Positive Step for Bluray in Linux

[clevertomato]

I noticed this at the tail end of an old post. I thought I'd start a new thread so it may be easier for folks to notice. I know I was very pleased to learn this having just received my new Dell laptop with bluray drive.

Apparently there is a much better way (than the previous, complicated workarounds) to play bluray on Linux now. The Media Viking explains it all at:

http://themediaviking.com/software/bluray-linux/

[tom66]

Interesting, though I guess it's not open source because the algorithm is proprietary and if it got out it would be a disaster for Blu-Ray.

[llawwehttam]

Glad I saw this. I was thinking about fiddling with firmware.

[starcannon]

I'm wondering what if any real impact Blu-Ray in linux is going to have. By the time it (blu-ray) gets working smoothly on Linux, I expect the rest of the world will have moved on to SSD or some other Flash Storage Medium.

I'm not trying to be trollish; but I think it is only a matter of time before flash storage takes the place of moving parts like DVD's, CD's, and Blu-Ray disks. Moving parts are archaic and prone to mechanical problems; solid state is here, and can deliver the quality were finding on a Blu-Ray, only cheaper too produce per GB, reusable as a medium to deliver rentals, and not likely to get scratched or broken. No drives to break down.

I look forward to that, and it has to be just around the corner, we just have to pay off the industries investment before they let us move on to the next thing I expect(as far as off the shelf consumer level devices like movie players go).

Just my .

[koshatnik]

I'm wondering what if any real impact Blu-Ray in linux is going to have. By the time it (blu-ray) gets working smoothly on Linux, I expect the rest of the world will have moved on to SSD or some other Flash Storage Medium.

I'm not trying to be trollish; but I think it is only a matter of time before flash storage takes the place of moving parts like DVD's, CD's, and Blu-Ray disks. Moving parts are archaic and prone to mechanical problems; solid state is here, and can deliver the quality were finding on a Blu-Ray, only cheaper too produce per GB, reusable as a medium to deliver rentals, and not likely to get scratched or broken. No drives to break down.

I look forward to that, and it has to be just around the corner, we just have to pay off the industries investment before they let us move on to the next thing I expect(as far as off the shelf consumer level devices like movie players go).

Just my .

Yep. Blu Ray is old already. I don't see a point to it at all, other than to retain an ancient distribution model for lumbering entertainment companies that won't face up to the fact that digital media has moved on considerably since 1997.

[Exodist]

If someone really wants BlueRay or HD-DVD if I am not mistaken you can purchase PowerDVD (linux version) and it works good. Plus you can legally watch you dvds without any codec legal issues.

[cascade9]

Moving parts are archaic and prone to mechanical problems; solid state is here, and can deliver the quality were finding on a Blu-Ray, only cheaper too produce per GB, reusable as a medium to deliver rentals, and not likely to get scratched or broken. No drives to break down.

You have a point about flash, etc, being able to deliver the same quality as a blu-ray disc, but cheaper? No way. Discs cost virtually nothing to make.

Besides, the big media producers care not one bit about breakable parts, etc. If fact, they want media delivered on the most fragile means available- meaning discs.

Besides, blu-ray is, IMO, only in part about quality. Its more about re-doing content encryption. DVD has been so broken that its arguable, in court, that ripping is 'fair use' (for personal use anyway). 'Bending' the DCMA might be possible with DVD, but I doubt that it would be arguable with blu-ray.

[koshatnik]

Besides, blu-ray is, IMO, only in part about quality. Its more about re-doing content encryption. DVD has been so broken that its arguable, in court, that ripping is 'fair use' (for personal use anyway). 'Bending' the DCMA might be possible with DVD, but I doubt that it would be arguable with blu-ray.

You are allowed to make a copy of any purchased media as long as its for personal use. There is no bending of the rules, its allowed full stop.

The same should apply for Blu Ray media. Unless there is some special law created for Blu Ray media only banning copying for personal use. Which I find unlikely.

[cascade9]

You are allowed to make a copy of any purchased media as long as its for personal use. There is no bending of the rules, its allowed full stop.

The same should apply for Blu Ray media. Unless there is some special law created for Blu Ray media only banning copying for personal use. Which I find unlikely.

In part, yes. But dont forget the DCMA-


It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management) or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

Yeah, I know, wikipedia, but I could be bothered t find the full version. It would all be in legalese anyway.

Under that horrid legisation, ANY 'circumvention' is illegal .That includes DVD CSS, blu-ray AACS, etc. (why do you think so many distros dont play DVDs 'out ofthe box'? ) While I doubt that anybody would get in trouble for DVD decoding....yet anyway...blu-ray would be far more frowned upon.

Its a bit of a stretch because in many ways it goes against 'fair use' laws, but if anyone goes to court for this, the real issue wont be if they have broken the DCMA laws. It will be fair use vs DCMA.

[forrestcupp]

I'm wondering what if any real impact Blu-Ray in linux is going to have. By the time it (blu-ray) gets working smoothly on Linux, I expect the rest of the world will have moved on to SSD or some other Flash Storage Medium.
While I agree that if we even keep using media, it will go toward solid state, I don't think it's anything that we have to worry about any time soon. People are still buying DVDs, so Blue Rays aren't going anywhere for a very long time. Just walk into Wal-mart and look at aisle after aisle of DVDs. Then look at the small section of Blue Rays they have with a very small number of choices. You can't even get all movies on Blue Ray that are offered on DVD yet.

It will be a long time before Blue Ray is obsolete. And also, DVDs and Blue Rays are way cheaper to make than SSDs for the time being. That will change at some point.


You are allowed to make a copy of any purchased media as long as its for personal use. There is no bending of the rules, its allowed full stop.

The same should apply for Blu Ray media. Unless there is some special law created for Blu Ray media only banning copying for personal use. Which I find unlikely.Not true, at least in the US. You are allowed to make backups of CDs, but you are not allowed to make backups of DVDs or Blue Rays.

For Windows, which has all the attention because of market share, there are only a couple of DVD de-encryption applications available to break copy protection schemes. The ones that are left are hard to find and are getting shut down right and left.

[Groucho Marxist]

I'm wondering what if any real impact Blu-Ray in linux is going to have. By the time it (blu-ray) gets working smoothly on Linux, I expect the rest of the world will have moved on to SSD or some other Flash Storage Medium.

I'm not trying to be trollish; but I think it is only a matter of time before flash storage takes the place of moving parts like DVD's, CD's, and Blu-Ray disks. Moving parts are archaic and prone to mechanical problems; solid state is here, and can deliver the quality were finding on a Blu-Ray, only cheaper too produce per GB, reusable as a medium to deliver rentals, and not likely to get scratched or broken. No drives to break down.

I look forward to that, and it has to be just around the corner, we just have to pay off the industries investment before they let us move on to the next thing I expect(as far as off the shelf consumer level devices like movie players go).

Just my .

I don't consider it trolling, in fact, I wrote a paper on this not too long ago. It is my opinion that Blu-Ray does not offer such as much of a revolution in terms of data storage that DVD did over VHS. As such, SSD as mentioned by starcannon, feature advantages over traditional optical-disc based media and will, I feel, overtake the disc market within the next ten years.

[Skripka]

Not true, at least in the US. You are allowed to make backups of CDs, but you are not allowed to make backups of DVDs or Blue Rays.

For Windows, which has all the attention because of market share, there are only a couple of DVD de-encryption applications available to break copy protection schemes. The ones that are left are hard to find and are getting shut down right and left.

Well, then there is the problem that it is technologically impossible for a user to burn a copy of BD movie at the present. The hardware does not exist, and the software is little more than completely untested wishful thinking at this point.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/managed-copy-on-blu-ray-little-more-than-serial-nos-prayer.ars

[t0p]

In all this conversation about whether it's allowable to back-up this, or whetyher the DMCA says you can't copy that, it's important to establish which jurisdiction you are talking about. US "fair use" is not applicable in the EU, nor is the DMCA; and the EU has its own legislation that isn't applicable in the USA. And of course there are many other jurisdictions where discussion of European or US law is utterly irrelevant.

I realise that a lot of this quasi-legal discussion is about US law; but it is not very often precisely stated. Remember, this discussion started off as being about blu-ray technology, not law. And the technology is applicable everywhere, whereas law depends very much on locale.

Incidentally: I don't agree that blu-ray will quickly become irrelevant due to technoogical advances in solid state/flash. The content distribution industries will continue to use disks for a long time, as they are extremely cheap to manufacture and are relatively fragile, thus needing to be replaced fairly frequently. I haven't bought a movie DVD in a long time; but most of my friends and family continue to buy them, rather than download legal pefect digital video files. I can put a movie file onto a flash stick and take it to my brother's house just as easily as carry a DVD. But if the stick should get damaged or lost, I still have the original video file on my computer hard drive. So how is the DVD better? Answer: it isn't better, from my point of view. But from the content distributor's perspective, the disk is much better. So disks will remain the medium of choice for some time to come.

[koshatnik]

Not true, at least in the US. You are allowed to make backups of CDs, but you are not allowed to make backups of DVDs or Blue Rays.


I live in the EU so yeah, I can make backups no probs.

[gtr32]

Will this feature be still free for Linux after the official release? MakeMKV seems to indicate it will not be at least for Windows and Mac users:

http://www.makemkv.com/

All features (including Blu-ray decryption and processing) are free during BETA.

[clevertomato]

I've read several discussions that go the way this one has gone. Here's are my sentiments, all two-cents-worth:

Of course bluray won't be the final stopping point of technology for video. But it is here NOW and is the best available for consumers NOW. Nobody here knows how long it will be around; folks can only speculate. Someone mentioned "within ten years." WITHIN TEN YEARS? Crap. I can get a lot of enjoyment out of my bluray player in ten years. In fact my laptop with bluray very likely won't be viable much longer than 3 or 4 years.

If you don't have a bluray drive or are not interested in playing bluray (at least not on Linux), hey, that's fine. Freedom and all. But some people (like me) are, and those are the people I thought would like to know about the news in my original post.

Speculate all you want about how great or not-great bluray is or how long it will be around. My point is that I can now enjoy watching a bluray movie on Ubuntu while you guys are bantering. :D (no offense intended)

[forrestcupp]

In all this conversation about whether it's allowable to back-up this, or whetyher the DMCA says you can't copy that, it's important to establish which jurisdiction you are talking about. US "fair use" is not applicable in the EU, nor is the DMCA; and the EU has its own legislation that isn't applicable in the USA.Right. That's why in my post I specified that I was talking about the US. If it's legal for you to do it where you live, have at it.


So how is the DVD better? Answer: it isn't better, from my point of view. But from the content distributor's perspective, the disk is much better. So disks will remain the medium of choice for some time to come.That's exactly right. And we already know that there will be at least one more disc step before solid state ever becomes the de facto. They have recently released the specs for BlueRays with 3D video. The new discs are supposed to hold a lot more data.



Speculate all you want about how great or not-great bluray is or how long it will be around. My point is that I can now enjoy watching a bluray movie on Ubuntu while you guys are bantering. :D (no offense intended)
Lol. Party on! :)

[OliW]

If someone really wants BlueRay or HD-DVD if I am not mistaken you can purchase PowerDVD (linux version) and it works good. Plus you can legally watch you dvds without any codec legal issues.

Are you sure?

[LowSky]

Digital downloads is where technology is heading. Soon your TV itself will be able to get anything availbe to watch. No extra boxes or playback devices, just you and your TV.

How do I know this... I went to CES.