makemkvcon [options] Command Parameters

General options:

–messages=file
Output all messages to file. Following special file names are recognized:
-stdout – stdout
-stderr – stderr
-null – disable output
Default is stdout

–progress=file
Output all progress messages to file. The same special file names as in –messages are recognized with additional value “-same” to output to the same file as messages. Naturally –progress should follow –messages in this case. Default is no output.

–debug[=file]
Enables debug messages and optionally changes the location of debug file. Default: program preferences.

–directio=true/false
Enables or disables direct disc access. Default: program preferences.

–noscan
Don’t access any media during disc scan and do not check for media insertion and removal. Helpful when other applications already accessing discs in other drives.

–cache=size
Specifies size of read cache in megabytes used by MakeMKV. By default program uses huge amount of memory. About 128 MB is recommended for streaming and backup, 512MB for DVD conversion and 1024MB for Blu-ray conversion.

Streaming options:

–upnp=true/false
Enable or disable UPNP streaming. Default: program preferences.

–bindip=address string
Specify IP address to bind. Default: None, UPNP server binds to the first available address and web server listens on all available addresses.

–bindport=port
Specify web server port to bind. Default: 51000.

Backup options:

–decrypt
Decrypt stream files during backup. Default: no decryption.

Conversion options:

–minlength=seconds
Specify minimum title length. Default: program preferences.

Automation options.

-r , –robot
Enables automation mode. Program will output more information in a format that is easier to parse. All output is line-based and output is flushed on line end. All strings are quoted, all control characters and quotes are backlash-escaped. If you automate this program it is highly recommended to use this option. Some options make reference to apdefs.h file that can be found in MakeMKV open-source package, included with version for Linux. These values will not change in future versions.

Message formats:

Message output
MSG:code,flags,count,message,format,param0,param1,…
code – unique message code, should be used to identify particular string in language-neutral way.
flags – message flags, see AP_UIMSG_xxx flags in apdefs.h
count – number of parameters
message – raw message string suitable for output
format – format string used for message. This string is localized and subject to change, unlike message code.
paramX – parameter for message

Current and total progress title
PRGC:code,id,name
PRGT:code,id,name
code – unique message code
id – operation sub-id
name – name string

Progress bar values for current and total progress
PRGV:current,total,max
current – current progress value
total – total progress value
max – maximum possible value for a progress bar, constant

Drive scan messages
DRV:index,visible,enabled,flags,drive name,disc name
index – drive index
visible – set to 1 if drive is present
enabled – set to 1 if drive is accessible
flags – media flags, see AP_DskFsFlagXXX in apdefs.h
drive name – drive name string
disc name – disc name string

Disc information output messages
TCOUT:count
count – titles count

Disc, title and stream information
CINFO:id,code,value
TINFO:id,code,value
SINFO:id,code,value

id – attribute id, see AP_ItemAttributeId in apdefs.h
code – message code if attribute value is a constant string
value – attribute value

Examples:

Copy all titles from first disc and save as MKV files:
makemkvcon mkv disc:0 all c:folder

List all available drives
makemkvcon -r –cache=1 info disc:9999

Backup first disc decrypting all video files in automation mode with progress output
makemkvcon backup –decrypt –cache=16 –noscan -r –progress=-same disc:0 c:folder

Start streaming server with all output suppressed on a specific address and port
makemvcon stream –upnp=1 –cache=128 –bindip=192.168.1.102 –bindport=51000 –messages=-none

Go here to download the latest version

New Features and Fixes

• Added preference to set the server load time out
• added better support for thumb art, titles and duration
• added better switching and loading with multiple drives

New Features:

• Better error handling
• Add remote servers
• No more need to run in debug mode

Instructions:

• Download the latest version of MakeMKV and Install
• Download and Install Plex
• Download and install MakeMKV Plugin (Double click to install)
• Launch the plug-in under the video section and update the MakeMKV location under preferences.
• Launch your DVD / Blu-Ray and select the appropriate stream

Instructions:

• Download the latest version of MakeMKV and Install
• Load MakeMKV. Click on the wrench (Preferences). Enable “Log debug message”. Close MakeMKV
• Download and Install Plex
• Download and install MakeMKV Plugin (Double click to install)
• Launch the plug-in under the video section and update the MakeMKV location under preferences.
• Launch your DVD / Blu-Ray and select the appropriate stream

Issues:

• There is an issue where MakeMKV might still be running in the background and wont allow you access to your disc. If you load the plugin and it’s running you can select stop MakeMKV or stop the process in Activity Monitor located at /Applications/Utilities/
• DVD or Blu-Ray thumb images to the right may be incorrect for some. please let me know if you have this issue.
• Cannot save a remote source yet. This will be available in the next release.

Something that I found out that I didn’t know about before is MakeMKVCon. As the name indicates this is a binary that lets you run everything from the console. So with the simple command ./makemkvcon stream disc:0 you can stream your movie over an http server. Just point our browser to http://localhost:51000 to find the right vob or .ts file you are looking for and launch it in vlc or another application that can stream over http.

The advantages of running it from the console is it makes it able for your to integrate it with a script. So that brings me to the second part of this post. Getting the blu-ray player to stream directly to plex without having to copy it to your hard drive first. Which in my opinion is great since I have a small hard drive. Unfortunately I don’t have a working script yet. It’s about 50% there. just have to finish learning the other parts of the plex plug-in api. Once when its done I’ll be posting back here so keep checking back.

One thing I found interesting and didn’t understand why at first is why the MakeMKV people would want to use an HTTP server to stream the files. seemed like a lot of added complexity when there are other ways to stream the output just as easily. Looking at the HTTP headers it mentioned UPnP. So that was a nice surprise. Once when all the UPnP stuff is completed you should be able to play these files in plex or xbmc a lot easier.

• New functionality: instant video streaming
• Added support for all blu-ray HD audio tracks:
  • Dolby TrueHD
  • Dolby Digital plus (E-AC3)
  • DTS-HD
  • DTS-HD Losless (Master audio)
  • DTS-HD Low bitrate

This is great news all around. Until now the HD audio codecs weren’t supported. I have to say the new instant video streaming sounds interesting. It streams content through a web server. After I look into it a bit more I’ll post more details about it.

So you have a mac and you have a Blu-Ray drive. But you can’t figure out how to get them to work with each other. Well unfortunately for us sad folks Apple has not been very supportive of the Blu-Ray platform for what ever reason. Fortunately for us though we have people out there in the open source and hacking community that are really smart and have made it possible. Unfortunately it’s not as easy as inserting your disc and pressing play. But it can be done and it isn’t all that hard.

You will need two pieces of software in order to make this work. MakeMKV and Plex (I personally prefer Plex over XBMC. But they should both work nicely).

The first application you will have to use is MakeMKV. It is rather straight forward. First you need to set up the infomation it needs to decrypt a Blu-Ray drive. Go to you preferences and click on the BD+ tab. You will see two areas. One asking for a SVQ file and another asking for a location to save your BD+ debug dumps.

The SVQ file is a special file you have to download from MakeMKV that has all the special codes to decrypt your disc. If by chance they don’t have the code for your disc yet. You can email your BD+ dump file to svq@makemkv.com and with in a few days you can download the SVQ and rip your disc.

After you have all that setup you can open your disc in MakeMKV and it’ll scan the structure of the disc and allow you to export different video, audio and subtitle tracks to an MKV you can play in plex. The only bad part to this solution is you have to rip it to your hard drive. It would be nice if you could just play it from the disc saving time and space.

I prefer to play it in plex because it seems the playback is a lot smoother than VLC and MPlayer. Although I haven’t tested the new builds of MPlayer lately.

let me know if you run into any problems trying to get this to work. Like I said before this works great when you want to watch a show on your mac in 1080p.