Blu-Ray playback on a PC

[lompocus]

Hi, I'm rebuilding an older pc and plan to refit it as some sort of super-htpc. (Read: I'm slamming a bunch of energy-hungry, heat-producing components into an air-cooled shelf and somehow making it run Crysis... well, not really, but you get the point .) Basically, I'm trying to get rid of all those problems with a blu-ray burner installation.

Anyway, in lieu of buying a blu-ray player, I want to purchase a blu-ray burner. I found this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118050) and found out (and remembered D:) that there are firmware and software requirements that dvd's don't have to bother with. So how the heck can i get a blu-ray movie working without having to deal with hdcp protection? Will a player like VLC or CCCP's media player work, and if so, how?

[bloody000]

AnyDVD HD.

Pay for or pirate it.

[kitamesume]

Hi, I'm rebuilding an older pc and plan to refit it as some sort of super-htpc. (Read: I'm slamming a bunch of energy-hungry, heat-producing components into an air-cooled shelf and somehow making it run Crysis... well, not really, but you get the point .) Basically, I'm trying to get rid of all those problems with a blu-ray burner installation.

Anyway, in lieu of buying a blu-ray player, I want to purchase a blu-ray burner. I found this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118050) and found out (and remembered D:) that there are firmware and software requirements that dvd's don't have to bother with. So how the heck can i get a blu-ray movie working without having to deal with hdcp protection? Will a player like VLC or CCCP's media player work, and if so, how?

ok two questions, can your "older PC parts" run any games at 1920x1080 res? (this is the res of blu-ray, well, most of them. not necessarily at playable FPS, so long as you can get the game going, even if its below 10FPS.) if yes then it should be able to handle any blu-ray copy you throw at it.

another question,  do you posses Blu-ray CDs or want to buy a copy? if you already posses them then buying a blu-ray reader would be a must. but if you want to buy a copy, ditch the idea and just rip'em, because they'd cost a ton, unless you're loaded then ohh well. HDCP only applies on your monitor and GPU, the reader should work on most recent(year 2000)motherboards, its just like your old DVD-reader.

+1 on CCCP, it can play almost any format.

[vuzedome]

Regardless of codec pack preference, you are going to need actual blu-ray playback software to really make full use of a blu-ray capable drive.
That being said, Cyberlink PowerDVD and Arcsoft Total Media Theater are two options which I would recommend for this.
But sometimes your blu-ray drive might get bundled with a licensed copy of a blu-ray capable playback software.

[wizisi2k]

Regardless of codec pack preference, you are going to need actual blu-ray playback software to really make full use of a blu-ray capable drive.
That being said, Cyberlink PowerDVD and Arcsoft Total Media Theater are two options which I would recommend for this.
But sometimes your blu-ray drive might get bundled with a licensed copy of a blu-ray capable playback software.

I have experience with Cyberlink power DVD 9 Ultra (legit pruchase) and basically what I experience comes down to this (PS: PC has an i7 CPU): PC freezes for several seconds when the app WILL work with a blu-ray and I get SD res playback (HDCP compatability in my setup is a yes) OR (for Yu Yu Hakusho s1 and Needless on blu-ray) "Cyberlink needs to download an update" (click yes) "update is successful" (try to resume or restart playback) "cyberlink needs to download an update (loop a couple time).  To make it simple, I say you use DVD fab to rip the blu-ray (warning: mucho GB needed) and a NTFS formatted external to transfer the .m2ts files to another PC.  Tsmuxer would be needed to basically demux any true-HD audio tracks (and downconvert them so audio can be heard in MPC:HC).  And depending on the drive, you may need a relatively new mobo to use it-my blu-ray burner is SATA and I have a PC from 2005 that doesn't suppourt full-speed SATA.  With blu-ray playback, you will need to take ALL steps for playback problems with 1080p format video first (ie core AVC, DXVA, etc.) and also have external subs because I don't think many players can read blu-ray sub files

[lompocus]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses!

I built the PC around 2006/7-ish (2.4ghz E6600 (dual core thing from the stone age ) & an upper-end mobo, with other comparable components), so compatibility and computing capacity are not problems. I was thinking of buying blu-rays but, as kit brought up, I could just find copies of the rips of most movies. Beyond that, I wanted to use blu-rays for backup purposes (no desire to have suitcases of floppies  ). (In fact, the way the pc will be set up, the only purpose of the blu-ray burner will be for making backups, so... heh.) And like the rest of you said, I could just obtain either of those software solutions for bluray playback if I ever need to deal with hdcp.

Alrighty, I guess there won't be problems with just buying the drive, a few discs as needed, and getting that software. How do your software packages compare with the free codecs I mentioned & their own renderers? (Is that just a matter of adjusting some setting in one thing or other? I notice everything playing through VLC is dullish compared with cccp's player.)

[rostheferret]

VLC won't play a Blu-Ray disc.
CCCP won't have the codec to play a Blu-Ray disc.
Ripping Blu-Ray discs is still fraught with difficulties and is painful to do. Read this.

Sony have the only 'fully functional' codec, the rest are all 'close but no cigar' copies worked out; they'll probably play the disc but not without glitches. I honestly have no idea how AnyDVD managed to figure it out, and as far as I know they're the only ones to do so.

Assuming you plan on playing Blu-Ray discs and not just Blu-Ray rips you've downloaded, you'll either need AnyDVD or PowerDVD. PowerDVD sucks major ass; its slow, unresponsive and on occasion does things that it shouldn't. But it works. And in my case came with the Blu-Ray burner; they'd be assholes to sell a Blu-Ray drive without giving you the software to actually play a Blu-Ray disc. This is the method I use until someone who can write playback software worth a damn gets their hands on the codec. I'm currently using PowerDVD 11, so of what wizi says is true then apparently they've improved somewhat significantly.

But since this all isn't the case, get an external HDD instead. It'll last longer, cost less, and the information will be transferred quicker. You can even get USB3 if you want to mock morons who got a Blu-Ray burner instead. Myself included You can get 1080p x264 rips at <10gig usually that are almost indistinguishable from the original. For these, VLC and CCCP WILL work without a hitch.

[lompocus]

Thanks for the heads up on ripping  blurays. . I tend to loan out dvds to family and friends (different things), so I was looking for a portable solution with the greatest storage capacity. But, yeah, an external HDD might work as well for my own backup purposes. any particular recommendations?

[kitamesume]

WD black for breaking your pocket or samsung?(i think this is the cheapest HDD manufacturer) for... i just mentioned it lol.

[rostheferret]

Thanks for the heads up on ripping  blurays. . I tend to loan out dvds to family and friends (different things), so I was looking for a portable solution with the greatest storage capacity. But, yeah, an external HDD might work as well for my own backup purposes. any particular recommendations?

The other option for loaning to people is to try to get 720p rips. The quality is still excellent and the new size means it can happily fit on a DVD. What I do for family is I've set up the PC as an ad-hoc server; whenever my pc is on, people on our wifi network can read files in my film folder.

Since this is always handy, it basically points out to notice any difference between 720p and 1080p, you need to be sitting 8ft away from a 37" screen as an example. Anything less, nada.


As for manufacturers, WD Black always seemed the most reliable long term, though I got nothing against Samsung or Hitachi either.

EDIT: Actually, the cost of 25GB Blu-Ray discs has dropped significantly - ~£2 a disc - though I still wouldn't consider it a first choice for backing things up, but might be worthwhile if you wanted to lend them to friends.