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General => Users => Topic started by: Amathus on September 11, 2008, 04:04:37 am

Title: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 11, 2008, 04:04:37 am
I have heard that MCE 0810 is on the horizon, does anyone know if a Beta is available as yet? 

If 0810 is on the horizon, does anyone know what improvements are made / new feature sets?

Also, I have 0710 - does anyone know how I can playback blu ray?

Cheers all.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 12, 2008, 03:02:16 am
Thanks ..  I will hunt the forums re the blu ray / HD issue - I think it is a matter of implementing the H.264 codecs but I am certainly no guru - everyone I know  wants a media center with blu ray playback and whilst MSFT is capable MCE is not so I reckon this is needs to be addressed.

In your reply you stated "NO" I assume it's "NO" to both the blu ray question &  my 0810 query.

Cheers
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: niz23 on September 12, 2008, 08:39:42 am
Amathus.
Thanks ..  I will hunt the forums re the blu ray / HD issue - I think it is a matter of implementing the H.264 codecs but I am certainly no guru - everyone I know  wants a media center with blu ray playback and whilst MSFT is capable MCE is not so I reckon this is needs to be addressed.

In your reply you stated "NO" I assume it's "NO" to both the blu ray question &  my 0810 query.

Cheers

There is no LMCE0810 in the near future.
I won´t indicate any dates. It will just start a bunch of speculations.
We have to resolve several issues before we even get it to compile correct.

The more help we get the sooner the release.
Remember, we do not have any commerical sponsors behind us. Only the community.


Regarding h.264 the problem in many cases is that GPU manufacturers do not release complete drivers for Linux.
They lack a lot of high-end functionality, like h.264 gpu support.
However nVidia have cuda support in their Linux driver since a while back.
It might be a way to use the gpu to offload software codecs.
But someone need to code it.

There are a couple of guys on the forum that have tried "core avc". Basically a h.264 software codec.
Search the forum for it.



/niz23
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Monkgs on September 12, 2008, 01:22:56 pm
There is no LMCE0810 in the near future.
I won´t indicate any dates. It will just start a bunch of speculations.
We have to resolve several issues before we even get it to compile correct.
Untrue. See this thread http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6194.0 (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6194.0).

Remember, we do not have any commerical sponsors behind us. Only the community.
Also untrue. There are many companies (or at least one) selling LMCE based smart home solutions who contribute to the development of LMCE.

Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: colinjones on September 12, 2008, 01:29:17 pm
Just to clarify a few points for you...

0810 Kubuntu/Ubuntu/etc is on the horizon (by definition, 08 means 2008, 10 means October), however this says nothing about LMCE, until it is accepted into the Kubuntu tree, it will always be a case of them (Ubuntu guys) releasing the new OS first and then the LMCE guys scrambling to generate a new LMCE that will build and run on it. But I understand that the ultimate aim is to combine is as a standard option so that LMCE will come out with the new versions of the OS at the same time....

LMCE is entirely capable of h264, the codec is not the issue. There are 2 main issues for BD/HDDVD - first decoding hi-def H264 (lower resolutions, etc are fine), theoretically it should be able to do it with enough CPU grunt, but as Rodercot and others have pointed out, this seems to be a problem, second is the more critical for BD/HDDVD particularly - encryption, specifically HDCP which is an encryption scheme that encrypts the content from the surface of the disk right through to the playback display/amp. So the devices in between need to be able to intercept and handle this to do all the wonderful media centre things. Currently this is difficult, and yes M$ has deliberately muddied the waters and used DRM to its own advantage making it difficult for other players to get into that market. Moreover, for open source, because there is no overriding commercial entity to pay for access to, and licensing of the HDCP encryption technology it is very difficult. The DRM world is simply not interested in dealing with the open source world.

At the moment, the only support is for LMCE (0710 onwards) to rip the disk to the harddrive, then use a decryption library (illegal in most places!) to pass the content through by stripping the encryption off.

And to niz's point, clearly commercial graphics hardware companies releasing proper open source (or even proprietary) video drivers that allow access to hardware H264 decryption would solve many of Rodercot's issues! In fact they have absolutely NO legitimate commercial excuse for not releasing at least proprietary drivers! There is no more risk to them than any other platform, and we have damn well paid for their hardware, we should be allowed to make use of it!
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: skeptic on September 12, 2008, 08:36:41 pm
I may have misunderstood, but what are you using to actually rip the BD movies off the disk?  As far as I know there is no reliable way to rip all BD movies in Linux.  As it happens, I have a blu-ray drive and the one blu-ray movie I bought to test with cannot, to the best of my knowledge, be ripped under Linux.

Personally, I'd be satisfied if I could rip the movies on my Linux desktop, then transcode them into a broadcast quality 720p size.  Much smaller file than native BD, but still much better quality than DVD and from everything I've read you wouldn't notice the lower quality on all but the newest and 50+ inch 1080p tvs, side by side examination aside.  720p broadcast quality would also be easier to play.  This should eliminate the playback issue for me, but I'm still faced with the inability to actually get the movie I paid for off the disk and into lmce.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: MediaEngineer on September 13, 2008, 09:23:13 pm
The more help we get the sooner the release.
Remember, we do not have any commerical sponsors behind us. Only the community.

If someone could reply to the topic I posted in the Developers Forum a week ago, "Working Build Process? (http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=6159.0)" this community would have at least one more developer who could help.

The build process described in the overlapping (and evidently erroneous) wiki articles "Building From Source (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Building_From_Source)" and "Setting Up A Development Environment (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Setting_Up_A_Development_Environment)" fails when trying to build a module of it, and any of the current developers (or anyone else) who can fix those instructions will remove the roadblock for at least me, and probably others who'd like to help get us all to the next release of LinuxMCE.

If you know how to build from the current sources, please reply to that message, or somewhere else I (and others) can see how to do it.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: skeptic on September 13, 2008, 10:55:27 pm
Skeptic,

 The only program I know of is Anydvd-HD and windows XP sp2. Then txmuxer for BD and eac for HD-dvd. The new version of AnyDVD-HD says it will actually rip to an .iso or .dvd. This is all for within M$ not Linux.

 Dave
That's what I've heard.  Any idea if it works in a VM such as virtualbox? 
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: colinjones on September 13, 2008, 11:31:23 pm
Mediaengineer - I would love that too as I'm new and struggling. However, I think the instructions broke due to the differences in the 2 source trees that the devs are working on merging, and I guess that the thought is there isn't much point correcting them until the merge is complete, presumably because there will be a new set of instructions at that point. From what I have gathered, the merging has been torturous and long winded, but is pretty close (anecdotally).

Do hang in there as we do desparately need more devs!!
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: domotiqa.com on September 13, 2008, 11:55:27 pm
some infos:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: domotiqa.com on September 14, 2008, 06:38:23 pm
the best way should be to rip and play the file with delay!
However, that need good proc... !
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: tschak909 on September 15, 2008, 01:14:19 am
MPlayer's code base is one big pile of dung. Horribly written, hack after hack. Yes. I am qualified to make that statement.

Xine-lib may not be perfect, but it is possible to do a much cleaner integration with that, than it is to try to move EVERYTHING to mplayer.

 -Thom
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: skeptic on September 15, 2008, 10:24:27 pm
Skeptic,

 The only program I know of is Anydvd-HD and windows XP sp2. Then txmuxer for BD and eac for HD-dvd. The new version of AnyDVD-HD says it will actually rip to an .iso or .dvd. This is all for within M$ not Linux.

 Dave
That's what I've heard.  Any idea if it works in a VM such as virtualbox? 

 Well I have tried with Wine in Hardy and it was a no go. I have not tried with a VM. It works just fine under windows and I can rip and remaster there and just transfer to the server when completed.

 Domotiqa : yep been there done that with no luck. As I said there are several series of threads in the forums talking about the issues and we know they are there We need a stable build of Mplayer within LMCE and also knows when we click play on an HD file Whatever it may be.

 rgds,

 Dave
I looked into using wine a while back, but that looks to be a dead end for now.  I don't want to boot into windows if I don't have to, so maybe I'll give virtualbox a shot.  If/when I get around to it I'll post the results in case anyone is interested.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 16, 2008, 03:45:39 am
Thanks Guru / Colinjones rodercot & all ... from what I understand then, 8010 is not a 'near future release' but is planned for October all going well. Seems as though not all is going so well, but it is still a planned release later than sooner I gather.

Re BD playcak. I agree with Colin Jones. Blue Ray playback is stymied by DRM and who is behind DRM? Paranoia reigns supreme in every multinational mega corporation. But not having Blue Ray playback places the open source world in the bleaches to a degree vs the box seat and if it is not Blue Ray it will be something else later down the track to have the same effect. Ripping Blue Ray for playback is not the solution. First up it is illegal. Secondlt it is clumnsy to do so at present from what I read.

I agreen with Cloinjones. We pay for the damn hardware so what is the issue with  having Linux HDCP or whetever decrytion is necessary to effect BD playback? I believe that this must go against trust laws in that one standard adversely and deliberately supresses the growth of its competitors in orer to monopolise the market. What baffles me is that Sony invented BD, are in direct competition with X-Box and yet did not make any moves to support open source software but rather are cutting deals with MSFT.

Frustrating.



Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: skeptic on September 16, 2008, 06:47:27 am
I can only hope that a large influential company or group takes this up and gets the fair use laws changed to force companies to allow people to copy their own stuff.  Unlikely I know, but as media centers become more and more popular, more and more people are going to demand the ability to put the movies and such they pay for on their media center.

Everyone knows protection doesn't stop piracy, yet these companies continue to use DRM to prevent honest people for accessing what they pay for.  The music industry has gone this way, we just need movies and cable companies to follow suit.  I know, preaching to the choir.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 16, 2008, 07:24:34 am
Skeptic,

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. The Intel M$ alliance is trying to do the latter. Was Abe Lincoln Wrong - histrory proves NOT!

Soldier on and we will triumph!
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: indulis on September 16, 2008, 11:36:20 am
...
I agreen with Cloinjones. We pay for the damn hardware so what is the issue with  having Linux HDCP or whetever decrytion is necessary to effect BD playback?.

Ok HDCP is a way of encrypting data as it goes between the computer and the display.

It runs over an HDMI interface.  A display which is HDCP compliant will receive digital encrypted video over HDMI.  It will also receive high-def (1080 i/p) OK via HDMI.  Or at a push via VGA (latest Samsungs and LGs do anyway, Panasonic has crippled the latest Plasmas and LCDs to only go up to 768 lines so you can't do 1:1 mapping). 

I don't believe there is any rule that says that if a computer puts out 1080 line video via HDMI that the display will reject it.  AFAIK the way it works is that an HDCP/DRM-enabled computer with DRMed OS and DRMed player software will reject any attempt to display more than 720 lines to a display that is not HDCP. 

Summary- if your computer and OS and player are not DRMed so are not going to use HDCP (cos you have to pay and sign a license with the red man with the pitchfork and never touch anything open source again), then your computer should be able to send anything it likes to the TV/display. "High-definition digital video sources must not transmit protected content to non-HDCP-compliant receivers" (says Wikipedia).  So it is about the computer rejecting a non-HDCP display, not the other way around.

If you get a legal copy of some HD video that is unencrypted, you can display it in full glorious 1080i/p.  Probably via HDMI.  So there should be no technical reason LinuxMCE cannot display 1080 line content that you  got onto your disk from an unencrypted Bla-Ray disc or however.

I am happy to be shot down in flames cos that is just my understanding of it. No need for flames apparently Phoronix tested 1080p from a Linux computer to a Sharp LCD 1080 line TV (YMMV), over HDMI.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=942&num=1

Anyway you can always go VGA or DVI rather than HDMI.  Not that much worse than the HDMI alternative, and in many cases this lets you do 1:1 mapping between graphics card pixels and display pixels and cut out the TVs stupid attempts at upscaling your nice crisp computer generated video by 5% (called overscan).  1:1 is often impossible using HDMI inputs but is possible with VGA/DVI. This will probably make more of a difference- getting 1:1 mapping right with DVD, rather than going Blah-Ray.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: colinjones on September 17, 2008, 12:11:57 am
Indulis - I think you have gone off on a bit of a tangent here. We are talking specifically BD, not simply HD. Nobody is saying we can't do HD (or at least that is a separate discussion that we can have with Dave/Rodercot!), the issue is encrypted BluRay disks (basically all of them) and that the encryption is effectively from the surface of the disk right through to the display device.

That encryption inherrently precludes the interception of the stream required for a media centre to do its job. The current approach is to rip the content, so that the encryption can be stripped, then play the content in the normal manner. Yes, its clunky and from what I have read here (haven't tried it myself) probably does actually work in many cases. But the discussion is about content protection and DRM in the BD world, not specifically about HD content. We need BD hardware that will allow us to play content directly from the disk without requiring the HDCP endpoint on the display.... I'm sure China is on the case as we speak :)
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: hari on September 17, 2008, 01:02:36 am
can we please stop mixing AACS and HDCP? And jfyi, HDCP also protects some DVI outputs. Regarding china, somehow I don't think you will get the proper AACS keys for your player, if you do not implement HDCP and analog downgrade in a way MPAA thinks is good for us customers.

br hari
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: domotiqa.com on September 17, 2008, 08:47:27 am
A question:
would it be illegal to rip BD to hdd (temp folder), to play the file that is being ripped, then when stop the movie (or even goes to the end of the movie, or eject the BD), the file is delete!
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Zaerc on September 17, 2008, 03:49:59 pm
A question:
would it be illegal to rip BD to hdd (temp folder), to play the file that is being ripped, then when stop the movie (or even goes to the end of the movie, or eject the BD), the file is delete!

In "the land of the free" that would be considered circumventing a copy-protection mechanism, which is illegal under the (relatively) new MAFIAA sponsored legislation called DMCA.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 18, 2008, 04:35:41 am
This seems to be a hot topic. I agree with colin jones. This is not an issue of playing back 1080p HD content (I am doing that now - recorded HD content from a FTA digital TV station plays back nicley - but am experiencing 100% CPU usage which is a worry on a Quad Core AMD 2.2Ghz Phenom / 2GB 1066 RAM). It is a matter of playing back 1080p HD content from a HDCP complint blu ray disc. Whilst I appreciate  what Indulis is saying and it sounds logical re DVI or VGA,  I do not believe this will achieve 1080p playback from an encrypted HDCP compliant blu ray disc. Prove me wrong please!

Ripping to HDD and stripping away the encryption is a very cummbersome and tiring effort, not worth considering really. As someone stated "In the land of the free" - we are not "free" to back up a $40 BD disc - huh? Says who? - Says a consortium of greedy multinationals grouping together to monopoloize an indusrty. Also, if you cannot legally rip the disc to a media center (Linux or whatever) what in the name of pete is the use of a media center?

Recall the anti trust issues with explorer - it reeks of this stench. Legal issues aside & personal feelings put to rest, I do not believe that at present Linux MCE as it stands will play back a HDCP compliant Blu Ray disc from a blu Ray ROM player. I have tried it and it does not work. The link http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=942&num=1 has nothing to do with BD playback and HDCP.

Whilst BD uptake here (Ausralia) is feeble at present - no doubt it will be hit hard within the next 6 months 'coz it's getting a LOT of attention via the press etc and as such if MCE does not address it, the MCE  will be second best in this regard - after all it's all about the media!

 :-\





Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: tschak909 on September 18, 2008, 04:55:07 am
Wrong again. This system is a smart home platform. Media only comprises 20% of the entire system. With that said, We can only do what we can do from within the context of the legal system. If someone outside the USA wants to implement enhanced BD functionality, then they can. Nothing stopping them. But those of us in the US can neither develop nor legally use such implements.

-Thom
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 18, 2008, 05:00:07 am
I can only hope that a large influential company or group takes this up and gets the fair use laws changed to force companies to allow people to copy their own stuff.  Unlikely I know, but as media centers become more and more popular, more and more people are going to demand the ability to put the movies and such they pay for on their media center.

Everyone knows protection doesn't stop piracy, yet these companies continue to use DRM to prevent honest people for accessing what they pay for.  The music industry has gone this way, we just need movies and cable companies to follow suit.  I know, preaching to the choir.

Fully agreed mate. There MUST be a civil law action circumventing what these multinational greed mongers are doing. If enough people boycot and make the movie and BD industry suffer (as they did with the music industry) they will listen intently.  It is only when the lining of their pockets wears thin of our money that they will listen. I suggest they stop paying lousy actors $15M ($5M is not enough?) a movie and focus more on fair trade to keep their thus far  sheep like mentality consumers loyal. Wake up world,  HDCP is corporate disctatoriship and will NOT stop piracy.
Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: Amathus on September 18, 2008, 05:10:26 am
Wrong again. This system is a smart home platform. Media only comprises 20% of the entire system. With that said, We can only do what we can do from within the context of the legal system. If someone outside the USA wants to implement enhanced BD functionality, then they can. Nothing stopping them. But those of us in the US can neither develop nor legally use such implements.

-Thom


Well, you are partially right. Of all new homes built in Australia (145,000 per annum) only 1.9% have any smart home enhancments at all - a pitiful penetration.  Stateside may be higher - dunno. Putting it this way the Media takes the stage. People want to be entertained first, then they worry about lighting control & security cams. Enhancing BD fucntionality outside of the USA I believe is also illegal as the Intel / MSTF machine reigns with a big stick and soft voice everywhere - but you may be right, someone,  somewhere in China, Moscow, Taiwan or Timbucktoo will up the anti. We can only pray.

Title: Re: MCE 0810 / Blu Ray
Post by: hari on September 18, 2008, 10:08:47 am
This seems to be a hot topic. I agree with colin jones. This is not an issue of playing back 1080p HD content (I am doing that now - recorded HD content from a FTA digital TV station plays back nicley - but am experiencing 100% CPU usage which is a worry on a Quad Core AMD 2.2Ghz Phenom / 2GB 1066 RAM). It is a matter of playing back 1080p HD content from a HDCP complint blu ray disc. Whilst I appreciate  what Indulis is saying and it sounds logical re DVI or VGA,  I do not believe this will achieve 1080p playback from an encrypted HDCP compliant blu ray disc. Prove me wrong please!

CAN WE PLEASE STOP MIXING AACS AND HDCP?!?

AACS == MPAA crap, used to encrypt stuff on the disc
HDCP == Intel crap, used to encrypt stuff on TDMS (DVI or HDMI)

And if you buy this crap and even say thats important for LMCE, it is just you who supports the restrictive crap with your money.

br hari