Update january 6, 2009

Corel 'WinDVD 9 Plus blu-ray' CAN play BD+ blu-ray discs!

So far WinDVD can play all my Blu-Ray discs! I am happy. The image quality is great and comparable to PowerDVD 7.3.

For standard DVD (thanks to fantastic upscaling and other video options) and Blu-Ray discs WinDVD offers a hassle-free, good quality playback.

Contrarary to many forum messages: it CAN play iso-files! They have to be 'protected', mounted in Virtual Clone Drive and AnyDVD HD must be running in the background. It cannot play 'unprotected' iso-files.

So... Is WinDVD the solution for BD+ problems like I experienced with Nero Showtime and PowerDVD? Yes!

testresults for playing from disc

Note: PowerDVD 7.3 version 3516 cannot play iso-files!

September 15, 2008

My hdcp compliant Shuttle + Asus EN8500GT cannot play BD+ blu-ray discs with Nero Showtime 4 or PowerDVD 7.3!!!

The first Blu-ray disc I could not play: 'The day after tomorrow' seems to be such a BD+ protected disc.

What is going on? I am sure my Shuttle is HDCP-compliant. The graphics card is, and my Samsung LCD tv also.

BD+

What is this BD+ protection all about?

BD+ (BDplus) is a kind of 'software-layer' (virtual machine) that checks your system. It is an extra protection against copying (of course) of HD-content...

For the record:

I want to enjoy the image quality of blu-ray movies and just play the blu-ray discs I payed for!!

Research on the internet showed that I am not the only one with BD+ problems. Some of the reported problems are all about firmware of stand alone players. I am playing from my computer... And I use a Pioneer internal blu-ray drive... The firmware of this drive is up-to-date and I never found any reference to BD+ problems with this drive.

A clean Vista install...

Just to be sure: I did a clean Vista Premium install. With all the latest drivers at hand. Right after all the Vista updates and a perfect running basic Vista I installed Nero 8.

Still this Shuttle + Nero ShowTime 4.3.7.0 cannot play BD+ blu-ray discs!!!

The players: Nero Showtime and Cyberlink PowerDVD

Nero 8 ShowTime 4.3.7.0 is the latest (september 2008) player, up to date, and blu-ray capable (with extra plugin).

No, it can not play 'The day after tomorrow'.

All I get is this silly suggestion to 'update the firmware of the blu-ray player'. Well, I checked and made sure my blu-ray drive was up-to-date.

I got in touch with Nero support. They were willing to help, and I send them information about my computersystem and then... silence... No solution...

Of course I also tried PowerDVD 7.3 but this player has similar problems. It cannot play BD+ discs.

AnyDVD HD

So I did more research on the Internet...

And read about AnyDVD HD... Software able to remove the BD+ protection from a BD+ blu-ray disc.

WOW... that's interesting! Can I play my BD+ blu-ray discs now???

YES! AnyDVD HD is a real solution!  It works!!!

Is it a perfect solution?
NO. I can only play (some) media-files, includig the main title of 'The day after tomorrow'.
Yes. I can now enjoy this movie in blu-ray quality!

Here are some results:

note: no difference between playing directly from blu-ray disc or from ISO-file

This is annoying: I need 2 BD players and I need to keep record of what BD+ movie can be played with each of these players!!

How to play any BD+ movie with Nero Showtime 4 or Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3

There is a way to get 'hassle free' playback of BD+ movies!!!

It's called 'remuxing': creating a 'stripped down' blu-ray disc (or ISO file) which contains only the main movie!!!

These stripped-down blu-ray movies can be played with every blu-ray capable player like Nero Showtime or Cyberlink PowerDVD!!!

The solution presented here is for those willing to spend time and resources in order to get a 'hassle free' playback of BD+ movies from disc or HDD (ISO-file).

The solution

Required software

1. AnyDVD HD - to create the movie-files you need on your HDD (best practice: use a second HDD)
2. BDinfo - to determine which playlist contains the main movie
3. tsMuxer - to select tracks that contain the video, audio ans subtitles you want and save these tracks to files
4. Nero Burning ROM 8 or 9 (or other software) - to create an ISO-file and/or burn this to a blu-ray disc
5. Virtual Clone Drive - to mount an iso-file of a blu-ray disc and play the movie with any BD player...

NOTE: In this guide I will use blu-ray disc 'Batman begins' as an example.

Step 1

Load a blu-ray disc in your BD drive. AnyDVD HD will check the disc. ( AnyDVD-HD should be installed and function properly)

Step2

• Start BDinfo and 'Select the source BD ROM' by clicking the Browse-button. Select your BD drive. DBinfo scans the disc and displays all the filelists.
• Write down (or just remember) which playlist is the largest one because this playlist usely contains the main movie.

BDinfo example of 'Batman Begins':

00012.MPLS is clearly the largest file and likely the one containing the main movie.

• If you want details of a playlist: select the playlist and click at bottom on 'View report'.

Step 3

• Start tsMuxer (tsmuxergui.exe).
• On the 'Input'-tab click on button 'Add' and search on your BDdrive for the file 00012.MPLS It is located in the directory: BDMV \ PLAYLIST

After opening this file tsMuxer displays a list of tracks with information of the contents:

• deselect unwanted tracks, like no. 1 (contains only 720x480 pixel movie), no.5 and no.6 containing 'unwanted' languages audio files, etc.
• to set the deafult language check the 'Language' drop-down list

Next: check the 'Blu-ray'-tab:

• check to use the custom chapters list
• make sure the 'Output' is set to 'Create Blu-ray disk'
• click the 'Browse' button to select a location where the new files will be saved (in this example: J:\export tsMuxer ). It's best to choose another (external) drive.
• all set? Click 'Start muxing' and relax... This may take some time...

When the process is finished you have a typical Blu-ray directory structure with a BDMV and CERTIFICATE directory.

Step 4

Create an ISO-file containing the newly created directories and files.

1. Start Nero Burning ROM (I have Nero 8 installed. Nero 9 likely has the same options)
2. choose 'Recorder' and make sure 'Image recorder' is selected
3. click File -> New (Ctrl-N)
4. choose profile 'Blu-ray Disc (UDF)'
5. click on the UDF-tab, select 'Manual settings' and adjust the options to 'Physical partition' and 'UDF 2.50'
6. click on Burning-tab and check the boxes 'Burning' and 'Finalize' (NO multi-session!!!)
7. now click on 'New'-button at the bottom of this window
8. select the newly created directories (tsMuxer step 3) : BDMV and CERTIFICATE
9. click on the icon 'Burning' or press Ctrl-B and confirm
10. next, because we have chosen the 'Image recorder' Nero will create a file on the location we select. By default Nero wants to make a . nrg file but we want a . iso file, so make sure you select this file-type.
    It's best to choose another (external) drive to contain the iso-file.
11. relax... it may take some time. Many gigabytes will be wrtitten...

Step 5

Mount the resulting iso-file in Virtual Clone Drive (just double-click the file should do it)

Start your BD player (if it does not automatically start...) and choose the 'source': your Virtual Clone Drive.

If the iso-file is OK then you can watch your BD-movie now!

If you embeded different languages or audio tracks you can switch language or audio by using the appropriate BD player options.

Step 6 (optional)

Create a blu-ray disc from the iso-file with Nero Burning ROM.

1. Start Nero Burning ROM
2. choose 'Recorder' and select 'Burn image...'
3. click on the icon 'Burning' or press CTRL+B and confirm...

Conclusion

A hdcp-system is not always enough to play a BD+ blu-ray disc. It also depends on the DVD-players.

Thanks to Slysoft there is a software solution called AnyDVD HD.

It's not perfect: you need more then 1 player to complete 'the task'. And if you want to solve this final problem too then you need time and resources to create a stripped-down disc or iso-file. Then you can play it with Nero Showtime4 or Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3. But... such a stripped-down iso-file cannot be played with Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-Ray... And: do NOT update PowerDVD 7.3 or you will loose the option to play blu-ray from ISO-files...

Personal comment:

It's stupid: I have to pay for additional software to be abe to play the blu-ray disc that I bought.

Without BD+ problems I would not have searched for a solution like the one offered by SlySoft (AnyDVD HD).

Without BD+ problems I would not have searched for a way to create stripped-down iso-files.

Maybe the blu-ray producers will like this (thanks to Slysoft): Now I can BUY more BD+ discs!!!

Hope they are happy too...