Blu-Ray playback software

[Stormwaltz]

I installed a Blu-Ray drive with my fall video card update. To my vast surprise, it did not come with software to play Blu-Rays.

The internet consensus is that PowerDVD is the "best," but it costs about as much as I paid for the hardware, and when I used the trial I found the UI wall-punchingly obnoxious. Anyone have any any other recommendations I could look at?

[Mrbloodworth]

From a quick look, seems VLC will get this functionality at some point.

[Engels]

To my estimation, they all suck. Although the UI for PowerDVD is appalling, it seems to keep its functionality well enough. WinDVD, the other brand I've tried, seems to go pear shaped after a smattering of windows updates and video card drivers. YMMV.

[Salamok]

mplayer says it does playback for unencrypted blu-ray not sure if that helps you.

[rattran]

I'm in the same boat, my blu-ray drive came with a limited windvd that never worked, and powerdvd is ugly and expensive. I'm just waiting until vlc or equivalent gets the functionality.

[Furiously]

I got powerdvd with mine. I also got anydvd from slysoft so I can backup my blurays to my media storage drive.  I did upgrade to the full version of powerdvd so I can get Dolby thx. Cost wise...I should have just got a bluray player.

[Trippy]

Use a PS3? Not a joke.

Blu-rays on a PC are truly a nightmare. With new releases there's a very high chance that they won't play on my PC without a software update but support for that is spotty. I use PowerDVD and TotalMedia Theatre on my machine. I have constant issues with sound on PowerDVD for some reason and support for my version of Theatre has effectively ended. I'm a long time user of PowerDVD so after I disabled the spyware Internet features it's tolerable for me assuming the sound is working. The primary remaining gripe is the chrome with all those stupid tabs (that I've disabled the content for) takes too long to disappear.

If you want to rip Blu-rays AnyDVD HD works very well and is really well supported if you are willing to take that risk.

[Stormwaltz]

I do have a PS3. When it was less than a year old, the oldest boy (6) opened up the game cabinet, took out 3D Dot Game Heroes, and tried to play the disc in his old PC. The middle boy (2) took the disc out and smeared food all over the read surface. The wife picked it up off the floor and shoved it in the console without checking its condition. Since that little incident, the console no longer reads Blu-Rays or games - it's just an expensive DVD player with a huge hard drive.

I decided to get a PC drive so I can watch my HD movies in the theoretical privacy and safety of my office, where children are not dropping food everywhere and do not punch and scratch the LED display to see the pretty colors it makes.

Yeah. $250 console ruined, $500 HDTV scratched to hell. You might be surprised to know this is not the most expensive damage the kids have caused. I think they've taken at least $10,000 off the value of our house in the last 18 months.

[apocrypha]

Just torrent the films you wanna watch. As with pretty much all media & entertainment, pirating gets you a vastly superior user experience than fucking about with an actual legit copy.

[Cyrrex]

Just torrent the films you wanna watch. As with pretty much all media & entertainment, pirating gets you a vastly superior user experience than fucking about with an actual legit copy.

Or you could just pirate the latest PowerDVD.  Not like they deserve the money anyway.

[DraconianOne]

Yeah. $250 console ruined, $500 HDTV scratched to hell. You might be surprised to know this is not the most expensive damage the kids have caused. I think they've taken at least $10,000 off the value of our house in the last 18 months.

Schoolboy error Storm. You should never have let them out of the cupboard in the first place. 


Mind you, the kids are the reason I don't have a HDTV - refuse to buy one until they're older.

[Furiously]

Gorilla glass version wall mounted above their reach.

[rattran]

Just crate your children. Only let them out for supervised play and walks outside to poop.

What, it works for dogs, right?

[Segoris]

Just crate your children. Only let them out for supervised play and walks outside to poop.

What, it works for dogs, right?

If it is fair for some to treat their dogs as kids then it's fair for others to treat their kids as dogs 

[Ingmar]

Gorilla glass version wall mounted above their reach.

[Teleku]

See, if you just use that on the kids every time they decide to break something valuable, you wont even need to buy the gorilla glass!

[schild]

I actually don't understand how there isn't a good blu-ray option on PC yet. I guess it's literally become just plain easier to pirate things than deal with 20GB+ discs.

[Engels]

Probably because for the price of a large monitor, you can buy a humongous TV, in which case you're probably a console person anyway. F13 is a bit of a odd crowd that way.

[schild]

Computers come with blu-ray readers now though. Not to mention they cost about the same as good dvd writers and you can write dvds on them. It seems like the sort of software that should just *exist.*

[bhodi]

It's a licensing issue. As in, sony wants huge amounts of money for authorization and per-seat moneys after that. They are also super paranoid about anything PC or hardware-agnoistic so you get an additional "FUCK YOU" markup on top of that as well.

[schild]

Does licensing have anything to do with an unauthorized 3rd party having not just jammed decryption and playback into any generic media pack yet?

Because that's what I want, I don't want it in some shit like WMP9 or something.

[Merusk]

It has to do with licensing because Blu-Ray is patented tech wholly owned by the Blu-ray Disk Association, right?

Didn't the DMCA do some ugly things to disallow reverse engineering patented items?  Even China's starting to play nice because they want to remain part of the G-8/12/whatever.