How to play and screengrab HD-DVD/Blu-Ray FREE!

[sarah99]

As nobody else seems to have written a guide, here is my attempt.

Blu-Ray playback/screen grabs with mostly free stuff
Install Graphedit, Matroska Splitter, FFDShow, Nvidia PureVideo
http://img238.imageshack.us/img238/3091/bighitat9.th.jpg (http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bighitat9.jpg)

HD-DVD playback/screen grabs with mostly free stuff
Install Graphedit, Matroska Splitter, Sonic Cineplayer decoder pack
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7606/bighitlr6.th.jpg (http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bighitlr6.jpg)


Open Graphedit
Select Graph ... Insert Filter .... DirectShow Filter ... Haali Media Splitter, then browse to the .EVO or . m2ts file you want play/captures from.
A box appears on the screen, with a video and audio tab, close the filter list,
right click on the Video tab and "render pin" (you might want to replace the default VMR filter with Video Mixing Renderer 9 for smoother playback)
right click on the Audio tab and "render pin" (you don't have to bother with this if you don't want sound)
You can now play and grab using "print screen", then save by pasting into Paint.

This only grabs at your set screen resolution so make sure you are full frame at 1080p before hitting the "print screen" key.
This also allows you to play back both HD formats without having to use or install PowerDVD, but it may not be smooth playback.
You will need AnyDVD HD (or an alternative method) to transfer the HD files to your PC so it's not completely free.

[foxyshadis]

PureVideo and Cinemaster codecs aren't free either, actually; worse, PureVideo filter only plays MPEG-2 Bluray discs. To utilize decoding for other formats, you have to have one of the other players, typically the sonic or cyberlink codecs for gpu acceleration.

[sarah99]

I'm pretty sure Nvidia Purevideo came free with my graphics card.
Not too sure about the Cineplayer codec pack but nobody seems to be selling it.

Changed the wording to "mostly free" so everyone should be satisfied now.
I've not come across any other formats ...... yet.
One strange HD-DVD was Brotherhood of the Wolf which only has a DTS-HD sound track and has to be played with Sonic HD Demuxer + Sonic Audio and Video Decoders. Canal Plus just has to be different!

[sarah99]

Blu-Ray with VC1 encoding is not a problem either.

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/2861/starshipyg1.th.jpg (http://img404.imageshack.us/my.php?image=starshipyg1.jpg)

[sarah99]

Any thoughts to a GUI to change the graphs automatically?

Now all these codecs are installed on my PC I have discovered that

....... wait for it ..........

Media player classic will now play .EVO and .m2ts files dropped onto it

but on the downside, it is a bit jerky (it's using the cineplayer splitter which is poor), so I just need to work out how to force MPC to use the VM9 or Haali video renderer and Halli media splitter.

Here are a couple of grabs taken using MPC snapshot function, from viewing in a window, but saved as full 1080p resolution.

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/8990/snapshot20070808235231lo8.th.jpg (http://img65.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot20070808235231lo8.jpg)http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/1089/snapshot20070808235452rn4.th.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot20070808235452rn4.jpg)

[sarah99]

It really bugged me, having to use Cineplayer codecs for the audio on HD-DVD, their Sonic HD splitter just didn't work properly and got in the way of smooth playback. I wanted to use Haali as much as possible.

Zoomplayer + Haali + FFDShow

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/9439/twoatoncenw3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Just to be greedy, I was playing HD-DVD in one window and Blu-Ray in the second window (OK so it maxed out my CPU)
Just drag the .EVO or .m2ts into the Zoomplayer window
If it doesn't work, right click in zoomplayer, look at the filter list, uninstall the unwanted filter that is causing the problem
If you want to use Haali video renderer (rather than default), right click in zoomplayer, advanced mode, options, video, custom,select custom renderer, Haali Video Renderer

File playback is now totally free of charge

[foxyshadis]

That's pretty cool. =o

[arfster]

Last time I tried this (a few months back), ffdshow couldn't handle audio formats like DD+. Also, quite a few evo files confused Haali, and you end up with the 24fps played at 30fps.

Bluray seems to work fine though, since LPCM doesn't need decoded at all, and .m2ts is little different from .ts.

[sarah99]

Last time I tried this (a few months back), ffdshow couldn't handle audio formats like DD+. Also, quite a few evo files confused Haali, and you end up with the 24fps played at 30fps.

Bluray seems to work fine though, since LPCM doesn't need decoded at all, and .m2ts is little different from .ts.

You're right
DD+ totally screws up zoomplayer, drop in a HD-DVD .EVO file with DD+ and it crashes.
I'm still stuck using graphedit + Cinemaster Audio decoder for movies with DD+ in them.

Grrrrrrrrrr .......

[sarah99]

I found out how to force filters in Zoomplayer
Here are two different ways to do it by creating a evo.mediagraph file and dropping this text inside.


HD-DVD (using ffdshow + cineplayer codec pack, a bit jerky)

evo.mediagraph
LoadFilter({51B4ABF3-748F-4E3B-A276-C828330E926A},Video_Mixing_Renderer_9)
LoadFilter({79376820-07D0-11CF-A24D-0020AFD79767},Default DirectSound Device)
LoadFilter({D7D50E8D-DD72-43C2-8587-A0C197D837D2},Sonic_Cinemaster®_Video_Decoder_4.3.0)
LoadFilter({9F062738-CD84-4F54-A3C4-BD5EB44F416B},Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder_4.3.0)
LoadFilter({250D7B7D-4344-41FD-A284-7299B7765F18},Sonic_HD_Demuxer)

# Sonic HD Splitter
// first ConnectPin gives error message no matter what is in it
ConnectPin(Sonic_HD_Demuxer,Audio Out,Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder_4.3.0,Audio in)
ConnectPin(Sonic_HD_Demuxer,Video Out,Sonic_Cinemaster®_Video_Decoder_4.3.0,Video in)

# Pin connections
ConnectPin(Sonic_Cinemaster®_Video_Decoder_4.3.0,Video Out,Video_Mixing_Renderer_9,VMR Input0)
ConnectPin(Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder_4.3.0,Audio Out,Default_DirectSound_Device,Audio Input pin (rendered))


HD-DVD (using Haali + ffdshow + Cinemaster audio codec, smooth)

evo.mediagraph
# Create Filters
LoadFilter({760A8F35-97E7-479D-AAF5-DA9EFF95D751},Haali_Video_Renderer)
LoadFilter({79376820-07D0-11CF-A24D-0020AFD79767},Default DirectSound Device)
LoadFilter({9F062738-CD84-4F54-A3C4-BD5EB44F416B},Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder)
LoadFilter({564FD788-86C9-4444-971E-CC4A243DA150},Haali_Media_Splitter)
LoadFilter({B86F6BEE-E7C0-4D03-8D52-5B4430CF6C88},ffdshow_Audio_Processor)

# Connect Halli Splitter to decoders
// first ConnectPin gives error message no matter what is in it
ConnectPin(Haali_Media_Splitter,Video,WMVideo_Decoder,in0)
ConnectPin(Haali_Media_Splitter,Audio,Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder,Audio in)

# Audio Pin connectionsConnectPin(Sonic_Cinemaster®_Audio_Decoder,Audio Out,ffdshow_Audio_Processor,In)
ConnectPin(ffdshow_Audio_Processor,Out,Default_DirectSound_Device,Audio Input pin (rendered))

# Video Pin connections
ConnectPin(WMVideo_Decoder,out0,Haali_Video_Renderer,Input)


I get an error when I try to play at the first ConnectPin command ...... no matter what ...... how do I cure this ?????
I doesn't affect playback though.