APC_Australia_Issue_442_June_2017

howto » linux
VLC skipped and cracked,
MPlayer crashed whenever
we tried to seek and was a
pain to configure, but good
old xine played perfectly.
Using Blu-ray on Linux
Is running Blu-ray on Linux smooth sailing or more like banging your
head against the wall? John Knight finds it’s a little bit of both.
Any Linux user who has tried
to play a Blu-ray disc will
have made the unpleasant
discovery that they don’t just
immediately play and that some
legwork is required. A quick Google
search will reveal varying states of
grimness, and depending on when the
online article was written, you will
receive differing accounts on how to
Caution: Old websites!
Beware of an old web page that may be
your first Google result, going by the
URL: vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name
It has an old key file from early 2016:
do not use it! If you use this file, your
Blu-ray success rate will drop from
about seven out of ten to something
like four out of ten — a mistake we
found out the hard way! This link may
still be included in a number of manuals
and tutorials, so if you’ve written some
older documentation yourself, please
update the link.
The correct, up-to-date link is: www.
labdv.com/aacs
If you visit this page, you will likely
get a key database file from the last few
84 www.apcmag.com
play Blu-rays, and just how useful
Linux/Blu-ray is right now.
The problem lies in copy protection
and legal issues. Although Linux is
more than capable of playing Blu-ray
titles with perfect performance (there
is a decent chance that your Blu-ray
player is, in fact, running a Linux
kernel), since their inception, Blu-ray
discs have been closely guarded by
days and infinitely more keys than
the old 2016 file. Also included are
links to further libraries and useful
programs, along with added
documentation, and the all-important
link for uploading keys. Note that a
number of tutorials and programs are
hosted on the ‘doom9’ forums rather
than a central web page which makes
the process all a bit anarchic: some
of the links no longer work and some
tutorials need updating (which are
unfortunately in crucial areas if you’re
a Linux user trying to generate a
Blu-ray key). This had us running in
circles for a few weeks, so hopefully
their old info can be updated soon.
a draconian form of digital rights
management. On top of this are legal
differences from country to country
as to what one can and cannot do with
digitally protected media, creating
further headaches for developers.
And just to make things that little bit
harder, there are vested interests from
a conglomerate of major corporations,
including Microsoft, who, back in
the day, would have had little desire
to see Linux users have easy access
to Blu-ray.
So is it all doom and gloom for Linux
users? How do we play Blu-rays, and
why can it be so hard in the first place?
Let’s see how Linux/Blu-ray looks in
2017 and try to get it working in the
process.
Project: www.labdv.com/aacs
If you’re as lazy as us, you glanced
at the instructions in that URL just
given and thought, “Too hard, can’t be
bothered.” But stick with it — it’s easier
than it first looks. You’re going to
install some libraries, download a file
and then copy it somewhere. That’s it.
Two minutes and you’re done.
First, open your package manager
and install the packages ‘libbluray’
and ‘libaacs’ (it’s probably also worth
installing the ‘-dev’ packages while
you’re there). Now download the