Here are the steps you should follow (if you are allowed to do so legally) to play HD DVD and Blu-Ray movies in Ubuntu. It’s not straightforward. It’s like extracting the files and playing them. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take before we can play the disc directly (Are we allowed to?).
-
1. Install a UDF 2.5 filesystem driver. See Linux UDF project.
-
2. Acquire cryptographic keys for the disc player. BackupHDDVD C++ (not the regular BackupHDDVD, which only works on Windows) can perform the decryption necessary to play HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs (a separate player app is also needed, see below). This app uses title keys available in an XML file format distributed at various online sources. This will output .evo files containing your disc’s video and audio content. Ensure these files are saved to a filesystem supporting files larger than 4.2GB (ie,. not FAT32 or older Ext2).
-
3. Play the decoded .EVO video and audio files. The current subversion release of MPlayer includes and works with the latest ffmpeg, which includes support for the VC-1 video decoder and H.264 audio. Support for E-AC3 audio format is coming soon.
For more information, Read the Ubuntu Documentation.