ripping BD for windows home server media sharing

[flensr]

Hello,

I'm trying to put my Bluray movies on my windows home server (original WHS) for viewing on the devices on my network. These include various computers and a couple connected BD players attached to my TVs.

So... I am using makemkv to rip backups. That worked ok. But now I gotta get them shared. Dropping the 40ishGB ripped image into the shared "video" folder doesn't work. Digging into the folder on my computer and manually clicking on the main title .m2ts file will play the movie but with a voice overlay for vision impaired script.

What am I missing? Do I need to convert the decrypted files to another format for them to become visible as shared media (a shared movie) on the WHS media share? I thought WHS media sharing was supposed to figure this out automatically and when it detected a movie, share it as a movie. All my shared music shows up, as does my collection of home pictures and the little videos my camera takes, but not the ripped movie even though its in the media share video folder.

Thanks in advance!

[Baldrick]

I would convert the HUGE bd image to mp4 with for example vidcoder. But only if you are going to share and play it other devices and not just on computers.

Or look for an alternative media streaming server like Universal Media Server, Plex Media Center, Kodi, https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/htpc

[flensr]

Yes I thought about transcoding everything, but I really don't have all that many BD movies so I figured I could keep them all "original" size until I ran out of storage space.

I did find one partial solution. Using makemkv, I was able to just pull out the main video plus the single audio track I wanted. This was a 32GB file instead of 40gb-ish. Then simply renaming it to xxxx.mp2, the stupid windows home server was able to index and serve it up. The BD player in my bedroom was able to open and play it just fine.

Of course, doing it that way I lose all the menus and options. I really wanted to preserve ALL the content on the BD disc including the ability to switch between main and alternate English tracks (to get the "making-of" comments, for example).

So is there any way to share the whole disc including menus and stuff over the network to a network connected BD player? Or am I stuck simply ripping the main video and lose all the add-on stuff and menus from the original disc?

[Baldrick]

No. There is NO way to share the video with complete menus and options. Yet.

Making a single mkv or m2ts is the best method.

edit: Or well there are some few blu-ray players that claim to support bd images with menus but I have no idea how well it works and I doubt you want to replace all your blu-ray players....