For a very long time I didn’t care much about the quality of my movies. DVD has generally been fine. This all went downhill –albeit slowly at first– when I got a really nice TV. The TV was the free one my friends gave me from the loading dock at their apartment. It was broken, but a DC capacitor switch out fixed that. It was HD, and I liked it.
Skip a few chapters and we arrive at my current state.
I have attempted several paths to watch my brand new Ultimate Matrix on Bluray collection. Yes… the Matrix. Matrix Resurrection is coming soon and I felt that was worth watching everything again, afterall the Matrix series was a very significant part of my youth. As nice of an idea as this was, I sincerely regret my decision to not just buy more bits from Amazon.
I have tried to watch this on:
- 2016 macbook pro
- Win10 VM in VMware Fusion
- Linux Mint
- Win10 bootcamp on the macbook
Please note I have not actually tried this on a true Windows PC, because oddly enough I don’t really have one. Time changes everything.
In short I have learned the following:
- How AACS DRM is really very interesting (Blu-ray – ArchWiki (archlinux.org)). I can see similar elements to this being used for machine-to-machine authentication in the future.
- I learned about the limitations that VLC has when it comes to bluray. libbluray – VideoLAN
- And the limitations of VLC with AACS libaacs – VideoLAN
- I gave up and found out that PowerDVD can play bluray, and it’s a free download. As long as you’re OK with yet another vendor getting an email address, so they can harass you about their version of the cloud.
- I found out that PowerDVD wont’ work in a VM. There may be some workarounds, but this problem seems pretty old. (powerdvd virtual machine themida – Google Search)
- I found out that PowerDVD didn’t like my graphics card under Bootcamp.
- Customer Support – PowerDVD displays an error message “Incompatible graphics driver. Please use default driver for playback.” | CyberLink
- Or maybe my displayport monitors from my dock. HDCP and Targus Docking Stations | TechTalk
- At this point I don’t really care.
Essentially I get the frustration tractor owners feel when they can’t fix their own equipment. I have more appreciation now for the FTC Ruling for Right-to-Repair. The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair | WIRED
I burned $40 on eBay to buy these disks. I burned 4 hours of time trying to get this to work. I have too many hobbies, and can’t pick this one up. I’m going to buy the trilogy on Amazon and try to not think about making Jeff Bezos any richer.