Playing ripped DVD and BD simply from the "Media|Open Folder" menu
Steps to repro:
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Rip a full DVD or BD to a folder on the disk drive Not to an ISO, nor converting, just the full optical disc structure. For instance a folder named after the movie, containing the VIDEO_TS subfolder (and maybe other optional subfolders like for PS/3 playback or Internet extras) for a DVD, and the BDMV subfolder (and others too) for a BD.
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In VLC, select this folder using the "Media|Open Folder" menu Or, in Windows Explorer, right-click "Play with VLC" on the folder.
Results:
- For a DVD, playback is the same experience as inserting the disc
- For a BD, it tries to play hundreds of unsupported files
Expected results:
- Playback experience should be identical to inserting a disc
From what happens with a BD, I now gathered that the DVD experience happened by pure chance, probably because VIDEO_TS is usually the only folder in a DVD and VIDEO_TS.IFO is the first supported file in this folder.
I suggest to make this behavior systematical for all types (DVD/BD) of ripped optical discs. It would make a great, consistent and simple playback experience, agnostic of the type of media used (optical disc, hard drive/SSD, plain ripped folder, maybe even ISO rip) and unique among all existing media players. A smart complement to the already fantastic Blu-ray features in 2.0.
For ripped DVDs:
- If the selected folder (in VLC or Windows Explorer) contains "VIDEO_TS.IFO", play it, else, if the selected folder contains a subfolder and file "VIDEO_TS\VIDEO_TS.IFO", play it.
For ripped BDs:
- If the selected folder contains a subfolder and file "BDMV\index.bdmv", read it and play the ripped disc as it would have played automatically when inserted into a Blu-ray drive. Note: I don't know the BD specs in details, feel free to replace index.bdmv in this example by whatever is actually used by the Blu-ray drives and players. Other software players already have such a feature. Not sure if I should mention which ones in this bug, so I'll abstain.