Simple 4K question, ridiculously difficult to find a straightforward answer

[takeajustin]

It's insane how difficult it is to find a simple answer to this. My roommate got a PS5 and has a bunch of blank BD-R 50Gb. He wants to take one or more MKV or MP4s and put them on these discs to play on his PS5. As a comparison you can think of his goal as if putting a data BD in a PC drive and browsing its folder to play one or more of these MKV or MP4 rips. Oh, and yes, his optical drive IS 4K friendly, has been successfully flashed and tested, etc. How can this be done? There has to be a way by now, in 2024. If not, I guess I have to actually convert to an authored disc? If so, what's the more suggested software to do so? Sorry to be a pain but I'm ready to throw this equipment across the room, lol ... surely there's a simple solution or at least one that actually works. Thanks for your patience/help

[Cornucopia]

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/hardware/play-video-music-discs-usb-drives/

Best to get it straight from the source.


Scott

[usually_quiet]

If my search engine is correct and there is no media player app for the PS5 then you can't use the PS5 to play video files from a BD-R DL disc.

Flashing the drive is done to allow a drive to be used for ripping commercial UHD Blu-ray discs with appropriate ripping software. It doesn't facilitate playing ripped media files from optical media.

You can author a faux UHD Blu-ray disc using your files but the bitrate will need to be lower than the bitrate used for UHD Blu-ray and the quality will be reduced. Pressed media used for UHD Blu-ray supports higher bitrates than burned media.

Nothing much has changed regarding cheap or free authoring software since I posted this: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/406115-It-s-2022-What-are-the-free-or-cheap-option...ay#post2660490

[Edit] I read the information from Scott's link. If your files are encoded using HEVC, you can't play them from an ExFat-formatted USB drive using Media Gallery.

[takeajustin]

I kind of made it work but kinda not. I had an MKV x265 10bit that DVDFab told me had to be converted, as it doesn't allow passthrough of DolbyVision (I think that was the message). I went through the conversion and it resulted in an authored bluray structure "certificate", "bdmv" etc. I used DVDFab to burn it and yeah, it played on the PS5 at 2160p but looked like a 240p YouTube quality video and even had green bars at the top and bottom.

[usually_quiet]

DVDFab UHD Creator is supposed to support DolbyVision. Are you sure you used DVDFab UHD Creator, not DVDFab Blu-ray Creator or another DVDFab product?

[takeajustin]

DVDFab UHD Creator is supposed to support DolbyVision. Are you sure you used DVDFab UHD Creator, not DVDFab Blu-ray Creator or another DVDFab product?

Yep. I made sure to click that specific button.

[usually_quiet]

DVDFab UHD Creator is supposed to support DolbyVision. Are you sure you used DVDFab UHD Creator, not DVDFab Blu-ray Creator or another DVDFab product?

Yep. I made sure to click that specific button.

I haven't used DVDFab UHD Creator before but I tried it on a short, 1-minute 19-second, UHD HEVC Dolby Vision demo video. The video had to be short due to the limited amount of unused HDD storage space on my laptop. The video was re-encoded during the authoring process but the resulting video was still 2160p HEVC with Dolby Vision. The Dolby Digital Plus audio was not re-encoded, as far as I could tell.

I used BD50 for the media setting but output to files and folders rather than an ISO file for burning. When I played the mts file (located in the UHD Blu-ray STREAM folder) on my PC, it looked comparable to the original. I don't own a game console of any kind, let alone a PS5, so I can't test how the authored faux UHD Blu-ray plays on a PS5.

I don't know what went wrong during the authoring process for your video to produce a result "like a 240p YouTube quality video" with "green bars at the top and bottom" To put a full-length movie on a BD50 disc, the bitrate used for re-encoding might need to be lower than the source file's bitrate to fit the disc and to not exceed the maximum bitrate allowed for burned Blu-ray media. A reduction in the bitrate could account for some loss of quality but not green bars on the top and bottom.

[takeajustin]

Hmm. There's a lot of trial and error, experimenting and a pretty steep learning curve.

[usually_quiet]

I used the BD50 setting, because you indicated 50 GB capacity media (BD-R DL). For regular BD-R 25GB capacity discs you would use BD25 but the re-encoded video's quality would be further reduced.

If there are many files to convert, maybe your friend should consider obtaining a second device to use for playing his UHD HDR video files directly.

[pandy]

Sony is not user friendly company in terms of playing hypothetically "pirated" content - they not making "pirates" life easy.

[takeajustin]

I'm not going to pretend all he owns is legit but for the most part they're rips from discs he really owns. He simply thought it would be better than them taking space on his drives. Evidently it's not as simple as he thought.

[takeajustin]

I used the BD50 setting, because you indicated 50 GB capacity media (BD-R DL). For regular BD-R 25GB capacity discs you would use BD25 but the re-encoded video's quality would be further reduced.

If there are many files to convert, maybe your friend should consider obtaining a second device to use for playing his UHD HDR video files directly.

He tried using an external USB drive but the PS5 said it wasn't compatible.

[Cornucopia]

Probably not formatted correctly.

Start with a blank USB thumb drive and format it using the PS5, then you know it should be done correctly, and it might also add the correct subfolders. Then it's a matter of correctly (re-)encoding, and correct placement, naming for the copies.


Scott

[usually_quiet]

I used the BD50 setting, because you indicated 50 GB capacity media (BD-R DL). For regular BD-R 25GB capacity discs you would use BD25 but the re-encoded video's quality would be further reduced.

If there are many files to convert, maybe your friend should consider obtaining a second device to use for playing his UHD HDR video files directly.

He tried using an external USB drive but the PS5 said it wasn't compatible.

The drive must be formatted using exFAT. A compatible media player app with support for HEVC and HDR would also be needed. I don't think there is such a media player app for the PS5.

I was suggesting an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro or another high-end Android TV box that supports Dolby Vision and other forms of HDR used for UHD movies.

[takeajustin]

Probably not formatted correctly.

Start with a blank USB thumb drive and format it using the PS5, then you know it should be done correctly, and it might also add the correct subfolders. Then it's a matter of correctly (re-)encoding, and correct placement, naming for the copies.


Scott

I used the PS5 so it must've been formatted properly. I'm guessing it's the names and structures that confused it. Oh, THUMB drive? I just reread I was typing. I'll try that. I had so far only used his (whatever you call external hard drives that aren't thumb)

[takeajustin]

I used the BD50 setting, because you indicated 50 GB capacity media (BD-R DL). For regular BD-R 25GB capacity discs you would use BD25 but the re-encoded video's quality would be further reduced.

If there are many files to convert, maybe your friend should consider obtaining a second device to use for playing his UHD HDR video files directly.

He tried using an external USB drive but the PS5 said it wasn't compatible.

The drive must be formatted using exFAT. A compatible media player app with support for HEVC and HDR would also be needed. I don't think there is such a media player app for the PS5.

I was suggesting an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro or another high-end Android TV box that supports Dolby Vision and other forms of HDR used for UHD movies.

It has its own player but yeah, it looks very basic. I'll have him look these up too, thanks 😊

[Cornucopia]

Probably not formatted correctly.

Start with a blank USB thumb drive and format it using the PS5, then you know it should be done correctly, and it might also add the correct subfolders. Then it's a matter of correctly (re-)encoding, and correct placement, naming for the copies.


Scott

I used the PS5 so it must've been formatted properly. I'm guessing it's the names and structures that confused it. Oh, THUMB drive? I just reread I was typing. I'll try that. I had so far only used his (whatever you call external hard drives that aren't thumb)

If you formatted an external usb drive via the PS5, that should have worked as well as thumbdrives.

For naming, start with real strict, DOS 8.3 all-capitalized style names. And for placement, start in the root, unless it is clear to put in something like "/VIDEOS".
That's usually straightforward. The harder part is getting the correct encoding accepted.


Scott

[zing269]

Look here for supported video https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps5/Media

[usually_quiet]

The drive must be formatted using exFAT. A compatible media player app with support for HEVC and HDR would also be needed. I don't think there is such a media player app for the PS5.

I was suggesting an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro or another high-end Android TV box that supports Dolby Vision and other forms of HDR used for UHD movies.

It has its own player but yeah, it looks very basic. I'll have him look these up too, thanks 😊

I found a couple of high-end Android TV boxes with good specs for playing UHD Blu-ray rips on Amazon, the MECOOL KM2 PLUS Deluxe TV Box and the Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus.

A Chromecast with Google TV 4K might also work but your friend would also need to buy a compatible USB dock to gain the ability to connect USB 3.0 drives. It is also is possible that a USB C charger with a higher wattage than the one provided with the Chromecast would be needed so there is enough power to run both the dock and the Chromecast. The extra pieces would add at least $50 to the cost

The 2019 Nvidia Shield TV Pro, the above Dune and Mecool TV boxes, and the Chromecast with Google TV 4K can all run the Android versions of VLC or Kodi for use as a video player. HLG and HDR10 should have good support on this hardware and software. Dolby Vision may or may not work depending on the profile. I am not sure about HDR10+ support. I don't think that the Shield TV supports it and I don't know if either of the software media players do.

[takeajustin]

I see that a rip has to be 264, no higher than 2 channel. Anything else is only supported from a true authored source I guess. Is it just me or is it insane that in 2024 the latest $500 Sony console doesn't support x265 or multiple channels? ... IF from a rip 🤔 something shady is going on. There must be a business/finance reason. I'm just not savvy on these things so I'm unsure of the rationale.

[usually_quiet]

There must be a business/finance reason.

Yes. If Sony did not make it difficult to play UHD Blu-ray rips they believe that would mean encourage piracy, resulting in reduced disc sales and streaming revenue. The company has been against consumers having the ability to copy video since the early days of Betamax and VHS.

[usually_quiet]

Youtube video about the Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk8FVij3XTo&t=2s
[Edit] Youtube video about the Mecool KM2 Plus Deluxe TV Box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie7OHXf0TEc I didn't know that the USB ports are USB 2.0, which means it is not a good choice for playing UHD HDR video from external storage.

[takeajustin]

There must be a business/finance reason.

Yes. If Sony did not make it difficult to play UHD Blu-ray rips they believe that would mean encourage piracy, resulting in reduced disc sales and streaming revenue. The company has been against consumers having the ability to copy video since the early days of Betamax and VHS.

Holy moly. I had no clue they've gone back that far.

[usually_quiet]

There must be a business/finance reason.

Yes. If Sony did not make it difficult to play UHD Blu-ray rips they believe that would mean encourage piracy, resulting in reduced disc sales and streaming revenue. The company has been against consumers having the ability to copy video since the early days of Betamax and VHS.

Holy moly. I had no clue they've gone back that far.

Sony wanted people to have the ability to record linear TV to watch later. (Look up Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984).) However, after Sony bought a movie studio, they were opposed to allowing people to copy commercially produced tapes.