22 - Ripping and Playing Blu-ray and DVD Movies in XBMC
My preference is to rip my DVDs and Blu-rays as ISO images so that I have an exact copy of what was on the original disc, and there is no degradation of image quality. I appreciate that there are other methods of creating smaller files without losing image quality by stripping out extras and alternate sound tracks etc, but I’m happy with the ISO approach. I am using SlySoft AnyDVD HD as I was already using this application to enable multi-region DVD and Blu-ray playback on my HTPC and it also includes the functionality to rip both DVD and Blu-ray movies to ISO images.
1) Ripping DVD movies
To rip a DVD movie to an ISO image I followed these steps:
- Place the DVD disc in the optical drive and wait for AnyDVD HD to scan the disc
- Right-click on the AnyDVD HD icon on the toolbar and choose “Rip to image”
- Select the destination folder e.g. C:\Multimedia\Movies\DVD
- Create a new folder inside the DVD folder with the name of the movie e.g. C:\Multimedia\Movies\DVD\Spiderman
- Set the name of the ISO image to be the name of the movie e.g. Spiderman.dvd.iso
- The naming convention becomes important when configuring playback in XBMC
- Click “Copy DVD” and wait around 15-20mins for the copy to complete
2) Ripping Blu-ray movies
To rip a Blu-ray movie to an ISO image I followed these steps:
- Place the Blu-ray disc in the optical drive and wait for AnyDVD HD to scan the disc
- Right-click on the AnyDVD HD icon on the toolbar and choose “Rip to image”
- Select the destination folder e.g. C:\Multimedia\Movies\Blu-ray
- Create a new folder inside the DVD folder with the name of the movie e.g. C:\Multimedia\Movies\Blu-ray\Fanboys
- Set the name of the ISO image to be the name of the movie e.g. Fanboys.bluray.iso
- The naming convention becomes important when configuring playback in XBMC
- Click “Copy DVD” and wait around 45-60mins for the copy to complete
3) Configuring playback in XBMC
In order to create a fully functional HTPC I will be using a combination of XBMC and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 for media playback. Based on a recommendation from Razor I will be using XBMC for all Standard Definition (SD) content and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 for all High Definition (HD) content as follows:
- Play DVD discs using XBMC
- Play Blu-ray discs using Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5
- Play DVD ISO images using XBMC
- Play Blu-ray ISO images using Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5
- Play other media formats using XBMC
Natively XBMC plays DVD discs, DVD ISO images and other media therefore the configuration focused on enabling Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 for Blu-ray disc and ISO playback. I did plenty of reading around and my approach takes inspiration from Grangey’s excellent “
XBMC Setup, and Support” thread and the "
ISO Mounter - third-party software for auto Blu-ray ISO / IMG image mount on Windows" thread in the XBMC forum (See post #92 by slingshot27).
As with many problems a simple approach is often the best, and this is the case when it comes to configuring XBMC for HD playback. There are two key elements to the configuration, which are as follows:
- Two batch files to launch Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 for Blu-ray disc and ISO playback
- An XML file to define two external players in XBMC and the rules for when the batch files should be called
Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 comes with two different user interfaces so you might like to try them both out to see which works better for you. The default user interface is “uLaunchTMT5.EXE” which gives you a feature rich interface which more suited to using a mouse when watching DVDs or Blu-rays on the monitor desktop computer.
The second user interface “uMCEPlayer5.EXE” provides a simplified interface which is more suited to using a remote control when watching DVDs or Blu-rays on your plasma from the sofa, and this is the option I went with.
The final part of the puzzle is SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive which mounts the Blu-ray ISO image so that it can be played by Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5.
4) Setting up a folder to store the batch files
Two batch files are required to perform the following actions:
- To launch Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 when playing a Blu-ray disc
- To launch Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 when playing a Blu-ray ISO image
The first step is to create a folder to hold the two batch files
e.g. C:\FOR_XBMC\BATCH_FILES
5) Creating the batch file for playing a Blu-ray disc
I opened Notepad and created a batch file called PlayDisc.bat which I saved in the folder I created
e.g. C:\FOR_XBMC\BATCH_FILES\PlayDisc.bat
I then added the following text to the batch file:
Code:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 5\uMCEPlayer5.exe" D:
The first part of the text string is the path to the executable file for Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 and D: is the drive letter of my optical drive.
6) Creating the batch file for playing a Blu-ray ISO image
I opened Notepad and created a batch file called PlayDisc.bat which I saved in the folder I created
e.g. C:\FOR_XBMC\BATCH_FILES\PlayISO.bat
I then added the following three lines of text to the batch file:
Code:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Elaborate Bytes\VirtualCloneDrive\vcdmount.exe" /d=0 %1
"C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Theatre 5\uMCEPlayer5.exe" E:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Elaborate Bytes\VirtualCloneDrive\vcdmount.exe" /d=0 /u
The first line mounts the Blu-ray ISO image using SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive. The second line calls the executable file for Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5. Of particular note is the different drive letter “E:” which is the SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive rather than my optical drive which is reference when playing the Blu-ray disc. The third line unmounts the Blu-ray ISO image once the Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 application has been closed.
Once you have created the folder and both batch files you should have something like this (click for high resolution):
7) Creating the XML file
For XBMC to play a Blu-ray disc using Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 it needs to know about it. To do this you need to create an XML which adds Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 as an external player and defines the rules for when this external player should be used.
Open Notepad and create a new file called “playercorefactory.xml” which (assuming that the user account is called "HTPC") must be saved in the following location for Windows 7
e.g. C:\Users\HTPC\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\UserData\player corefactory.xml
Note: If you do not see the "AppData" folder then you will need to enbale "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" in the Control Panel
I then added the following text to the “playercorefactory.xml” file in Notepad:
Code:
<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="PlayISO" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>c:\FOR_XBMC\BATCH_FILES\PlayISO.bat</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
<forceontop>false</forceontop>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</player>
<player name="PlayDisc" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
<filename>c:\FOR_XBMC\BATCH_FILES\PlayDisc.bat</filename>
<args>"{1}" /fullscreen /close</args>
<forceontop>false</forceontop>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hidecursor>false</hidecursor>
</player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
<!-- Bluray ISO -->
<rule filename=".*bluray.*" player="PlayISO"/>
<!-- Bluray Disc -->
<rule protocols="bd" player="PlayDisc"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory> The “players” section defines two external players and if you look at the “filename” parameter you will see that they reference the two batch files that I created previously. The “rules” section defines when the external players should be called. The “filename” parameter in the “Bluray ISO” rule is used so that the external player is only called when the Blu-ray ISO filename matches the rule e.g. Fanboys.bluray.iso The “protocols” parameter in the “Bluray Disc” rule is used so that the external player is only called when the disc is of the “bd” type.
Once you have created the XML file you should have something like this (click for high resolution):
8) Testing the playback of a Blu-ray disc
I am using the “Transparency” skin for XBMC so before I could see the Blu-ray disc in XBMC I had to enable the “Play Disc” main menu element from the “Settings” menu as it was not visible by default.
I then returned to the home menu and scrolled through the menu elements until I came to the “Play Disc” element which I selected. XBMC then launches Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 and begins playing the Blu-ray disc. When I closed Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 I was returned to the XBMC home menu.
9) Testing the playback of a Blu-ray ISO image
I navigated to the “Movies” element of the XBMC main menu and then selected a Blu-ray movie that I had ripped as an ISO image, in this case Prince of Persia:
This automatically mounted the Blu-ray ISO image using SlySoft Virtual Clone Drive, launched Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 and began playing the Blu-ray ISO image. When I closed Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre 5 I was returned to the XBMC home menu.
10) Useful Links:
When configuring XBMC to play Blu-ray discs and ISO images I found the following sites and threads to be useful references:
Hopefully this post will be useful to other forum members in setting up XBMC to playback Blu-ray discs and ISO images.
James