Blu-ray playback without ripping now available

It looks like the latest release of MakeMKV has added live playback of Blu-ray discs:

http://www.makemkv.com/download/

Edit: Here's how it's done:

Insert a Blu-ray disc, then after it mounts in the Finder launch Make MKV 1.4.10 beta. After it reads the disc, click on the Open Disc icon and it starts decrypting the disc. This takes about 30 seconds to complete. You're then presented with a list of titles - find the largest as that's likely the movie. Next click on the Make MKV server icon to launch the server, then click on the http link in the server box. This opens a window in your web browser with something like this:

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.
This feature is experimental - discs that use seamless branching will likely not work.
name value
version MakeMKV v1.4.10 beta darwin(x86-release)
address 10.0.0.2:51000
titles /web/titles

Click on '/web/titles' to get to the next window:

name value
type Blu-ray disc
name Star Trek Disc 1
titlecount 5
title0 /web/title0
title1 /web/title1
title2 /web/title2
title3 /web/title3
title4 /web/title4

In the case of Star Trek, title2 is the main feature. I click on the title2 link and then get this in a new Firefox tab:

name value
id 2
duration 2:06:50
chaptercount 14
formatcount 2
format0 m2ts
file0 /stream/title2.m2ts
format1 ts
file1 /stream/title2.ts

Click on the link /stream/title2.m2ts and a new tab opens in Firefox with the Quicktime icon. Copy the URL and then open VLC, choose File > Open Network and paste the URL into the box, hit return and the movie starts playing.

I think there might be a plugin for Plex in the next day or two that will simplify this. Keep your fingers crossed.

It may be that it only unlocks (decrypt, de-HDCP) the disc. If you have Plex, can you see if you can open the m2ts movie file on the disc to see if you can play it back?

Holy crap, it works. It's a rather convoluted process but I was able to open the Blu-ray disc's m2ts file (Star Trek) with VLC and play it from the disc. I'll see if I can sort out the details in a meaningful way, but we can now play Blu-ray discs on Macs.

I've updated the first post with instructions on playing movies off of Blu-ray discs using VLC.

Yes, my Blu-ray drive in a USB2 enclosure.

It sounds like you have a network setting that is preventing the Make MKV server from serving. I would check your Network panel for this.

northernmunky said:

Any idea what could block it from working?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, no. You might check your System Preferences Security/Firewall pane to see if you've got it blocked. If so, you probably need to open the firewall to the app.

A beta plugin for Plex has been released. It's still a work in progress, with some difficulty, but it's moving forward.

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php...x-with-makemkv/page__view__findpost__p__73478

Now in Make MKV 1.5 is support for UPnP streaming mode. This could be the ticket for playback in Plex. I'll give it a try tonight.

It looks like the UPnP server in MakeMKV is broken. I wish those guys would make sure things work before releasing it. As it is, the first post of this thread is the only way that works ATM.