X264 Project Announces Blu-ray Encoding Support

An anonymous reader writes "The x264 project has announced the first free software encoder to be able to generate Blu-ray compliant video. In addition, the announcement comes with a torrent of an x264-encoded Blu-ray disc containing entirely free content, such as the Open Movie Project videos. While there are still no free software Blu-ray authoring tools, hopefully this will change now that video and audio are taken care of so that everyone will be able to make their own Blu-rays without expensive proprietary software. Additionally, it seems the Criterion Collection is a friend of free software, having sponsored the effort to confirm x264's compliance with the Blu-ray spec."

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent licensing fees for H.264 (20 cents per encoder) are the least of your problems if you're commercially publishing a Blu-ray disc. The license fees for *everything else*, up to and including the Blu-ray name itself, are much more onerous. But anyone making Blu-rays for commercial purposes already deals with this.

Free BD Authoring Tool: Multiavchd

[spblat]

There is in fact a free software Blu-ray authoring tool. And it is rather nice.

http://multiavchd.deanbg.com/ [deanbg.com]

Re:Free BD Authoring Tool: Multiavchd

[spikeb]

that isn't free software.

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[beelsebob]

x264 is a video encoder, not a format. You're thinking of h264, which x264 encodes into.

h264 has been used on Blurry disks since day 1.

Re:Free BD Authoring Tool: Multiavchd

[Cougar Town]

Free of charge does not mean it is free software [gnu.org].

Re:Free BD Authoring Tool: Multiavchd

[harlows_monkeys]

FTFL: "multiAVCHD is free and no one can charge you, should you decide to obtain/download it."

Hence, spikeb is correct. It is not Free Software. It is software that costs $0.

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Yes, that is what I read when researching blu-ray verses HD-DVD, and I thought it would be its downfall. Sony has managed to create its own market and tied every loose end to a patent or license agreement. It was an amazing piece of business. I think they get a royalty on every blank disc too. The MPAA and RIAA must love it too, as you can track to the source of every publishing. I bet that even the government of China loves it. Hell, our department of insecurity must love it too. Actually, all those people who have capital equipment invested in DVD manufacturing must love it as well, because smaller publishers are not going to be $tepping up from DVD-R anytime soon. It should also help the streaming media businesses justify a higher cost basis. Talk about win-win, blu-ray has it all.

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, theoretically that's right, but as far as I know there isn't a single blu-ray player that won't play BD structure on BD-R even without AACS. BD-Rebuilder (link in TFA) will reencode video and audio of blu-rays so it can fit a 25 GB BD-R (or DVD) while keeping the BD structure intact and while it's a bit problematic on DVD, where you are better off using an AVCHD for compatibility, on BD-Rs it works flawlessly.

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure about that? Don't the pressed discs have the same file/directory structure as BD-Rs, and so if they can play those files unencrypted on BD-Rs, why couldn't they on pressed discs?

No, as I said BD-Rs don't have the same file/directory structure. And even if they did, and a Blu-ray player actually was one of the early ones that allowed an "unencrypted Blu-ray image" on a BD-R to be playable, it cannot LEGALLY (as in the licensing forbids it) read one from a pressed disc. The BD player has to perform a check, and if it's a pressed disc, it MUST check the disc is encrypted and has a ROM Mark.

Unencrypted Blu-ray material using the BD Video layout is permitted on DVD5/DVD9s, however.

Re:LOL open source

[oakgrove]

Why don't you freetards just buy a mac and use real world professional software to do your work?...

You are like the Amish of the computer industry.

So, I should stop using free software and go to a system that is based on, you guessed it, free software. You do realize that OSX would be nothing like its current form without the completely free and open source software that it is layered on top of, right? For most intents and purposes, the OSX that you seem so fond of is little more than a set of libraries and a pretty face plastered on top of mountains of open source software. Now who's the freetard?

Re:The first question that popped into my head

[Malc]

You do not need to encrypt content on a BDROM - go and read the AACS spec, which is publicly available on the AACS LA's website. CPS Units on a BD Prercorded can be either encrypted on unencrypted for Basic Titles, per the CCI.

You are correct though that to replicate a BD that you need to pay an AACS fee, but that's now down to $500, IIRC.

I haven't see any issues with players playing back Type A CMF burnt to BDRE (i.e. partial AACS, as sent to replicators before AACS processing). This is how most authoring houses test their content. In fact, I don't even remember having to specify unencrypted + no disable Copy Permission Indicator when testing on the PS3 recently - at one time we had to burn to BD-REv3 format (which is annoying because that format doesn't support everything in BDROM).