www.makemkv.com

I'm running Ubuntu 10.10, 64-bit. Makemkv v1.6.3 works well with a DVD -- nice app. I've got a Blu Ray drive on order from Newegg.com, I'll test again when it gets here.

--Doug

It's a bit late, but an external USB model is nice in that you can move it to a netbook or other computer on demand. I use my HP TouchSmart's internal drive most of the time, but having a Plextor external is nice for my other systems.

Take a look at installing VLC and playBluRay for live streaming, it's a wrapper script to combine MakeMKV's streaming and VLC as a player. It works great!

Very nice suggestion, jd.

--Doug

playBluRay is not working for me. My system is Ubuntu10.01 64-bit. I've got curl, MakeMKV and vlc installed.

Vlc has this error after makeMKV has read the disc:


Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://localhost:51000/stream/title0.ts'. Check the log for details.

Here's the console output from funning makeMKV. The "connection refused" messages suggest that there is a permissions problem reading the stream.

roberts@igor:~/linux/playBluRay$ ./playBluRay.sh
MakeMKV v1.6.3 linux(x64-release) started
Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #1 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #2 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #3 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #4 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #6 does not match one in IFO header.
Title #0 has length of 15 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 100 seconds and was therefore skipped
Title #1 has length of 12 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 100 seconds and was therefore skipped
Cells 17-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #4 was added (16 cell(s), 1:26:55)
Cells 2-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #6 was added (1 cell(s), 0:02:11)
Cells 2-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #7 was added (1 cell(s), 0:03:50)
Cells 2-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #8 was added (1 cell(s), 0:04:00)
Cells 2-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #9 was added (1 cell(s), 0:02:12)
Cells 4-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #11 was added (3 cell(s), 0:06:41)
Cells 2-end were skipped due to cell commands (structure protection?)
Title #13 was added (1 cell(s), 0:02:48)
Region setting of drive TSSTcorp:CDDVDW SH-S223F does not match the region of currently inserted disc, trying to work around...
Operation successfully completed
Streaming server started, web server address is http://192.168.1.95:51000 or http://localhost:51000
UPnP server enabled on address 192.168.1.95
VLC media player 1.1.4 The Luggage (revision exported)
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_ADDRESS")
Blocked: call to unsetenv("DBUS_ACTIVATION_BUS_TYPE")
[0x177c120] main libvlc: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")
Blocked: call to sigaction(17, 0x7f64656d3b20, 0x7f64656d3a80)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to srand(1294390393)
Warning: call to rand()
Blocked: call to setlocale(6, "")

(process:6048): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Warning: call to signal(13, 0x1)
Blocked: call to setenv("_PX_CONFIG_ORDER", "", 1)
[0x1bda6a0] main access error: connection failed: Connection refused
[0x1bda6a0] access_http access error: error: HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
[0x1bda6a0] main access error: connection failed: Connection refused
[0x1bda6a0] access_http access error: error: HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
[0x1bda6a0] main access error: connection failed: Connection refused
[0x1bda6a0] access_mms access error: error: HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
[0x188afd0] main input error: open of `http://localhost:51000/stream/title0.ts' failed: (null)

To test if the stream was readable I ran curl on it, and it seemed to read ok:


curl http://192.168.1.95:51000
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
<title>
MakeMKV streaming server
</title></head><body>
<div>This page is designed to be read by robots, not humans. For this it is a valid xhtml text document with a simple structure. Each page contains exactly one table that in turn contains name-value pairs which may point to other tables (web pages) or files to stream.</div>
<div><b>This feature is experimental - discs that use seamless branching will likely not work.</b></div>
<table>
<tr><th>name</th><th>value</th></tr>
<tr><td>version</td><td>MakeMKV v1.6.3 linux(x64-release)</td></tr>
<tr><td>address</td><td>192.168.1.95:51000</td></tr>
<tr><td>titles</td><td><a href="http://192.168.1.95:51000/web/titles">/ ... ></td></tr>
</table>

</body></html>

Have you tried running the commands manually to see what happens (I'd run them from separate terminals and make sure makemkvcon is actually finished before running vlc)? Good on checking with curl to see if it was working, I would have expected a potential firewall issue otherwise.

Yes, I also ran makemkv and vlc manually, getting the same error in vlc.

I would have suspected a firewall as well, but I don't have one running on this machine. I'm wondering if the makemkv output stream name has changed since this documentation was written. When I rip to mkv, the file names are title00,mkv, title01.mkv. The documentation indicates that the stream name is title0.ts for the first title. I tried giving vlc an MRL of

http://localhost:51000/stream/title00.ts

but that didn't work either.

This, however, worked: vlc http://127.0.0.1:51000/stream/title0.vob

I'd say the streaming feature of this beta makemkv is not quite stable yet.

That's interesting. Can I assume that you're using this to play a DVD and not a Bluray? Or did your drive come in already?

It wouldn't surprise me if there was a slightly different address for DVDs (which you seem to have found) than for Blurays. I've only experimented with Bluray discs myself which seem to work fine with the .ts address.

Yes, I should have mentioned that I am still using my DVD, and you're right, the naming convention for Bluray is probably different. I'll test again when my Bluray drive gets here next Tuesday.

Got my Bluray drive, but I'm not having much luck. I am trying my new BBC Dr. Who Bluray series, but decoding produces a .mkv file that has audio but no video when played with VLC. I am running vlc Version 1.1.4. Streaming with makemkvcon produces the same result for title0. Likewise title01.mkv has no video. However, title02.mkv and title03.mkv have both audio and video.

Hmmm... I've not had issues with episodic BluRays, but I don't have any Dr. Who discs to try. Which version and region are you playing with? Have a link from Amazon or a UPC Code? Not that I can help much with it, but maybe it will help narrow things down.

It was a Christmas present, so I don't know where it came from. The box has "Doctor Who The Complete Specials, 5 Disc Set" on the cover. On the back of the box is "2 entertain" which I assume is the region. The ISBN number is 1-4198-8928-1

Addl info: MakeMKV reports the title 0 and title 1 video type to be "VC-1", which I am not familiar with. The title 2 video type is mpeg2, and the title 3 video type is also VC-1, yet vlc can run it without problems.

I had better results with another of my Christmas presents, the Bluray edition of Revolver. The only issue that I had was that the movie was title1, not title0, so the playBluRay.sh script did not work. Title0 was a 365MB trailer for the movie. The mkv file of the movie was 23GB and had perfect audio & video.

It strikes me that the logic of playBluRay is flawed; you cannot count on title0 being the main movie. It might be better if the script could check for the largest title and play it by default instead of just picking the first one.

--Doug