www.makemkv.com

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!

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.

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.

[hr]

1. John Wick (2014)

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

Native MPLS scan 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: Final decision [hr]

2. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Disc shape: CONFIRMED_BDJ_CONTROLLED_SINGLE_FEATURE
Disc type: BD-J NARROW

Native MPLS scan 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: 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 [hr]

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 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: 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 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 [hr]

Summary across the trilogy
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

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

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