John Wick & John Wick: Chapter 2

[squire387]

Has anyone identified the correctly sequenced file for John Wick (UPC 03139821104484) and/or John Wick 2 (UPC 03139825947380)?

Very happy I found the thread on JW3. Now, to sort JW1 and JW2!

[Woodstock]

As I recall from the various threads for both disks, the original Lionsgate sets varied with where you bought them. A Walmart disk would have a different file that was correct than one bought from Amazon. That calmed down over the years, though, as the disks stopped being "new", and as MakeMKV made better recommendations as to the "proper" one to rip.

[yeahIdidit]

John Wick 1 - 3 Blu-ray — BD-J / MPLS Obfuscation Scan Results

I ran my disc-analysis pipeline against the three John Wick Blu-rays to compare how each release handles BD-J playlist obfuscation. Posting the results in case they're useful to anyone tracking how Lionsgate's protection has evolved across the trilogy. The pipeline does a runtime cut verification (ProcMon-traced PI sequence vs. MPLS expected sequence), a native MPLS scan, BD-J entry-point analysis, and a final decision layer.

All three discs are confirmed BD-J controlled. The obfuscation patterns are very different between them.

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1. John Wick (2014)

Disc shape: CONFIRMED_BDJ_CONTROLLED_OBFUSCATED_SINGLE_FEATURE
Disc type: ALIAS CLUSTER — extreme decoy/sibling pool

Native MPLS scan

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Playlists found       : 340
Feature candidates    : 301
Obfuscation patterns  : 25
Sibling cut groups    : 1   (252 playlists, all 01:40:12.900)

The disc throws 252 sibling playlists at the exact same duration (01:40:12.900) as the real feature. Plus a 6-hour loop playlist (00003.MPLS, 501 items) and 24 short decoy playlists (5–53 seconds). One sibling differs by a single second (00589.MPLS at 01:41:12.900) — a clear misdirection.

Runtime verification

The selected feature was 00006.MPLS at 01:40:12.899. ProcMon trace verified the PI sequence:

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RESULT          : ORDER VERIFIED
Tier            : STRONG
Full coverage   : 80.0%
Observed prec.  : 94.1%
LCS match       : 16/20

Final decision

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PRIMARY: 00006.MPLS — MAIN FEATURE — 01:40:12.899
Output : John Wick (2014) 1080p BluRay REMUX.mkv

Aliases collapsed into 00006.MPLS: 251 sibling playlists ignored
Rejected as decoys: 25 short/loop playlists
BD-J entry points : 03001, 00015, 00001, 00003, 00002

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2. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Disc shape: CONFIRMED_BDJ_CONTROLLED_SINGLE_FEATURE
Disc type: BD-J NARROW

Native MPLS scan

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Playlists found       : 452
Feature candidates    : 1
Obfuscation patterns  : 427
Sibling cut groups    : 0

This one's the opposite shape from JW1. Only 1 real feature candidate, but 427 obfuscation playlists. There's also a 6-hour loop (00003.MPLS, 501 items) and a flock of single-clip decoys. The interesting wrinkle: there's a 13-second playlist (00006.MPLS) whose internal PI sequence overlaps heavily with the real feature's PI sequence — it's pretending to be a feature pointer.

Runtime verification

Two cuts targeted, both verified:

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Cut              Playlist     Duration       Coverage  Precision  LCS
Theatrical       00440.mpls   02:02:22.376   84.6%     91.7%      11/13
"Selected" decoy 00006.mpls   00:00:13.000   100.0%    100.0%     13/13

The 13-second 00006.MPLS verifies perfectly because it contains the same PIs in similar order, just with each segment trimmed to 1 second. Worth flagging as a pattern to watch for — naive duration-blind logic could pick the decoy.

Final decision

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PRIMARY: 00440.MPLS — THEATRICAL — 02:02:22.376
Output : John Wick Chapter 2 (2017) THEATRICAL 1080p BluRay REMUX.mkv

00006.MPLS classified BDINFO_NOT_LISTED_RUNTIME_VARIANT (rejected as decoy)
BD-J entry points : 03001, 00000, 65536, 00858, 00924

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3. John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019)

Disc shape: CONFIRMED_BDJ_CONTROLLED_OBFUSCATED_SINGLE_FEATURE → revised to dual-feature after playback-truth pass
Disc type: BD-J OPAQUE MULTI-CUT

Native MPLS scan

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Playlists found       : 438
Feature candidates    : 402
Obfuscation patterns  : 16
Sibling cut groups    : 1   (~390 playlists)

Most of the sibling pool sits at 02:09:45.880. One playlist in the pool is one minute longer at 02:10:45.880 (00444.MPLS) — that's the REAL MPLS hiding inside the alias cluster. There's also one outlier at 01:55:32.592.

Runtime verification

Three cuts targeted, all three verified independently:

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Cut                     Playlist     Duration       Coverage  Precision  LCS
Theatrical              00001.mpls   02:09:45.879   68.4%     81.2%      13/19
Variant (REAL MPLS.)    00444.mpls   02:10:45.879   73.7%     87.5%      14/19
Variant                 00009.mpls   02:09:45.879   73.7%     82.4%      14/19

00009.MPLS shares the Theatrical's duration but has a different segment order — almost certainly an alias/decoy of the Theatrical with shuffled order rather than a third real cut.

ProcMon playback-truth pass

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Mode             : PLAYBACK_CONTROLLER_DOMINATES
Confidence       : ABSOLUTE
Dominant MPLS    : 00003.MPLS  (17,057 hits, 4.57% share)
Ratio vs second  : 6.48x

00003.MPLS is the BD-J playback controller, not a feature target. Among real features: 00444.MPLS got 2,631 ProcMon hits vs. 00001.MPLS at 876 hits — 00444.MPLS (REAL MPLS) is what the BD-J controller actually drives during normal playback.

Final decision

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PRIMARY        : 00444.MPLS — REAL MPLS — 02:10:45.879
SECONDARY KEEP : 00001.MPLS — FAKE    — 02:09:45.879

Output : John Wick 3 Parabellum (2019) PROPER 1080p BluRay REMUX.mkv


BD-J entry points : 03001, 00000, 00858, 00924, 01140-01145

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Summary across the trilogy

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                          JW1 (2014)        JW2 (2017)            JW3 (2019)
-----------------------   ---------------   -------------------   --------------------------
Total playlists           340               452                   438
Feature candidates        301               1                     402
Obfuscation playlists     25                427                   16
Sibling-cut group size    252               —                     ~390
Real feature cuts         1                 1                     2
Loop playlist (~6 hrs)    yes               yes                   yes
Subset-PI decoy trick     —                 yes (00006)           —
Disc archetype            alias cluster     narrow + 427 decoys   alias cluster + buried 2nd

Three completely different obfuscation strategies on three sequential releases from the same studio. JW1 buries the feature in a flood of identical-duration siblings; JW2 keeps the feature lonely but surrounds it with hundreds of unrelated decoys including a same-PI-order trap; JW3 hides the Special Edition inside the sibling pool by giving it just one extra minute, and exposes it only via ProcMon hit-share.

Happy to share more details or the per-disc reports if anyone wants to dig into a specific layer

[squire387]

Wow, thanks for the all the info and heavy detail! I actually found the proper playlist on my JW1 blu-ray was 202.mpls. Perhaps it was a different pressing than the one you're referring to. In any case, I believe the ones you listed for JW 2 & 3 are consistent with what I found as well. So all good there. Thanks again

[yeahIdidit]

Hi

Thanks you are very welcome I agree most likely a different pressing

Glad you found the working one for you and the other information was helpful