Point well taken. It's kind of funny actually. I used to check in here quite frequently to see if there was any news about UHD, but then life got busy, and I stopped paying attention. Turns out I missed the announcement by two weeks.Not unless requested. They've got plenty of logs. After uhd was first released the forums were nearly flooded.
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Wanted to briefly share my experience so far playing AnyDVD UHD iso's using PDVD 17... The video quality is excellent!
In comparing them to UHD backup folders made with MakeMKV there is a real difference.
Colors are brighter, contrast is sharper, everything looks pristine, making the MakeMKV folders look almost washed-out in comparison. Maybe the MakeMKV folders do not retain HDR info, I'm not sure. I'll try to figure that out when I get more familiar with UHD.
Status Update:
Got my copy of Planet Earth II UHD. Hooked up my UHD friendly ASUS BW-16D1HT (3.00 FW). Fired up Windows XP (SP2!) from an old 2GB Compact Flash card. Installed AnyDVD 8.2.2.0. Requested trial version. Loaded Disc #1 of Planet Earth II UHD. AnyDVD scanned the disc, and indicated success. Ripped the disc to unprotected image (52.5 GiB). Took the image over to my laptop (Ivy Bridge CPU and graphics) running Gentoo Linux. Fired up my Windows XP VM in VirtualBox (where I do all my Blu Ray work). Unprotected image mounted in Virtual Clone Drive with no trouble. Fired up Kodi in the host OS, and pointed it at the STREAM folder from the mounted image. Loaded up one of the ~17GiB .m2ts files, and....
PRESTO! Snowy mountains and clouds! The disc has been decrypted! It is pegging all 8 of my CPU cores trying to play the video, and stuttering pretty badly, but that was completely expected. I would have been shocked if my Ivy Bridge CPU could playback 3840x2160 HEVC video smoothly. Next I'll try playing it on my systems that have Nvidia GT 1030 cards. They should be able to handle this video.
So, AnyDVD UHD Status: Working!
My status: Very Happy!
So, all that's needed to decrypt a UHD disc is a UHD friendly drive? I thought it also needed a system that was capable of playing back UHD commercial discs (recent CPU + motherboard, bus encryption, etc.).
All the other crap is only needed if you want to conform to how you are supposed to watch UHD disks.So, all that's needed to decrypt a UHD disc is a UHD friendly drive? I thought it also needed a system that was capable of playing back UHD commercial discs (recent CPU + motherboard, bus encryption, etc.).
So, all that's needed to decrypt a UHD disc is a UHD friendly drive? I thought it also needed a system that was capable of playing back UHD commercial discs (recent CPU + motherboard, bus encryption, etc.).
At least on Windows VLC 3.0 plays 10 bit color and HDR, at least on my test equipment (Windows 10 & Nvidia 1xxx with HDR enabled). Playing HDR content on SDR eqipment was awful. (Brightness & colors wrong). Playing SDR content on HDR equipment was even worse. I was surprised, it even supports Blu-ray menus (only tested on SDR Blu-ray).All of the other restrictions are being enforced by the software player (PowerDVD 17). They are to protect the decryption keys while they are in use, and the decoded video while it is moving through the video hardware out to the monitor (where HDCP 2.2 usage is also mandated). Official players have to do this all at once, while AnyDVD's job is decryption only. This can be done using pretty much any CPU these days, and once the data is decrypted, AnyDVD doesn't really care what you do with it from there. In my case, I just wanted the disc decrypted, and now I can experiment with playback on any system I want to. The unprotected image is on an external HDD that I can move from system to system, and I no longer have to worry about things like AACS 2.0, bus encryption, and UHD friendly (or unfriendly) drives. Of course, as soon as I get another UHD Blu Ray disc, I'll have to get the drive out of its box, and do the UHD friendly dance again (I also have the other Planet Earth II disc to rip).
So yes, decryption only requires a UHD friendly drive, and a system running a recent version of AnyDVD. Playback of the content itself is quite another matter. I think the only "official" hardware able to playback UHD video is Intel Kaby Lake (and newer) integrated video. I had limited success getting my Nvidia GT 1030 cards to do it, but that's mainly due to not all of the Linux software players fully supporting Nvidia's new video acceleration API yet (CUVID/NVDEC). The old one (VDPAU) doesn't support the 10-bit video found on these discs. I'm hoping that as UHD decrypted content becomes more commonplace, support for the newer API will improve. I think things are in better shape with Nvidia and AMD video acceleration on Windows with MPC-HC (and whatever variants are popular right now), but since I don't run any Windows OS beyond XP, I don't have any first hand experience with doing it that way.
At least on Windows VLC 3.0 plays 10 bit color and HDR, at least on my test equipment (Windows 10 & Nvidia 1xxx with HDR enabled). Playing HDR content on SDR eqipment was awful. (Brightness & colors wrong). Playing SDR content on HDR equipment was even worse. I was surprised, it even supports Blu-ray menus (only tested on SDR Blu-ray).
Playback on PC is so complicated.... I vote for Amlogic (X96) box (cheap) or Shield TV (more family compatible).
I also vote for the Shield. I grabbed one and tested out some ripped MKV's using DNLA and Kodi on the Shield. One of which was Dunkirk ripped from UHD. Now I only have a 1080p plasma screen currently, but, it played quite well. Some day I'll grab an OLED screen and really push this thing.
Sounds like you're watching the films on a non-HDR monitor?
... Can both VLC and Power DVD 17 be used to play back the decrypted iso's? Testiles mentions that he used Power DVD 17 to play his iso's ...
Right now my player is a NUC-type box running a mythtv frontend (with integrated Netflix and Amazon and such) ... I imagine I would be able to replace that with a newer NUC-type box that had 4k support. I'm not sure what's up with the color spaces though. My long-ish term plan was to buy a 4K screen once the deeper color space and gamut stuff had settled down and wide gamut screens were available for reasonable prices.
which is to say ... for someone in my situation, is a NUC-type a good idea? A shield for $200 seems to be a good alternative if I can give up the > rec 709 color.
Those specific requirements assume you’re playing the original encrypted media. Playing the unencrypted rips loosens up the requirements quite a bit, but still requires adequate horsepower to handle the 4K video. But can we split the playback discussion into a separate thread? This thread is for ripping...No, I'm using a Sony TV that is 4k and HDR compatible.
Yes, I use Power DVD 17 but Cyberlink says in order to play UHD discs, folders or iso's, PDVD 17 requires Intel Graphics and Intel Graphics only.
T
I was confused by Turleggip post. When he states "playback of the content itself is quite a different matter." Is he referring to decrypted content or to protected UHD video?
Those specific requirements assume you’re playing the original encrypted media. Playing the unencrypted rips loosens up the requirements quite a bit, but still requires adequate horsepower to handle the 4K video.