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libmmbd.dll (or libmmbd64.dll) APIs are supposed to be compliant with libaacs but I've tried all combinations and always crashes VLC. My guess is that DLL calls choose at compile time aren't compliant. Too bad

And yet it works fine for me with VLC. I guess I'm just lucky.

OK, let's see.

1: you need to match the 32 bit dll with a 32bit VLC player or 64 bit with 64 bit.
2: MakeMKV needs a key to work. If you'd installed MakeMKV at one point and your trial has now expired the dlls simply won't work. You can get the free beta key from the MakeMKV forum:

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053

I think it's valid, there are a few posts on the MakeMKV forum complaining that a key isn't working but I don't know if that means anything any more.

3: A program called MyBD decided they'd steal some files from MakeMKV, hide them, then sneak them onto the HDD when it needed to rip Blu Rays. It's possible Mike modified MakeMKV to not start a trial until certain conditions were met to stop that kind of business so you might need to run the MakeMKV GUI first and scan a BD to activate the trial if you haven't used it before.

4: the dlls call MakeMKVCon.exe so you need MakeMKV properly installed for all this to work. If you look at Task Manager while a BD is playing you'll see MakeMKVCon.exe listed there. All MakeMKV BD decrypting abilities run through MakeMKVCon.exe.

Thanks for the explanation, I'll try it soon....

Thanks for your suggestion. This worked for me as well. AnyDVD HD (trial) also worked. I just bought a DVD drive to play Star Wars Blu Rays, and found that a couple minutes into the movies, they would start displaying large artifacts, a few per second. Large gray areas would appear on the screen, as well as bands across the video that look like extremely compressed video. Perhaps these are the supposed BD+ copy protection artifacts, as DVDfab Passkey Lite appears to have gotten rid of them. I haven't watched a whole movie yet, but over several minutes there are no problems.

My configuration: Windows 7 64-bit, 32-bit version of VLC, libaacs (from here and libbdplus (extracted from the archive here), along with their corresponding %appdata% entries. VLC crashes without libaacs, and gives a BD+ error without libbdplus (for the Star Wars discs).

I take it back. DVDFab Passkey worked at first. However, when the trial period expired, it reverted to only being able to play certain Blu-Rays, which did not include Star Wars (the only Blu-Ray I've tried so far). I decided to try the MakeMKV route, and that has worked. I tried the suggestion above of just creating a couple copies of libmmbd.dll in the VLC folder, but when it got to the part where it had been showing artifacts, it crashed altogether. What did work was starting up a stream in MakeMKV, and then opening the network location http://127.0.0.1:51000/stream/title1.m2ts in VLC. Technically I watched the movie through http://localhost:51000/stream/title1.ts , but localhost is the same as 127.0.0.1, and it appears that the .m2ts streams more features, like being able to select subtitles and so on. The .ts location just streamed the video, with no right-click menus or anything. Neither one allows skipping forward or backward (at least not using the normal VLC controls), which is a little inconvenient.

I hope that this capability stays free. Or maybe a one-time cost of $20. More than the cost of a Blu-Ray drive itself, each year, just for the privilege to decode, is insane. It's absurd that for how big the movie industry is, and the money they stand to lose by people not buying Blu-Rays because they aren't sure they'll be able to watch them on their computer, that this is so cobbled together. Unfortunately the copy protection doesn't really hurt the people who are going to rip and distribute movies, they just hurt people like me who only want to watch a disc.

Which Star Wars?

MakeMKV needs access to the internet to download sqv files to get past BD+ protection, if its access is blocked it will continue without it and you most likely will end up with errors in the stream.

I'm assuming VLC uses both the AACS and BD+ libraries or at least lets MakeMKV handle the BD+ descrambling. (you did correctly rename the dlls didn't you?)

You'll need to update the MakeMKV beta key using the GUI every few months to keep it working, or fork out US$50 on a permanent key. (Don't complain about the price.)

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053

If Star Wars really won't play then there's either a bug in MakeMKV, a bug in VLC or the disc is damaged. Try ripping the thing, if the resulting MKV plays properly then it's either VLC or the dlls at fault.

(I just played Episode 1 directly from the disc, the movie is in two segments with the first consisting of the scrolling titles, once that segment finishes there's a break during playback (which doesn't occur if I rip the movie to MKV before playing it back.) VLC seems to have a problem with segment boundaries. (at that same position MakeMKV simply says "AV sync issue in stream 2,3,4 at 0:02:00.245 with duration of 10.875ms : encountered overlapping frame, audio skew is +10.875ms", obviously VLC isn't handling the error as efficiently, yet it didn't crash for me...)

MRL 'bluray:///D:/'

What should I do

One can try Bluray plugin for Player 360: http://www.labdv.com/360/player/mmplug/

Player 360 is using libvlc so behaves like VLC. So you can do the same with VLC.

Just added BD hardware and was trying to get this to work. I'm running Windows 8.1 64 bit on ASUS P8Z77-V motherboard with VLC 2.2.1. I have AMD Radeon HD 5450 graphics adapter. I was careful to get the proper dll (32 bit) and key file and put them into the correct folders ("Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC" and "Users/%USER%/AppData/Roaming/aacs"). When I try to open a blu ray with Media>Open Disc then selecting "Blu-ray" and unchecking "No disc menus", VLC disappears. Next time I launch, it says "Oops! VLC Media Player Just Crashed...".

If there's a log file, I can't find it. Tools>Messages is not operative.

I tried this on 2.2.0 as well with same result.

Anyone have a clue?

Thanks

So, I decided to try 2.2.1 64 bit. Low and behold, it can play BDs! The 32 bit would not. Whatever works...

Does Blu-ray movie with a menu for 3d option work? It doesn't work for me

Where is the most current files to download?

Not working: I downloaded the 64 bit for Win 8, put KEYDB.cfg in both AppData and Roaming (just to be sure), and then libaacs.dll in C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC.

for good measure I also pasted [url http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171298]Zombiedeth's code[/url] into the KEYDB.cfg

Enable GPU in the codec page of the tools->preferences menu.
and
To actual load blu-ray disk, menu open->disc and specify blu-ray in radio button.

Enable GPU in the codec page of the tools->preferences menu.

There is nothing in the Codec tab of the preferences menu that says "Enable GPU".

It's "Hardware-accelerated decoding" (in English anyway).

I've used DVDFab Passkey Lite for some time to play Blu-ray. But when I tried the other day, it wouldn't. I used to be able to update to fix that. But, now, a window pops up telling me buy the full version.

So, I tried the old AACS solution on vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name (KEYDB.cfg + libaacs.dll and VLC 2.1.3 Windows 64-bit). But it would not recognize newer Blu-ray disks. (Not suprising, since the database is from 2012.)

With that failure, I Googled. That led me here, to MPlayer, labdv.com's AACS Updater, and Starbuck's FreePlayer.

With AACS Updater installed to Starbuck's FreePlayer (per instructions), I couldn't get it to load any Blu-ray disks. Indeed, when I put "Powers" Season 1, Disk 3 - a recent DVD - it tried to play. Rather than taking me to a menu, it immediately began playing. But the picture was garbled and it stuttered at a s-l-o-w framerate of about 5 frames per second. I tried loading the disk menu, but it wouldn't load. Haven't tried other DVDs, but I won't be using it anyway.

So, I tried AACS Updater (Win32) installed to VLC 2.2.1 Windows 32-bit... Failed to load Blu-ray. And I tried AACS Updater (Win64) installed to VLC 2.2.0 Windows 64-bit... Failed to load Blu-ray.

Reading that AACS solutions can only work with 64-bit VLC versions 2.1.3 through 2.1.5, I installed VLC 2.1.5 Windows 64-bit and installed AACS Updater (Win64) to that. This combination still did not work. When I try to open a recent Blu-ray it gives an error message:

Failed to open disk or folder
The disk or folder has not been identified as a valid DVD or Bluray.
Failed to open J:/
See analyzer console (4748) and application log.

I also tried DVDFab's Free Media Player. Name seems misleading, because installing it has a window pop up saying that I just started the "trial period." And I was disappointed with the thing. (It feels bare bones, won't play some disks and sometimes the disk menu won't respond.)

It's quite frustrating that the movie industry keeps changing the Blu-ray format, preventing consumers from playing even legitimate disks on their PC or laptop. They're shooting themselves in the proverbial foot.

I'm tired of fighting this and trying to stay ahead of their changes. I give up. I'm just to to search around for a used copy of commercial software that can play Blu-ray. And I'll otherwise try to avoid Blu-ray for as long as possible.

I've installed keydb.cfg and libaacs.dll to the proper directories both for 32 and 64 bit versions and still getting the same error message:

VLC is unable to open the MRL 'bluray:///D:/'

Any ideas why? Any updates for keydb.cfg and libaacs.dll files? They're 3 yeras old now, maybe that's why?

I know this thread it titled for W8, but I use W7 and W10 - Since W10 is very much like W8, I thought I would include my experiences so far.

First, I had no problems enabling Blu-ray support by using the info from http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/
I do have DVDFab software installed on all my computers, which included Passkey, so that may be why I had no problems; I do not know.

I have found a problem with Blu-ray MENUs: In 32 bit VLC, the Blu-ray discs play the movie if I have menus turned off, but if I try to open the disc with menus, it just sits there and does nothing. In 64 bit VLC, again, the Blu-ray movies play fine with menus off, but if I open the disc with menus, then the movie just flashes for one second when I hit play, but nothing else happens.

Remember to open the Blu-ray disk this way: 'VLC - Media - Open Disk', there you should select Blu-ray and disable menus.
If you try to play a Blu-ray disk from 'My computer' you will always get the following error because VLC detects the drive as a DVD

'VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///F:\'. Check the log for details'

I see many people get this wrong (including myself) when they try to play a Blu-ray disk.
I couldn't find a ticket so I created a ticket: https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/16864#ticket

Thank you very much for the step by step instruction on how install it properly. I was not updating the system right that why mine didn't work at first.
Thanks again!!

Shouldn't this forum support edition timestamping ? (aka "last edited" on [timestamp]")...
I mean.. How are we supposed to know when a thread's OP is still relvent/valid/up-to-date.. All we have is the original post's timestamp (ie. 2012 for current thread's OP).
Letting ppl knows when a post was last edited would be quite helpful.

To handle Blu-ray disc encrypted with AACS and BD+, the VideoLAN fellowers have developed three projects to provide Blu-ray playback on VLC 2.x. There international research projects libbluray, libaacs and libbdplus help developers for interoperability of open source systems, particularly to bring encrypted Blu-ray disc playback capability in Linux distros :

- Libbruray can parse Blu-ray content to access titltes, audio and subtitle streams
- Libaacs can decrypt Blu-ray disc content with known AACS keys
- Libbdplus can decrypt Blu-ray disc content with libgcrypt

Steps to play commercial Blu-ray disc with VLC
1. Download the VLC media player version with libbluray support enabled
2. copy libaacs and libbdplus libraries in your player executable folder
3. copy bdplus vm0 folder in your personal profile
4. copy aacs KEYDB.cfg file in your personal profile
5. maintain KEYDB.cfg file up-to-date

Took me ages to find this:
The libaacs.dll that is available online (at time of writing) only works up to VLC 2.2.4

Took me ages to find this:
The libaacs.dll that is available online (at time of writing) only works up to VLC 2.2.4

Thanks for sharing. Appreciated