Playstation 3 and BDMV

[Chris Hatton]

EDIT: This issue has been solved, see two posts down if you wish to skip straight to the solution.

I have begun test burning to find if it is possible to get a BDMV title working from BD-RE media on a Playstation 3. Since this doesn't appear to be as straightforward as burning the layout folders to disc, some experimentation is needed.

I believe that using a PC burner, rewritable discs and a Playstation 3 player has the potential to be the most cost effective option for testing of home authoring, beyond using a software player such as PowerDVD, and that other aspiring developers will be going through the same problems. Online opinions are mixed with a few posts claiming to have achieved it (but documenting their findings pretty shabbily), while other sources say it's impossible and locked down by Sony. I will be attempting to burn a known working image to BD-RE (rewritable) disc, and will document my findings as successive edits of this post.

Here is some information about my test setup:

Content: The sample project from the book 'HD Cookbook', which I have written about in this post:
http://chrishatton.homeip.net/bdjforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7

As a starting point, this project plays perfectly in PowerDVD 7.3, including front menu, video, subtitles, popup menus and the BD-J test game.

Burner: LG GGW-H20L 'Super Multi Blue' upgraded to latest firmware, YL02.

Player: Playstation 3, 40Gb UK Model. Firmware v2.10

Test1: Burned project layout files to Verbatim BD-RE using Nero 7.?? selecting UDF 2.50.
Result: Playstation recognised BDMV disc. When played the PS3 entered Blu-ray playing mode but halted on a blank screen with no messages.

Test2: Burned project layout files to TDK BD-RE using ImgBurn selecting UDF 2.50. This was my first use of the media and ImgBurn erased the entire disc first.
Result: Again, PS3 recognised it as a BDMV disc. When played the PS3 entered Blu-ray playing mode but halted on a blank screen with no messages.
Interestingly, when I first tried to play this burned disc on the PC under PowerDVD, it acted in the same way as the Playstation. The second time it played okay. Not sure if this is encouraging or not, but it does play fine every time from the hard disc, so maybe?

Test3: I acquired a test image from a Sonic Scenarist BDA project (this is a serious product and should provide a fully compliant image). I burned it using ImgBurn to TDK BD-RE.
Result: Playstation gave the error message "This is an Invalid disc (80029906)".

At this point I burned a BDAV disc using PowerProducer 7 and a couple of random video files, just to test that the PS3 could read data from the BD-RE under very controlled circumstances with something that 'should definitely work'. For those that don't know, BDAV is a level of writing a Blu-ray disc, below BDMV, which doesn't include any menus, just video and chapter points. Amongst other applications this is intended as a format for HD consumer cameras to record in. The PS3 played the videos, confirming that physical disc burning and reading is working properly.

[Chris Hatton]

Okay, second night of trying, new post.

I begin by applying the PS3 patch to Roxio DVDit Pro, which is available from Roxio support forums. Apparently this has always been necessary to get Roxio project to work on the PS3. This would seem to concerns about the PS3's spec compliance... though Roxio's comment on this was to somewhat vaguely say that both products were always in spec, just taking a 'different interpretation' on the spec, whatever that means.

On with the testing, reports are that the most success has been with burning BDMV folders using DVDit's burning features.
Ref: http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.p ... ntry106757

Test 5:So I tried to burn the sample project layout files again, DVDit + PS3 Patch, TDK BD-RE.
Result: Black screen

Okay, starting to despair, so...
Test6: I try a standard Roxio project, just a simple menu and two pieces of video.
Result: First breakthrough! This Roxio produced BDMV plays and shows the menu on the PS3! The PS3 IS playing some form of HDMV at least.

[Chris Hatton]

Ok, I have the solution. This is all down to the way most applications burn BDMV, and how the PS3 interprets the spec.

The BDMV format is currently burned by authoring programs with the 'safe' assumption that you won't want copies to be made of your disc. This isn't anything to do with AACS, something altogether simpler and frankly annoying. In the MPEG2 transport stream (the container format that transports your MPEG2, AVC or VC1 data) there are various bit flags. Two of these are the CPI bits, standing for Copy Protection Indicator. HD Authoring programs, with the exception of Roxio DVDit Pro, are setting these on by default.

When a Playstation3's firmware sees these bits set on a BD-RE, the stream is assumed to contain copyright material, which according to the BDA spec shouldn't be allowed onto a BD-RE, so it refuses to play the stream. I haven't tried this with a BD-R.

The solution? Bill Foote has written a utility to parse an MPEG2 transport stream and clear these bits. Its called cpistrip and is available from the file repository of the java.net BD-J Forum, here:

https://hdcookbook.dev.java.net/

I have only seen this reported as affecting Playstation3's at the moment but as their interpretation of the spec isn't wrong as such, it could become relevant for other players as well.

[Neuralgene]

Chris. I found your site in internet search. Here and there and ended up to your post here.
Could you possibly please help me how you solve this problem?

I read your post, but I don't get it how you implemented "Bill Foote CPISTRIP" to strip out the Copy Protection Indicator from the MPEG2 transport stream.

I've tried authoring my own Blu-ray movie in DVDit Pro HD v6.3, burn it to BD-R and when I put the disc in into PS3 (Firmware 2.10). I didn't get a picture at all. All just black screen, no movie, no blu-ray menu. But if I play it on computer with Cyberlink Power DVD, the movie plays fine.

Please help. You are my last hope. I've been searching the net without solution. I've wasted 3 BD-R disc already. And my Sony BD-RE just doesn't work, can't be formatted. Thanks.

- Sony Blu-ray writer BWU-100A firmware 1.0e
- Sony BD-R (BNR25AH)
- DVDit Pro HD v6.3
- Sony PS3 firmware 2.10

[Chris Hatton]

Hi Neuralgene,

Firstly, I would suggest that you buy a decent BD-RE before wasting any more BD-R's! TDK brand seems to be the best.

Maybe I could have been clearer in my post: Roxio DVDit is currently the only authoring application that does not require you to use CPISTRIP when playing from BD-RE on PS3. What you do need to do is apply the PS3 patch to Roxio DVDit Pro, which is available from Roxio support forums.

[Neuralgene]

No, Chris. I'm the one who wasn't being clear. I did use DVDit Pro HD 6.3 with PS3 patch apply to it.
Renamed the file "MonteCarlo.Objects.dll DELETE" to "MonteCarlo.Objects.dll" and copied to the right path after renaming the original file to MonteCarlo.Objects.dllOLD.

I reopen my project file, and had DVDit Pro HD to rebuild (re-output) a Blu-ray folder, then burn a BR-R disc using that Blu-ray folder I just output. The results is still a black screen. I really wonder how you use the CPISTRIP to make a successful authored BDMV on BD-R/E disc. Because that's the only way I haven't try.

[Chris Hatton]

I am happy to confirm that BDMV playback on BD-RE still works with the new PS3 firmware, 2.17.

Updating's always a risk; there are rumours that Sony may remove BDMV playback from recordable discs and I don't expect for one minute that Sony would actually declare that in their changelog. However these rumours could be completely unfounded, started by well meaning but uninformed people who were unaware of the 'cpistrip' issue.

[Chris Hatton]

Neuralgene, you ask how to use cpistrip... what stage are you at? As I've stated, you need to get this utility from the file repository of the java.net Blu-ray forums, which are linked to from the 'Essential Web Resources' section of this forum. It comes in the form of java source code, so you will need to be able to compile a bit of java. Fortunately this isn't too hard, download JDK 1.60 from Sun and install it. Then from the command line, go to the folder where you've unpacked the cpistrip *.java files and run 'javac *.java'. Then follow the format in the cpistrip readme to process each of the .ts files in your BDMV volume. I think the format is 'java Converter < input.ts > output.ts' . Don't be fooled (as I was!) into thinking the < > mean an optional argument. These characters are necessary to control piping of the file to and from java, this is just the way the program's coded. I realise this is quite concise but I don't know what level you're at with this. Let me know if you're still stuck. Good luck, I realise it can take a bit of effort getting this to work... I tried for 5 evenings without knowing if it was even possible, but now I've got the HD Cookbook same with Java, as well as home authored BDMV working. You'll get there too!

[Neuralgene]

Chris.

I downloaded CPISTRIP from here

https://hdcookbook.dev.java.net/source/ ... /Main.java

It's only 1 very small file. So I got this file named Main.java
There's no instruction on how to apply it to strip the CPI on Blu-ray folder. No README. The only Readme file I found is only describtion of what the file is instead of how to use it.
So I followed your instruction.

I downloaded JDK 1.60 and installed it.
I saved the file named Main.java in folder E:\cpistrip
And get a Command Prompt and type-in this.

javac *.java at the command prompt E:\cpistrip>

Result:
E:\cpistrip>javac *.java
'javac' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I type-in: javac Main.java

Result:
E:\cpistrip>javac Main.java
'javac' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

[Neuralgene]

Chris.

So I got the javac Main.java to work.

E:\cpistrip>javac Main.java
(It was just an environment variable thing)

Then I got a new file named Main.class

What do I do next? I don't get what you'we saying by "Then follow the format in the cpistrip readme".
The CPISTRIP that we've been talking about is actually that file named Main.java isn't it? But there's no Readme. I opened up the file in Text Editor it only describe what the file is use for, not how to use it.

And when you're saying about "...process each of the .ts files in your BDMV volume" you're actually referring to .m2ts files right?

I typed-in the following in command prompt 'java Converter < input.ts > output.ts' and the results is this:

Result:
E:\Blu-ray_Folder\TEST_HD\BDMV\STREAM>java Converter < 00000.m2ts > output.m2ts
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Converter
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Converter
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)

Also, what do we need the Main.class file is for?

What level I am at with this? I'm at the "S" level which stands for sucks. I am no programmer, I'm just a videographer trying to make my own authored Blu-ray disc. I tried DVDit Pro HD with PS3 patch and it didn't work.

Desmond