A Blu-ray burner drive...with no Blu-ray playback software *facepalm*

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
So the one upgrade I did buy for my computer during Black Friday sales is an ASUS Blu-ray burner. (Well, that and a C310 webcam, but I think of that as adding a feature rather than a proper upgrade.) I received the drive, installed it, looked at the DVD that came with it, and saw no mention of programs that sounded like they would play back Blu-ray movies. I soon discovered that the drive--which came in a retail package--does not have ANY playback software bundled.

/facepalm

So does anyone know a free and legal way to play Blu-ray movies from a PC without dumping ~40GB of data to the hard drive first?

I tried the latest alpha version of MediaPortal, but when I try to play my Toy Story Blu-ray disc, it returns the error "Unable to play: index.bdmv."

:(
 
Lloren said:
Bluray on PC is a racket.
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tennis_racket-1017.jpg



/Hot Link.
 
I know there is a way to modify vlc to work with BD. I'm not sure how to do it, but I'm sure google knows. :)
 
The problem is decrypting commercial Blu-ray discs.

DAPlayer, a free video player, played my Toy Story Blu-ray disc, but I'm wary of a free player when so many options cost cash money. Also, the audio was slightly out of sync with the video and I didn't feel like messing with the Delay+/Delay- options late last night.

I'd also like to use something that plays nice with my Streamzap remote; MediaPortal would be preferred. Blu-ray playback is supported in 1.3.0 alpha, but there's still the issue of real-time Blu-ray decoding.

:(
 
PowerDVD is garbage!!! Grrrrr. I really wish there were legitimate alternatives.
 
ewoksrule said:
VLC doesn't have blu-ray support yet!??!
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Not without using a secondary program for decrypting commercial Blu-ray discs, from what I understand.

ewoksrule said:
Did you check http://download.cnet.com/Daum-Potplayer/3000-13632_4-75587055.html?tag=mncol;1

source: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/play-blu-ray-windows/
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I hadn't checked out PotPlayer, but I'll give it a try!

If I can't find a free application to play Blu-ray discs on my PC (WITHOUT the need for an external decryption program), I'm considering returning the drive and buying one that DOES come bundled with PowerDVD.

EDIT: Nevermind. Back to the search for a legitimate AND free commercial Blu-ray disc player:

Since no one seemed to have any experience with the player, I decided to find out for myself. What I learned is that to play encrypted material will require an on-the-fly decrypter running in the background.
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Source: http://www.missingremote.com/forums/potplayer-bluray-playback
 
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PowerDVD or corel WinDVD Pro are the only horrible solutions I've found. I don't think you'll find a free one since the BluRay decryption keys are illegal to use without a software license. Aka, no GPL code can use it unless it's an illegal program.
 
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VLC should support Blu ray, it does with the Linux version at least. just install the package, no hacking necessary. there is also a 64bit version of vlc for windows available. The support might only be for non encrypted though.
 
saudi said:
VLC should support Blu ray, it does with the Linux version at least. just install the package, no hacking necessary. there is also a 64bit version of vlc for windows available. The support might only be for non encrypted though.
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And that's the main problem: Encryption. If I can get a free AND legitimate decryption application installed and working properly, I could pick any of several players, including MediaPortal (my personal preference), to play Blu-ray discs.

/sigh

Sony.
 
Remember HDDVD? yeah... Sony won that war. To the victor goes the spoils I guess.
 
I'm not suggesting that you do this, but what if you *hypothetically* ripped the bluray onto your PC?

Edit: I guess you'd still run into the encryption issue.

Edit again: Send it back and get a refund, lol.
 
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