impossible to play a Blu-ray with Smplayer

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HyperBear
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Joined: Thu May 04, 2023 3:39 am

Digital Restrictions Management

Post by HyperBear »

Is it a homemade BD-R or a commercial BDMV (Blu-ray movie)?

The latter have heavy Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) that causes problems with playback on non-proprietary software. It works because drive manufacturers and developers of proprietary software (such as CyberLink on Windows) have secret decryption keys. The goal is to prevent copying so the executives at the movie companies can pay off their private jets, but it can and often does interfere with normal playback.

If I needed to play some proprietary format with DRM mechanisms, I'd just get some cheap dedicated device. An inevitable side effect DRM is obstructing use on software or devices not authorized by the big corporations behind the technology.

I still wish you success.
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MiZoG
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Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:30 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: impossible to play a Blu-ray with Smplayer

Post by MiZoG »

makemkv after introducing libmmbd has been the most reliable way to play bluray video discs on Linux.
VLC supports BD menus. Another choice is Kodi. Last time I used it - it was long ago - could load menus from some discs not from other.

Trying to get to the bottom why suddenly makemkv cannot read my discs anymore - which was harder after forum.makemkv went down - found that latest version of makemkv is generally buggy on Linux. Source: MakeMKV does not proceed beyond downloading SDF <--retrieved via Wayback Machine.

I had to go back to version 1.77.7. I removed the MakeMKV PPA and built that version from source (a relatively straightforward process).

And now VLC has every BD I throw to my optical drive for breakfast on Linux Mint 22.1 like the old days. Tested a dozen of discs: Menus OK, fast forwarding / all functions OK, video rendering OK.

Examples:
- Akenfield BFIB1209
- Chevalier OPTBD3083
- Le Prince De Homburg Carlotta 930 183
- Eisenstein in Cuanajato AXM717
- Xenia Feelgood 0017810

Of course latest free beta key does no support old versions. You should have purchased a licence :!:
Let's hope makemkv will be back soon and fix the issues with Linux binaries.
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