MakeMKV/VLC Blu-ray Playback Intigration on Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS

[brotherspence]

I have tried for days to figure this out and there is so much outdated or conflicting information that I'm at a loss. Perhaps it is just beyond me. I am trying to use the MakeMKV/VLC integration so I can playback Blu-Ray's in VLC during the ripping process. This is particularly helpful for things like behind the scenes; finding out titles for tracks that otherwise have no metadata DB entries online.

My system:
OS: Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS
Architecture: x84_64
Kernel Version 6.17.4-76061704-generic
DE: COSMIC
Windowing: Wayland

Both VLC and MakeMKV are installed via Flatpak and are up to date. Under Flatseal both VLC and MakeMKV have access to network, all devices, all system files, libraries, configurations, user files, etc.

I had read that the library libbluray-bdj should be installed along with dependencies (OpenJDK/JRE, libbluray2, etc). I have done this.

Mike's official instructions state that I need to create symbolic link to point libmmbd to Filesystem/usr/lib. I tried this, however, VLC still does not show up under Preferences > Integrations in MakeMKV. I then read that for 64-bit debian based systems, the symbolic link should be under Filesystem/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/. This also does not work. I feel like I just don't comprehend what I'm trying to achieve, mostly because I am a newer user to the Linux environment. There are so many helpful people online but they often use short-hand for things that I don't yet understand, and I get tripped up. I don't really understand what it means to replace a library and have MakeMKV libraries be used instead (technically speaking, the concept is understandable), so it is hard to know exactly how to troubleshoot this without breaking my system.

Is there anyone here that could help me? I know there are many other threads that are similar to this one, but I feel like I've done my due-diligence in trying to source information and troubleshoot on my own. Any links or instructions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[dcoke22]

I can't help you with your linux installation. I can, however, suggest that if you first make a decrypted backup (icon of folder with green arrow on the first screen of MakeMKV) of a blu-ray first and then use MakeMKV to create .mkv files from the backup… you can use the player of your choice to play the source .m2ts files in the <backup>/BDMV/STREAM folder. This way you can figure out what things are before creating .mkv files. This neatly avoids having to make the VLC/MakeMKV integration work.