Theatertek has always used third party filters, originally it used Sonic decoders and later nVidia. Theatertek is bascially just a Directshow DVD player wrapper.

FWIW, here's an MS PPT about content protection being added to Vista (ie not available in XP):
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a
And a (rather bad) PC World article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/12273..._hd_video.html

[voidpt]

Must say I'm very happy with the new BDMV folder solution I was going the MKV road before. Have now tried one Blu-Ray (Open Season, with both English & Norwegian audio), and one HD DVD (Stardust). I do rebuild the BDMV structure. I like to just keep the main movie and relevant material. So I end up with just one m2ts anyway. Keeps it simpler.

The one thing that really makes me happy is the (hopefully) native Blu-Ray SUP (graphics) subtitle support coming. I do not need to OCR the stuff anymore to SMI files.

The way I do it is: AnyDVD HD -> eac3to -> tsMuxeR.

What I'm still thinking about is how to keep high-resolution audio. Probably going to end up with 2 audio tracks for each language. Have to test more.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by voidpt

The way I do it is: AnyDVD HD -> eac3to -> tsMuxeR.

Have you actually been using AnyDVD HD to rip the disc? The reason I ask is that I used to do that and then decided it was quicker just to point eac3to directly to the disc while AnyDVD HD was running. Cuts pre-processing quite a bit since I don't have to rip the entire disc just to get the main movie.

[voidpt]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Have you actually been using AnyDVD HD to rip the disc? The reason I ask is that I used to do that and then decided it was quicker just to point eac3to directly to the disc while AnyDVD HD was running. Cuts pre-processing quite a bit since I don't have to rip the entire disc just to get the main movie.

Good question. You are correct. I have been ripping first and then running eac3to against the contents on the harddisk. Just by habit really. Past experience with getting it on on a 'faster' medium for next stage just kept me there. But I guess since I've learned to do eac3to command line with correct choices, and in one pass for both video / audio / subtitles, there could be time to be saved. I'll do it both ways the next time and check it.

[stanger89]

You shouldn't need eac3to for most disc at all, I've usually just been looking up the right playlist with bdinfo and then pointing TSMuxer right at that.

[voidpt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You shouldn't need eac3to for most disc at all, I've usually just been looking up the right playlist with bdinfo and then pointing TSMuxer right at that.

You might be right. Only reason I keep on using eac3to for now is the amount of development that seems to have gone into it. They guy writing it still releases fixes all the time for different scenarios. So I like eac3to extracting and creating the raw data for txMuxeR. It just feels like the most 'solid' road. Can't prove anything though, just a hunch from the impression one gets from different util/tools. Will give the direct route with tsMuxeR a try at some point. I wouldn't mind a one-stop solution like I use DVDFab for my DVDs.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You shouldn't need eac3to for most disc at all, I've usually just been looking up the right playlist with bdinfo and then pointing TSMuxer right at that.

I agree with stanger89. eac3to was designed to convert audio tracks initially and has grown from there. I love eac3to, but only use it if I need an AC3 audio track where one doesn't exist.

TSMuxer upgrades consistently as well.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I agree with stanger89. eac3to was designed to convert audio tracks initially and has grown from there. I love eac3to, but only use it if I need an AC3 audio track where one doesn't exist.

TSMuxer upgrades consistently as well.

Since I transcode my BD's for storage on my NAS the easiest container to get MeGUI to read is MKV. eac3to allows me to get the video into MKV, extract the chapters and also demux and transcode the audio if necessary.

[IVB]

apologies, i don't understand 100% of what's been said, but do I still need tsmuxer or BDInfo or any other software except AnyDVD-HD, or can I just rip to the HD and let Sage figure out what to do?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by IVB

apologies, i don't understand 100% of what's been said, but do I still need tsmuxer or BDInfo or any other software except AnyDVD-HD, or can I just rip to the HD and let Sage figure out what to do?

You don't need anything else if you have an audio track on the rip that plays for you. eac3to and TSMuxer are freeware. TSMuxer lets you leave out audio and video tracks you don't need/want where space is an issue. eac3to can do the same and lets you convert existing audio tracks to something you can use if needed.

EDIT: Forgot BDInfo (freeware) which is a usefull tool when muxing BDs with seamless branching. Uses playlists to show the individual m2ts files used to assemble the movie.

[IVB]

cool, thanks. I already have tsmuxer, but one less step is one less step...

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Theatertek has always used third party filters, originally it used Sonic decoders and later nVidia. Theatertek is bascially just a Directshow DVD player wrapper.

Then it makes complete sense that they would be shut out. Without the expertise to build a BR navigator and the necessary downstream filters, licensing from a competitor would be the only other option.

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, here's an MS PPT about content protection being added to Vista (ie not available in XP):
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a

Vista's added security doesn't preclude the use of DirectShow on XP or Vista; it just make it easier to build applications like BR players because ISVs don't have to roll their own transport security, it's already part of Media Foundation.

The drawback to DirectShow is that the framework doesn't have those parts built in, ISVs need to build it into the implementation instead of getting it for free.

Originally Posted by stanger89

And a (rather bad) PC World article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/12273..._hd_video.html

I'll agree with "bad"; not sure about relevance (or how authoritative).

[voidpt]

A few questions for the users of HD200 and Blu-Ray. When you get a DTS(-HD) Master Audio track:

Do you only extract the Core 1536 ?
Keep it like it is, but is HD200 able to read the Core 1536 in a DTS-HD ?
Extract the Core 1536 as separate track, and a DTS-HD track for future ?
Any idea to convert the DTS-HD to uncompressed ?

I'm just trying to plot a road for my future library. Especially with regards to possible HD200 support for uncompressed 8-channel over HDMI. Until now I just made sure any high quality audio got converted to at least DTS 1536kbit/s. Any thoughs apreciated.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Then it makes complete sense that they would be shut out. Without the expertise to build a BR navigator and the necessary downstream filters, licensing from a competitor would be the only other option.

But they've always done that, TheaterTek, Zoomplayer, etc have always used 3rd party guts to do the playback, and for a long time there's been a good market for supporting these 3rd parties by "1st parties" creating "decoder packs".

Yet neither are happening for Blu-ray, and why?

Vista's added security doesn't preclude the use of DirectShow on XP or Vista; it just make it easier to build applications like BR players because ISVs don't have to roll their own transport security, it's already part of Media Foundation.

That's not what I'm saying and not why I linked that, I'm pointing out the comments in there that the new security is required for AACS content, that it can't simply be done in Dshow.

That Dshow doesn't provide the requisite security to support the type of decoder filterpacks like we had with DVD. Thus nobody is making them and SageTV has nothing to work with to support Blu-ray on the PC.

[HelenWeathers]

EDIT: response to voidpt

I have my units attached to TVs that only understand AC3 so I'm not an expert. That said, I believe that the HD-200s extract the True HD core and the DTS HD core and pass them through to the optical/hdmi outputs. So if you use an external amp, you should be able to just keep the HiDef audio track as is.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

But they've always done that, TheaterTek, Zoomplayer, etc have always used 3rd party guts to do the playback, and for a long time there's been a good market for supporting these 3rd parties by "1st parties" creating "decoder packs".

Yet neither are happening for Blu-ray, and why?

If you look at what an ISV to add to the party when writing a DirectShow DVD player, only the A/V decoders are missing. Everything else is done for you. As I mentioned earlier I wrote a DirectShow based DVD player, it's not hard.

When it comes to BR, an ISV needs to write everything except the renderer* and make sure that it secures the bits as they pass through.

Why the market has changed isn't a technical question, it's a business question. I would speculate on the business side, either developing the bits in house or licensing from Cyberlink/InterVideo/ArcSoft (if this was even an option) would push the price higher than the cost of existing sw from Cyberlink/InterVideo/ArcSoft.

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's not what I'm saying and not why I linked that, I'm pointing out the comments in there that the new security is required for AACS content, that it can't simply be done in Dshow.

Where does it say in that PPT that "it can't simply be done in Dshow"? MF providing the security OOTB, doesn't mean it can't be built into DirectShow.

My read of that PPT is that MF takes care of the security so you don't have to, not that DirectShow is incapable of supporting the necessary modifications.

Originally Posted by stanger89

That Dshow doesn't provide the requisite security to support the type of decoder filterpacks like we had with DVD. Thus nobody is making them and SageTV has nothing to work with to support Blu-ray on the PC.

Not OOTB, but it can be built in.

DirectShow is a COM base pipeline framework, it just provides the shell for media playback. For some playback scenarios (WAV or WMV) the guts (filters) to make it all work are provided OOTB, in other scenarios (DVD) most of what is necessary is there, in others (BR) nothing*.

Filters are just COM objects that can do anything.

If you work backwards from what Cyberlink charges for PDVD ($100), it's not hard to see why 3rd parties that would need to buy everything couldn't compete (and therefore don't bother coming to market).

* Cyberlink replaced this as well, so it's possible that this needs to be custom as well

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by babgvant

If you look at what an ISV to add to the party when writing a DirectShow DVD player, only the A/V decoders are missing. Everything else is done for you. As I mentioned earlier I wrote a DirectShow based DVD player, it's not hard.

When it comes to BR, an ISV needs to write everything except the renderer* and make sure that it secures the bits as they pass through.

I get the feeling we're in violent agreement here, arguing mostly on semantics. But yes, that's the point, to support BD, you need to write your app to handle everything up to rendering, where you have to utilize COPP interfaces, vs the standard Dshow interfaces.

Why the market has changed isn't a technical question, it's a business question. I would speculate on the business side, either developing the bits in house or licensing from Cyberlink/InterVideo/ArcSoft (if this was even an option) would push the price higher than the cost of existing sw from Cyberlink/InterVideo/ArcSoft.

I think really it is at least partially technical, it seems incredibly hard (if not actually impossible) to write 3rd-party compatible Dshow components to support Blu-ray (w/AACS). Thus nobody has opted to try it.

Maybe it's technically possible to shoehorn the required security into the standard Dshow architecture, but the difficulty/cost of doing so has prevented anyone from doing it.

Where does it say in that PPT that "it can't simply be done in Dshow"? MF providing the security OOTB, doesn't mean it can't be built into DirectShow.

Granted it doesn't say "can't be done", but what it does say is basically "The security requirements of AACS (etc) and the shortcomings of Directshow has driven us to design/impliment this new functionality."

My read of that PPT is that MF takes care of the security so you don't have to, not that DirectShow is incapable of supporting the necessary modifications.

Perhaps, but if you're right that's still modifications (non-standard/custom) that would be necessary, and even then, as near as I can tell from the discussions over the years, even if you shoehorn the security in, Dshow would not be approved for an AACS license.

Not OOTB, but it can be built in.

Well yeah if you go far enough up, anything can be made to do almost anything. But that's not the point, at least not my point, which is again, the shortcomings of Dshow, lacking the built in security measures, combined with the AACS licensing requirements have prevented anyone from making Dshow based Blu-ray solutions ala the DVD paradigm.

DirectShow is a COM base pipeline framework, it just provides the shell for media playback. For some playback scenarios (WAV or WMV) the guts (filters) to make it all work are provided OOTB, in other scenarios (DVD) most of what is necessary is there, in others (BR) nothing*.

And it's largely the lack of built-in securty that's the cause for nobody making Dshow Blu-ray component packages for use in 3rd party apps. It's also likely that the lack licensing requirements discourage (if no prohibit) Cyberlink et all from disclosing the interfaces to third parties for fear of $8Million fine for security failure.

Filters are just COM objects that can do anything.

If you work backwards from what Cyberlink charges for PDVD ($100), it's not hard to see why 3rd parties that would need to buy everything couldn't compete (and therefore don't bother coming to market).

You could have made the same argument with DVD, yet with DVD everybody created filters for use in WMP and other Dshow apps. Theatertek licensed DVD playback tech from Sonic then nVidia and still sold their app for ~the cost of PowerDVD.

[PLUCKYHD]

Okay just tried it you guys are my heros!!!!

I can't say how much I have wanted this. I started the conversion from media center just for native dvd structure support this is over the top.

Now for pcm hd audio formats and I am completely satisfied.

[panteragstk]

I think that when talking about getting sage to play back blu-ray's natively you have to remember how long it took other apps to play dvd's other than those like pdvd, arcsoft tmt, and windvd. I remember when creative had a dvd drive with an internal hardware decoder card for dvd playback. Now most if not all newer video cards support mpeg2 decoding negating the need for the hardware decoder cards. Most video cards now also support hardware decoding for blu-rays as well. Mine does. However, it doesn't work very well depending on what software you use. TMT wouldn't play a certain movie because of TrueHD sound. I updated it, suddenly dxva is broken, but TrueHD works now. Pdvd works fine if I have Anydvd HD open. If not, i get an hdcp error. This alone tells me that there is isn't even full blu-ray support with the commercial apps that specifically support it. Especially when cyberlinks own hdcp verification program says my setup passes. So that tells me that when the companies that pay the fees to support blu-ray playback don't even work correctly all of the time, how can we expect third party software to work? It is going to take a long time for anything like sagetv or mpc to support blu ray playback. Dvd playback is easy for them because they have had about 15 years to get it right. That and the fact that dvd copy protection wasn't even a issue when dvd came out. HDMI was created for the simple fact that the companies that produce movies wanted assurance that their movies would have as much copy protection they could get. Even stand alone blu-ray players won't let you send a 1080p signal through component, and if they do chances are your tv doesn't accept a 1080p signal through component. They are trying to make blu-ray playback as secure as possible which in turn means that pc playback will suffer because of constant copy protection updates. Then you try and navigate the blu-ray menu structure with a third party app you are just opening up a new can of worms. Lets get pc playback to work flawlessly first and go from there. Even the xonar isn't working correctly to bitstream the audio to a compatible receiver. There are just to many steps to take before sagetv will support blu-ray playback to even begin to complain about it. The fact that this current solution works is awesome. The only way I've been able to get my pc to play nice with blu-rays is to rip the main movie, take out all audio I don't want, then mux it all into a .m2ts file and store it on a hard drive. This works great for .h264 files. Vc-1 not so much. It works, but no hw acceleration with cyberlink codecs. Mpc codecs won't even work. Neither will arcsoft.

I'm sorry about my ranting, but this issue is a long way from being solved. There are workarounds as long as you don't mind not having lossless audio. Someday this discussion will be funny, but now it is just a long and pointless argument.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I get the feeling we're in violent agreement here, arguing mostly on semantics. But yes, that's the point, to support BD, you need to write your app to handle everything up to rendering, where you have to utilize COPP interfaces, vs the standard Dshow interfaces.

For many applications you need to write everything up to the renderer, that's not an aberration, in many cases it's the norm.

DirectShow provides the plumbing, it's up the developer to assembly something useful. If you need a part you build it, sometimes the only thing you can reuse is the renderer.

Take M2TS playback for e.g., the only filters that can be used OOTB are the renderer and the async source, the demuxer and decoders for every supported type need to be created. Same for MKV (although Haali's splitter is a hybrid source/splitter filter), and every other container and codec that doesn't ship with support.

BlueRay is no different.

Originally Posted by stanger89

where you have to utilize COPP interfaces, vs the standard Dshow interfaces.

Probably a lexicon thing, but to use DirectShow, you need to use it's interfaces (that's how it separates implementation from control). Same thing is true for MF, it just defines different interfaces.

Originally Posted by stanger89

I think really it is at least partially technical, it seems incredibly hard (if not actually impossible) to write 3rd-party compatible Dshow components to support Blu-ray (w/AACS). Thus nobody has opted to try it.

I don't understand why you keep asserting this, when all the filters necessary for playback are there. The only thing I've heard so far to lend any credence to this position is that you can't make it work; which as we've agreed previously is pretty slim evidence. While I can't say that they are used, that they are present certainly lends weight to the argument that they are used. The only explanation to the contrary so far is that they were too lazy to take them out.

If there's nothing more behind this claim than having read it somewhere, why does it trundle on? Seriously, I would love to see anything from an authoritative source.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Maybe it's technically possible to shoehorn the required security into the standard Dshow architecture, but the difficulty/cost of doing so has prevented anyone from doing it.

Again, how can you with any degree of certainty make this assertion when nothing besides "having read it somewhere" has been presented?

The cost and difficulty limits the field; which we've seen. Only two (or three) vendors have the the expertise (historically building DirectShow based players) and pockets to make it go; the bit players get left behind. The costliness of building the player is actually an argument for DirectShow, all the plumbing you get for free would need to be built + all the security and playback bits. If they built their own frameworks why isnt' there a Mac/Linux version of PDVD?

Originally Posted by stanger89

Granted it doesn't say "can't be done", but what it does say is basically "The security requirements of AACS (etc) and the shortcomings of Directshow has driven us to design/impliment this new functionality."

I searched the ppt for "Directshow" and "shortcomings", didn't find anything. Where is this quote coming from?

MF is a framework which builds on lessons learned from DirectShow. One of the things it adds is security; not because it can't be added to DirectShow, but to make it easier for ISVs to build applications on Windows. MS adds things to Windows with every release to make it cheaper to build applications on their platform; MF is no different.

It's important to note that MF is only used to playback WMV on Vista, it is useless for everything else.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Perhaps, but if you're right that's still modifications (non-standard/custom) that would be necessary, and even then, as near as I can tell from the discussions over the years, even if you shoehorn the security in, Dshow would not be approved for an AACS license.

Which discussions are these?

Originally Posted by stanger89

Well yeah if you go far enough up, anything can be made to do almost anything. But that's not the point, at least not my point, which is again, the shortcomings of Dshow, lacking the built in security measures, combined with the AACS licensing requirements have prevented anyone from making Dshow based Blu-ray solutions ala the DVD paradigm.

DirectShow is imperfect, but the limitations have more to do with threading and resource usage than the lack of flexibility.

I'm curious what you base the assertion that it is fundamentally unfit for this task.

Originally Posted by stanger89

You could have made the same argument with DVD, yet with DVD everybody created filters for use in WMP and other Dshow apps. Theatertek licensed DVD playback tech from Sonic then nVidia and still sold their app for ~the cost of PowerDVD.

One could make that argument, but they would be wrong. Writing DVD applications is easy, anyone who can program and read documentation can do it (there are even samples included in the PSDK); BR on the other hand requires a much more effort.

That some 3rd party ISV that doesn't write it's own filters can't implement a workable BR player isn't proof of anything relevant to this discussion. All it suggests is that it's not economically viable for them to do it.