Does anyone know how to play blu ray in linux?

[IdidAthing]

I've been test driving pop os to see if I want to start using it daily. And I've run into a major problem. Almost all of the windows programs I've tried to get to play within it using wine or playonlinux or lutris don't work. Does anyone know a way as to how to get blu rays to play with menu availability. I tried installing PowerDVD21 essential and it didn't work using playonlinux or lutris.

[RONOTHAN##]

VLC, it's one of the two big video players on Linux (and on Windows). It's free, open source, and extremely powerful. It should be able to do everything you need it to and more.

[IdidAthing]

I've tried VLC and I couldn't get it to work for all my blu rays. I'd also like to if possible get some sort of a menu where I can select the special features.

I don't know if there are some plugins I'm not aware of. Last time I tried, I installed the https://www.videolan.org/developers/libbluray.html and some of my Newer movies didn't want to play and also a couple older discs from a box set I have. For example, I have the box set of Rush Hour 1, 2, and 3. For some reason I could play Rush Hour 1 in VLC but 2 and 3 from the same box set couldn't play.

[Nayr438]

On 10/19/2021 at 12:14 AM, IdidAthing said:

Does anyone know a way as to how to get blu rays to play with menu availability.

The short answer is no.

The BlueRay Format is supported in Linux, the protections that companies place on there BluRay Discs is however mostly unsupported.

The same is mostly true for Windows actually, the only main difference is that more effort has been placed on reverse engineering these protections in proprietary Third Party Windows software. A lot of this software gets away with it because it's proprietary and attempts to block users from dumping the data, which also means protecting the software against virtualization or translation layers such as WINE. Linux doesn't have a good open-source solution because it just means that companies would introduce a new protection and it would be a never ending battle, so the result is that development is slow and laggs behind.

 

Because of the limited support and the grey area that surrounds BluRay, most distros don't ship BluRay Support out of the box. If you want the limited functionality Linux has to offer you can check out this Arch Wiiki Entry and adapt it to your Distro, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Blu-ray

 

Your best option however is to just dump the Movie off the disc, which still often requires manual intervention. MakeMKV with Handbrake is our best solution for this. My recommendation would be to invest in cheap hardware to setup a Jellyfin or Plex instance to store your media on.

[patat.potat]

You can get MakeMKV and use it to rip Blu-Rays to file. Or you can connect MakeMKV to VLC, so that when you try to open a disc with VLC, it'll ask MakeMKV to decrypt its contents, which should let you play the movies directly (open MakeMKV and go to View -> Preferences -> Integration for more info).

[IdidAthing]

Thanks for all the input guys.

 

[IdidAthing]

On 10/25/2021 at 9:43 AM, patat.potat said:

You can get MakeMKV and use it to rip Blu-Rays to file. Or you can connect MakeMKV to VLC, so that when you try to open a disc with VLC, it'll ask MakeMKV to decrypt its contents, which should let you play the movies directly (open MakeMKV and go to View -> Preferences -> Integration for more info).

I enabled the setting in MakeMKV. What do I do in VLC so it will play then? I tried enabled the setting you showed in makemkv, and then I went into vlc and selected my blu ray disc and it wouldn't play.

 

[patat.potat]

22 hours ago, IdidAthing said:

I enabled the setting in MakeMKV. What do I do in VLC so it will play then? I tried enabled the setting you showed in makemkv, and then I went into vlc and selected my blu ray disc and it wouldn't play.

 

Truth be told, I don't know. I only ever did that on Windows, and there it basically did the configuration by itself. On my Linux, Blu-Rays actually play straight away. It turns out that my distro (Mint) ships with a package called libbluray (or libbluray2) by default. I can see it working in VLC by going to Tools -> Preferences -> Show All Settings -> Input/Codecs -> Access modules - Blu-ray (it says "libbluray" at the top). Besides that, I don't see a specific way to turn things on and off, so you might try installing that package and seeing if it works, and if not the best bet might be to just follow the ArchWiki article linked by Nayr438

 

By the way, how exactly do you select it? Going to Media -> Open Disc -> Blu-ray, with /dev/sr0 selected and hitting Play works for me. If it's done another way, it might not use the correct libraries and fail at opening the disc.

[IdidAthing]

1 hour ago, patat.potat said:

Truth be told, I don't know. I only ever did that on Windows, and there it basically did the configuration by itself. On my Linux, Blu-Rays actually play straight away. It turns out that my distro (Mint) ships with a package called libbluray (or libbluray2) by default. I can see it working in VLC by going to Tools -> Preferences -> Show All Settings -> Input/Codecs -> Access modules - Blu-ray (it says "libbluray" at the top). Besides that, I don't see a specific way to turn things on and off, so you might try installing that package and seeing if it works, and if not the best bet might be to just follow the ArchWiki article linked by Nayr438

 

By the way, how exactly do you select it? Going to Media -> Open Disc -> Blu-ray, with /dev/sr0 selected and hitting Play works for me. If it's done another way, it might not use the correct libraries and fail at opening the disc.

I tried it on windows and it keeps coming back saying my discs are corrupted. Is there something I'm doing wrong? On windows for testing it, I went to view--->Preferences--->Integration and I check vlc, next I kept makemkv open and opened the disk in vlc and it said it was corrupted.

 

[patat.potat]

I've never had anything like that happen. Have you tried putting in another disc? Does it also say it's corrupted? Are these discs just regular Blu-Rays, or are they 3D, 4K, whatever fanciful thing?

[IdidAthing]

3 hours ago, patat.potat said:

I've never had anything like that happen. Have you tried putting in another disc? Does it also say it's corrupted? Are these discs just regular Blu-Rays, or are they 3D, 4K, whatever fanciful thing?

Yeah,I tried two different discs and they are just normal blu ray.

[Normand_Nadon]

I use Pop!OS since version 18.04 and the default Bluray Player has always been able to play Bluray disks... Otherwise, use VLC...

If you are new to Linux, here is a tip: Don't try to run your Windows app in linux first... Try "the Linux way" It is painful at first, and disorienting, but I bet you will not want to go back when you get the gist of it!

ITSFOSS is a good source to find alternatives to the software you are used to on windows. 

And like switching to Mac, there is a learning curve.

[Normand_Nadon]

Oh, and as suggested before, MakeMKV can help for DRM plagued discs... It costs a fee, but I paid it once 5 years ago and use it on all the HTPCs I built since then

EDIT: And another thought... What brand is your BluRay player in the computer? I had a really bad experience with an ASUS one some time ago... switched it for an LG or similar and if fixed the issue.

[IdidAthing]

4 minutes ago, Normand_Nadon said:

I use Pop!OS since version 18.04 and the default Bluray Player has always been able to play Bluray disks... Otherwise, use VLC...

If you are new to Linux, here is a tip: Don't try to run your Windows app in linux first... Try "the Linux way" It is painful at first, and disorienting, but I bet you will not want to go back when you get the gist of it!

ITSFOSS is a good source to find alternatives to the software you are used to on windows. 

And like switching to Mac, there is a learning curve.

Is it non DRM blu rays or is it normal movie blu rays Pop Os can play? Because Pop os is what I was planning on installing to my pc. An the blu rays I was wanting to use are movies.

[Normand_Nadon]

I built an HTPC (Home theater PC) for myself and another for my dad with used or spare parts, they both read Blueray Movies out of the box and both run on Pop!OS
There MakeMKV on my father's one because he prefers to rip his blurays and keep them safely stored on the hard drive.

He play the movie from KODI, I prever VLC... I genuinely never had an issue with that... except for that ASUS player that just wasn't cooperating

 

[IdidAthing]

3 hours ago, Normand_Nadon said:

I built an HTPC (Home theater PC) for myself and another for my dad with used or spare parts, they both read Blueray Movies out of the box and both run on Pop!OS
There MakeMKV on my father's one because he prefers to rip his blurays and keep them safely stored on the hard drive.

He play the movie from KODI, I prever VLC... I genuinely never had an issue with that... except for that ASUS player that just wasn't cooperating

 

I guess I'll have to see if my player works, it's an external ASUS one

[Normand_Nadon]

7 hours ago, IdidAthing said:

I guess I'll have to see if my player works, it's an external ASUS one

I don't know what it was with the Asus player... But it gave me so much trouble!

Maybe some hardware-side DRMs that interferes with Linux.

Also, it is better to use an internal drive for blu-ray. The datarate is really high and USB is not the best transport for that signal. (Might have change over the years though... My computer are older)

[IdidAthing]

5 hours ago, Normand_Nadon said:

I don't know what it was with the Asus player... But it gave me so much trouble!

Maybe some hardware-side DRMs that interferes with Linux.

Also, it is better to use an internal drive for blu-ray. The datarate is really high and USB is not the best transport for that signal. (Might have change over the years though... My computer are older)

I looked inside my virtual machine for a video player and didn't find one. Does Pop Os come with a default media player?

[Normand_Nadon]

Of course! I have no idea what it is named though as it is fully integrated with the DE...

I will check tonight. Although, if you need more features, go VLC!

 

(In a VM, if you don't have gpu passthrough, there could be issues with video... Not certain though)

[IdidAthing]

1 minute ago, Normand_Nadon said:

Of course! I have no idea what it is named though as it is fully integrated with the DE...

I will check tonight. Although, if you need more features, go VLC!

 

(In a VM, if you don't have gpu passthrough, there could be issues with video... Not certain though)

I see. Also, I've tried VLC before and it was a headache because it could play some, but not all of my blu rays.

 

[patat.potat]

I use an internal ASUS drive and it works just fine, never caused me any problems.

 

You just mentioned virtual machines, though. Is that where you're trying to get it working? Maybe it differs on implementation, but I've had a hard time getting optical media to work with virtual machines. Exact Audio Copy, for example, would either not see my drive at all or recognize it but be unable to read anything off the discs I put in.

 

When troubleshooting, it's best to check as many alternatives as possible. If using one distro, try another. If using one optical drive, try another (you could use a command to make an ISO of the disc, then mount it and see if that changes anything). If trying one disc, try another. If trying Blu-Rays, try DVDs. If using VLC to play, try something else (MPV? Don't know if it supports disc playback). Getting the most data will help in clarifying the issue.

[IdidAthing]

11 minutes ago, patat.potat said:

I use an internal ASUS drive and it works just fine, never caused me any problems.

 

You just mentioned virtual machines, though. Is that where you're trying to get it working? Maybe it differs on implementation, but I've had a hard time getting optical media to work with virtual machines. Exact Audio Copy, for example, would either not see my drive at all or recognize it but be unable to read anything off the discs I put in.

 

When troubleshooting, it's best to check as many alternatives as possible. If using one distro, try another. If using one optical drive, try another (you could use a command to make an ISO of the disc, then mount it and see if that changes anything). If trying one disc, try another. If trying Blu-Rays, try DVDs. If using VLC to play, try something else (MPV? Don't know if it supports disc playback). Getting the most data will help in clarifying the issue.

I'm using VMware because it has optical drive passthrough. (also the only optical drive I have is an external blu ray one, as my computer is a laptop). I was able to play dvd's from the optical drive in vlc, just not blue ray's as it's blu ray that's given me all the issues. I'm not really sure of any other players to try and play blu ray with. I know leawo from windows works in wine, but I have no clue as to how to get it set up, (plus I find leawo a little sketchy, I'd rather use a better known piece of software.)

[LurkAndLoiter]

10 hours ago, IdidAthing said:

I looked inside my virtual machine for a video player

Check In the application utilities folder. should be on the second page called video.

 

If It's not there you can get it from the Pop!_Shop. Hope It works for you.

 

I wrote you up instructions on getting that sketchy video player installed via wine on your other post. I'd recommend trying this first if it has worked for other peoples blue ray needs. GLHV.

 

[patat.potat]

Have you tried using MakeMKV to rip a Blu-Ray directly to a file? Does that part work? If so, then the Blu-Rays can evidently be opened by the program, so it has to be some issue in the integration between that and VLC. Have you tried installing libbluray or libbluray2 instead of using MakeMKV? Did that have any effect?

[IdidAthing]

22 hours ago, patat.potat said:

Have you tried using MakeMKV to rip a Blu-Ray directly to a file? Does that part work? If so, then the Blu-Rays can evidently be opened by the program, so it has to be some issue in the integration between that and VLC. Have you tried installing libbluray or libbluray2 instead of using MakeMKV? Did that have any effect?

I'll have to see if I can get libbluray or libblurary2 installed. The Native player says I need to download plugins and when I click the ok button to download the plugins it still doesn't work. I don't really know what's going on with this native player.