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Unfortunately, it seems the VC-1 video codec is poorly supported on both the Windows and the Linux platform. Windows Media Player did not want to give me anything but sound. VLC was able to play back the video, but it has a lot of “micro stuttering”. On Linux with XBMC and other media players, I was unable to get anything but sound. If there is a solution to this problem out there, please let me know.

I preferably want to be able to replay the original tracks from the Blu-rays/DVDs that I buy, but I want to play them from my media center (Linux with XBMC). However, with the VC-1 codec, I found no other option than to transcode the video to a H.264 stream. This might cause some quality loss, but as far as I could see it was minimal. A bonus of doing the transcoding is of course reducing the size of the files to about half the size. The instructions below explains how I transcoded the files with VC-1 video streams to be able to view the on Linux.

First, I ripped the Blu-ray using AnyDVD HD.

Second, I transcoded the video using RipBot using the settings above. A lower CRF is supposed to give you the best quality (and the larges files). I selected this one, and I did not include the sound as I did not want to have just a 128 Kbs bit rate. See, for instance, MediaSmartServer.net for some more info.

To identify which streams from the blu-ray you want, you might want to have a look at BDInfo. It is normally the largest/longest playlists and streams.

Finally, I added the original HD sound track by combining the sound stream from the blu-ray, with the newly created video file from RipBot. This is easily done using TSMuxer.

BankID is unfortunately pretty poorly supported on the Linux platform, or there are at least several issues with it. I have sorted out some of them before, but it seems the latest version of Firefox created some new issues. My problem was that when trying to use BankID the browser crashed when logging in (after entering the code from the code key). The solution was as explained below:

1. Remove any traces of OpenJDK. See one of my earlier posts.

2. Install Sun’s Java version 6 (I have written about this before, and there are plenty of guides out there on how to do this).

This could be enough. However, I had problems getting the Java plugin started when opening BankID. To sort this out, create a symlink to the Java plugin in a mozilla plugin folder using the following code (thanks to WebUP8):
mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Where the path (“/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so”) depends on what JRE you have installed, and what CPU you have. I have an 64 bit AMD processor, and I have installed Sun’s JRE version 6.

The above is so far tested on only one computer. Please give feedback if you have tested it successfully yourself, or if you have further problems.

I have had problems with the clock on one of my Ubuntu computers. The NTP (Network Time Protocol) service is supposed to take care of synchronizing the clock, and the GUI has settings for this. However, and but it did not work (Ubuntu 11.10), as the clock was constantly delayed.

The fix was simple, (re)installing the ntp package made sure that some of the missing dependencies was installed. I am pretty sure this has happened to me before, so it could be a useful tips to others. If your clock runs late, try the following (one may of course use Synaptic as well):

sudo apt-get install ntp

A while back I started to back up my DVD collection using Linux (dvdbackup and Handbrake). For Blu-ray disks I have unfortunately not found any good solutions for Linux and only open source software. Therefore, this guide will show how you may back up your Blu-rays on the MS Windows platform, using AnyDVD HD, BDInfo, Eac3to (inkluding Eac3to and More GUI) and tsMuxer.

1. Backup disk and remove copy protection

AnyDVD HD

AnyDVD HD does a good job removing the copy protection and backing up the disk to your hard drive. It is a proprietary piece of software, but I found that a lifetime license was worth the investment (about € 100).

Please note that removing copy protection may be illegal in some countries. In Norway (where I live) it is, to my best understanding, illegal to circumvent effective copy protection measures. As far as I see it, AnyDVD makes the copy protection on Blu-rays very ineffective. However, there are, to my knowledge, no court orders that defines what effective is. Removing the copy protection may therefore be in the gray area. Nevertheless, I strongly believe consumers should be able to back up their own DVDs and Blu-rays, and use software like XBMC to manage their media collection.

2. Identifying the movie streams

DBInfo

You may want to store the whole blu-ray with all its files and folders. I am however mainly interested in the main feature itself. To identify the stream(s) that contain(s) the movie I use BDInfo. The first and longest playlist normally contain the stream(s) that constitute the movie. The movie in the screenshot above was contained in only one stream (“00000.m2ts”). The streams are always located in the folder “[movie root]\BDMV\STREAM”.

If only one stream (.m2ts file) contains the whole movie, you may simply store this file where ever you like, and watch it with XBMC or any other viewer you’d like. If the movie is constituted of several streams you should use tsMuxer to join/append these streams in the order shown in BDInfo.

Please note that the .m2ts container does not contain subtitles and chapters. If you want this you could for instance use the mkv container. However, since I normally do not care about either, I just back up the .m2ts file.

3. Adding an AC3 sound track and removing unnecessary tracks (optional)

Eac3toAC3

Some players are not able to decode DTS sound tracks. As a consequence of this I normally add an AC3 (Dolby Digital) track to my .m2ts containers. This is done by first encoding the DTS to AC3 using Eac3to.

tsMuxer

Next, create a new .m2ts file by adding (muxing) the newly created .ac3 file to the .m2ts file from the blu-ray. This is done using tsMuxer.

While muxing the two files I normally remove tracks that I do not need. This may be languages, presentation graphics, or video tracks with lower resolution. To remove them, simply uncheck the tracks that you do not want.

While working with realization of benefits from a project, it is important to remember that your goals should be SMART. I find the following to be a good guideline for stating better goals/benefits:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Please also enjoy The Simpsons – I Am So Smart.