Blu-ray
Media Center supports playback and ripping of Blu-ray.
Requirements
MC supports unencrypted Blu-Ray playback. To playback encrypted Blu-ray discs, which includes most commercially released discs, a 3rd-party Blu-Ray decrypter is required. AnyDVD HD is a good option.
Playback
Insert a disc and the program will offer to play it. If you have a ripped copy of the Blu-Ray disc, you can Import it and Media Center will play them.
Media Center supports title selection, chapters, audio stream selection, subtitle selection, and a variety of other playback options.
Ripping
You can rip Blu-Ray using Action Window > Rip Disc inside the program.
More information is available here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=66347.0
Getting Coverart, Movie / TV Information and Managing Discs with multiple parts
Media Center can manage separate content such as Titles, Alternative Endings, TV Shows - Series, Seasons & Episodes, Music Video Tracks on a single Blu Ray disk using Particles
HD Audio
Media Center is capable decoding the full range of audio codecs used on commercial Blu-ray Discs itself, while preserving their full bitrate and audio depth. This includes HD codecs such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
We recommend that you use Media Center to decode HD audio because this gives you access to the full power of MC's audio engine, including VideoClock and the DSP. MC will automatically decode TrueHD soundtracks with no other configuration required. As of Version 20.0.100 MC is also able to automatically decode DTS-HD as well and there is no longer any need to use a 3rd party decoding library (dtsdecoderdll.dll).
However, if you prefer Media Center also supports bitstreaming. You can enable bitstreaming via HDMI connection in:
- Tools > Options > Audio > Settings > Bitstreaming.
- Note: SPDIF connections cannot carry HD Audio formats.
Bitstreaming bypasses the entire Media Center audio engine, including things like the Volume controls, and the decoder on the far end of the HDMI cable is responsible for decoding the audio.
Prior to Version 20.0.100 MC did not include a decoder for DTS-HD. However, Media Center has been designed to properly use the decoder included with Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theatre. To decode DTS-HD you need to copy the file:
- dtsdecoderdll.dll
From an installation of Arcsoft TMT into:
- %APPDATA%\J River\Media Center <VERSION>\Plugins\lav\
(Be sure to replace the text <VERSION> above with the major version number of your copy of Media Center.)
If you prefer, you can also use use one of the following system directories
- Windows 32-bit: %WINDIR%\System32\
- Windows 64-bit: %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\
The Windows system folder locations could be preferable as these will survive future major upgrades (eg MC19 to MC20), and re-installation of Media Center, but you may use whichever you prefer. If you do not have a copy of the Arcsoft TMT DTS decoder you will still get sound, but MC will decode the regular (non-HD) DTS track instead of DTS-HD. You can check that TrueHD or DTS-HD is being decoded properly using Audio Path.
Menus
MC uses its own OSD to provide access the to the content on Blu-Ray discs such as:
- titles
- chapters
- audio, video, and subtitle stream selection
However, MC does not support the Java or BDMV menus included with many commercial discs, as there is no currently available open decoder required for this support. To watch your movies in the highest quality, you don't need them, though! To access the menu press the Up/Down arrow keys or right click on the playing video.
Forced Subtitles
MC will automatically display any subtitle track that is was marked as "forced" when the disk was authored. Forced subtitles are often used for bits of non-native language which audience isn't be expected to understand, in a movie that is otherwise in their native tongue (elven or alien speech, a little Spanish in an English language movie, etc). Unfortunately, many disks are authored with these subtitles in a separate track and in these cases the user will need to select the correct track (normally towards the bottom of the subtitle list). MC will remember this selection for the next time the BD is played.
3D BD
Most commercial 3D BD disks use a version of AVC encoding called "multiview video coding (MVC)". MC does not support MVC and all such 3D BD disks will play as 2D. For more information on how to use a 3rd party player for these disks refer to this thread on Interact.
More
- Refer to Audio Setup for information on configuring your sound output.
- Please see Matt's description of Blu-ray support in MC16. MC 16 and later can play Blu-ray discs or rips.
- Blu-ray support of encrypted discs requires AnyDVD HD or equivalent to read the disc.
- For older versions, please read these threads on Interact:
- Mojave on audio mixing for Blu-ray: "JRiver does anything AC3Filter does, but better. JRiver does everything in its 64-bit audio path and makes sure that the highest quality is maintained. I removed AC3Filter a long time ago."
- You can also Extract Audio from Video Files.