Free Blu-Ray Authoring Software with GUI for Linux

[Spiralagnus]

Greetings,

I'm running Ubuntu 22.04 and am looking for a Blu-Ray authoring application that runs natively on Linux, has a nice GUI to create Blu-Ray menus, and is free (FOSS is ideal but not required). A DVDStyler-type program for Blu-Rays would be perfect. Unfortunately, everything I've found so far either runs only on Windows or requires a rather janky pipeline of different pieces of software (even DVDStyler seems to require jumping through some hoops if I want to use it to make a Blu-Ray).

Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!

[usually_quiet]

As far as I can tell, what you want doesn't exist. I am aware of only two free GUI-based Blu-ray authoring apps capable of menu creation, mutiAVCHD and Blu-Disc Studio Lite. Neither has a version for Linux. None of the paid consumer Blu-ray authoring software that I know about has Linux version either.

[Spiralagnus]

Oh well. Seems like an obvious gap, and I'm surprised the FOSS community hasn't filled it in yet.

[october262]

Oh well. Seems like an obvious gap, and I'm surprised the FOSS community hasn't filled it in yet.

install wine and then you can run windows programs on linux - https://itsfoss.com/use-windows-applications-linux/

[Spiralagnus]

I was hoping to avoid wine because I never completely trust the stability of wine-based applications. However, I did install Blu-Disc Studio Lite in a Windows VM and will explore that.

[usually_quiet]

Oh well. Seems like an obvious gap, and I'm surprised the FOSS community hasn't filled it in yet.

There are some factors working against that outcome. First, consumers are stepping away from optical media and authoring for their personal videos in favor of storing them as video files on USB drives. Second, FOSS Blu-ray authoring software would have to be reverse engineered in order to be free and open source, and that is not as easy for Blu-ray as it was for DVD.

[Spiralagnus]

...FOSS Blu-ray authoring software would have to be reverse engineered in order to be free and open source, and that is not as easy for Blu-ray as it was for DVD.

Just out of curiosity, why is it harder for Blu-Ray?

[usually_quiet]

...FOSS Blu-ray authoring software would have to be reverse engineered in order to be free and open source, and that is not as easy for Blu-ray as it was for DVD.

Just out of curiosity, why is it harder for Blu-Ray?

I have only done a little Blu-ray authoring so I am by no means an expert at that. However, if you examine the files and folders on Blu-ray and DVD, you will see that Blu-ray has a different and more complicated file and folder structure than DVD. Blu-ray typically uses MPLS playlists to control video playback. I'm not sure how menu navigation is implemented. Blu-ray can use Java to provide additional features (BD-J) but not all Blu-ray discs use Java.

I have many DVDs that I authored myself for home use, some with free software. DVD has no playlists. DVD uses its own simple programming language to control video playback and menu navigation. Prior to burning files and folders to DVD media, I have sometimes used PGCEdit to correct or change DVD commands controlling video playback or menu navigation on DVDs that I have authored myself.

[CDK]

For Blu-ray structure you can use https://github.com/justdan96/tsMuxer
For BD-J you can use https://hdcookbook.jovial.com/ (https://github.com/zathras/java.net/tree/master/hdcookbook) and with some modifications https://github.com/oliverlietz/bd-j and https://github.com/AlekseyKolesnikov/bd-j (Blu-Disc Studio uses it)
So, you can create a UI for this