HD-DVD and blu-ray support? (2 Viewers)

[activ]

Can anyone tell me if there is going to be support for blu-ray and HD-DVD support in Media portal?
And I don't mean by using an external player, I mean as integrated as dvd support is now.

I for one would really appreciate that a lot. It is in fact the only thing that I am missing right now in media portal.

 

[mbuzina]

Well, I guess that it would be quite difficult. Given that a) Players have to be certified to do AACS decryption and keep their given Player Key a secret and b) MP is OpenSource, which would include such a key...

It might be that in the future you would not notice the difference, but you would still need a licensed player.

Other Softwares may play BlueRay or HD DVD directly if the encryption is hacked, but MP takes the stand for being legal software in most parts of the world (not every legal word has been spoken about time- & place shifting!).

So (although I am no dev on the team), I guess No is the answer.

 

[revs]

I guess once theres HD-DVD/Blu-Ray support in WM Player then Media Portal should be able to play them too?

 

[tjf]

Well, I guess that it would be quite difficult. Given that a) Players have to be certified to do AACS decryption and keep their given Player Key a secret and b) MP is OpenSource, which would include such a key...

It might be that in the future you would not notice the difference, but you would still need a licensed player.

Other Softwares may play BlueRay or HD DVD directly if the encryption is hacked, but MP takes the stand for being legal software in most parts of the world (not every legal word has been spoken about time- & place shifting!).

So (although I am no dev on the team), I guess No is the answer.

AACS can be taken care by AnyDVD HD. Haali media splitter can expose the video and audio (not all) streams in EVO (used by HD DVD) and m2ts (used by BD) files. Then you need direct show filters for decoding VC1 and H.264 video (not a problem) and DD+ for audio (not many, Sonic Scenarist Audio Decoder 4.2 works).

Another possibility is to rip the movies and remux them to mkv. That's what I do and the end result perfectly integrates with Mediaportal (note: I hope the OSD bug from recent SVN that occures with MP4 and MKV files gets fixed soon - it has already been reported atleast 3 times).

Tomas

 

[dman_lfc]

mbuzina is right here. Currently MediaPortal levergaes the DVD Navigator in Windows XP / Vista.
There is no HD-DVD navigator exposed to leverage in Vista (and obviously not XP). Since Microsoft is firmly in the HD-DVD camp then obviously there is no navigator there also. Thus requiring us to write our own navigator. If we support AACS or BD+ with it then it would have to be a closed source solution.
Time will tell, maybe SP3 for Vista in 12months time will provide such functionality by default

DMAN

 

[activ]

Closed source would be fine for me, even having to buy a codec or something from a third party. I know powerdvd could play it but that's not a very nice piece of software to use with a remote.

Thanks for all the info.

 

[Judaz]

I don't even know if it could be done, but I would not mind hd-dvd/blueray support as closed source add-on for mediaportal, distributed separate from Mediaportal. I wouldn't even mind paying for it if could integrate seemlesly into Mediaportal. For me, Blue ray and/or hd-dvd support is the feature I miss the most. Would a commercial add-on even be of any interest for the developers?

- Judaz

 

[Frodo]

Cyberlink's powerdvd installs HD-DVD & blueray directshow navigator filters
I'm not sure if those can be used to playback HD-DVD & blueray movies.
and if they can be used, then probably only on discs / rips which dont use AACS

 

[revs]

I have read in AVSForums that ArcSoft have released (in japan only currently) a HD-DVD/Blu-ray player that "Intergrates" with Windows Media Centre.

I say "Intergrates" as what it does is put a menu item in MediaCentre that launches a fullscreen ArcSoft HD player that looks like MCE, it then has a button on it to return to MCE.

I'm thinking that maybe it would be possible to trick this into going back to MediaPortal instead of MCE? That could provide an OK solution to HD playback.

i.e. Link in MP to launch this ArcSoft product. Then when return to MCE button is pressed in ArcSoft product it is somehow made to actually call MediaPortal? (Replace MCE exe with one that calls MP? who knows)

Link to AVSForums thread ont he product

EDIT: adding a pic - I assume the arrow in the top left takes you back to MCE.

 

[revs]

Product page: http://www.arcsoft.com/products/digitaltheatre/