Why can't mpls files simply be replaced?

[IanD]

I have a title that seems to link to playlist abc for the movie, but the playlist is an obfuscation and actually playlist xyz is the correct one.

Have replaced abc with the contents of xyz, but title playback hangs at Top Menu just before playing movie. With the original abc, playback of abc occurs without issue.

Do mpls files have identifiers that are checked for consistency?

Can't understand why simply replacing an mpls will not play that mpls, all else being unchanged.

[jdobbs]

I have a title that seems to link to playlist abc for the movie, but the playlist is an obfuscation and actually playlist xyz is the correct one.

Have replaced abc with the contents of xyz, but title playback hangs at Top Menu just before playing movie. With the original abc, playback of abc occurs without issue.

Do mpls files have identifiers that are checked for consistency?

Can't understand why simply replacing an mpls will not play that mpls, all else being unchanged.The MPLS includes a list of all the M2TS files that are a part of it as well as the audio/video types/PIDs. So it has to match.

[IanD]

The MPLS includes a list of all the M2TS files that are a part of it as well as the audio/video types/PIDs. So it has to match.

If I transfer the contents of one mpls to another, then as far as the system should be concerned, it will just see a different list of m2ts files: the PIDs will still match assuming the source mpls was correct.

The problem is if I make a copy of an mpls and then rename it, it doesn't seem to work, however I have discovered that if I edit the content of an mpls (with BDedit) to match the mpls I was copying then it does work. It's like each mpls has a signature, so copying changes that signature and it is no longer consistent, whilst editing does not.

[Emulgator]

Which editor and encoding has been used ?

[rik1138]

You should be able to just copy the MPLS file and rename it... I do it all the time. You can even convert an MPLS to an XML file so it's easily readable/editable, and then convert it back to the binary format. There's nothing 'magical' about them.

I suppose it's possible that the JAVA code is looking for abc.MPLS, and when it finds it, it does a quick check on the file (like an MD5 hash or something), and if it doesn't match what it thinks it should be, the code stops playing the disc. The easiest way to get around the PlayList obfuscation was to find the correct PlayList and just use that to replace all the 'wrong' ones, so it wouldn't matter which one the code launched. Maybe they are getting smart about that and doing other checks on them now. What's the title? Something really new?

[IanD]

You should be able to just copy the MPLS file and rename it... I do it all the time. You can even convert an MPLS to an XML file so it's easily readable/editable, and then convert it back to the binary format. There's nothing 'magical' about them.

I thought it would be that simple, so was surprised when copying and renaming still did not work: it was stuck on a black screen after the menu but before starting the movie itself.

What software will convert an MPLS->XML->MPLS ?

BDedit was easy enough to use, although I noticed the timings changed slightly from the source I was copying when entered in via BDedit, although it was not enough to affect sync in any noticeable way.

[bigotti5]

What software will convert an MPLS->XML->MPLS ?

playlist.jar from this (https://java.net/projects/hdcookbook/downloads/download/hdcookbook-bin-bundle-20110608.zip) download
usage:
java -jar playlist.jar xxxxx.mpls xxxxx.xml
java -jar playlist.jar xxxxx.xml xxxxx.mpls