Need advice on Blu-Ray drive

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ordovician

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I'm building a computer for a friend who is planning on hooking it up to his HDTV. I suggested he get a Blu-Ray player and he agreed. I want to get a drive that comes with decent playback software, but do not know where to start. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
If he's planning on playing back from the disk itself, stick with a standalone player. The studios are still tossing out curveballs and the pc software players are the last to get updates for disks that won't play due to new encryption.
 
The problem is that they do not come with anything worth while. You will always need the latest and greatest and you may also need AnyDVD HD...As well to get around the above mentioned encryption issues......
 
Without a doubt a dedicated Bluray player is far superior when playing disc based media. Also the price has never been better. I got a 125 USD player for the parents that had better picture quality and far more features than their previous 500 USD model the year before.

Every drive I have seen comes with no software or software badly crippled. So you have to spend 100 USD or more on playback software.

Save thy money and just get a player. Put DVD in the HTPC as most HDTVs these days have 3+ HDMI inputs plus DVI and VGA
 
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been already said in this thread, but the software players that come with the drivers are absolute crap. They are crippled versions that don't support the full range that blu-ray is capable of.

You're going to end up spending $50-$100 the driver, $50-100 on the software to play the DVD, and another $100 for AnyDVD HD so your $100 software can actually play the disc.

Thats not to mention all the headaches you're going to have trying to get everything to work together....
 
Demon10000 said:
I'm not saying anything that hasn't been already said in this thread, but the software players that come with the drivers are absolute crap. They are crippled versions that don't support the full range that blu-ray is capable of.

You're going to end up spending $50-$100 the driver, $50-100 on the software to play the DVD, and another $100 for AnyDVD HD so your $100 software can actually play the disc.

Thats not to mention all the headaches you're going to have trying to get everything to work together....
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QFT. In fact, just to get Blu-ray playback working on the PC, one would end up spending more money than (s)he would for many of the consumer standalone Blu-ray players.

That said, I do have a Blu-ray burner in my main rig. But I use the Blu-ray part of that drive only to create backup Blu-ray discs from high-definition video content from an HD camcorder or a TV tuner card.
 
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I was thinking about getting a bluray drive when I built my pc, but its $60 for a cheap drive and then $50 for software, that's $110 right there. I bought my bluray player on sale for $55 (sylvania, plays great, just no special features but I wouldn't use them anyway), you can get a good sony player for $100 on sale. It just isn't worth it for the pc. There is at least one bonus, you can rip the blurays and stream them to other pc's/tv's, if you wanted to do that then it is a giant bonus but I only have 1 hdtv so for me it isn't that big of a deal.
 
I agree with Munkle if the client of the OP is not planning on ripping blu rays then they should just get a standalone player. If the client is more technicially inclined then they could go with the option of the blu ray drive which will require some tinkering and software to get it right. But once it set up righ there is no issues nor worries. Its just a matter of how much does one want to spend up front..........
 
I agree with the rest that for playing the disc directly, a standalone player is best. I use my PS3 for this :cool:. However, if you want to get a bit more technical, and have a BIG hard drive :p, I have had good luck with MakeMKV to copy the disc, and MPC-HC to play the resulting files.

MakeMKV makes MKV files (hence the name ;)) and lets you chose which stuff to copy (you can omit foreign language audio, subtitles, special features, etc...). It is currently free, but it seems that they intend to make it non-free in the future. MPC-HC is free.
 
munkle said:
I was thinking about getting a bluray drive when I built my pc, but its $60 for a cheap drive and then $50 for software, that's $110 right there. I bought my bluray player on sale for $55 (sylvania, plays great, just no special features but I wouldn't use them anyway), you can get a good sony player for $100 on sale. It just isn't worth it for the pc. There is at least one bonus, you can rip the blurays and stream them to other pc's/tv's, if you wanted to do that then it is a giant bonus but I only have 1 hdtv so for me it isn't that big of a deal.
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Truthfully that is the only benefit i see with the drive. but i rarely use it at all. it is much slower burning DVD also. And i have a blu-ray burner, So i haven't burn Blu-ray yet. But, i only spent 40 on it, since my uncle paid for the rest so i can't complain.

I got everything working, but it was a Pain in my ass. :p but I watch the majority of my movies from my HD now.
 
Thank you all for the input. I figured about as much... The whole reason I asked is because it really did seem like a PITA, so thanks for confirming. I think the extra $100 saved will be better spent going into more RAM or CPU.
 
So one can't simply plug a Blu-Ray combo drive into a computer as normal, and expect WMP/VLC/MPC to play Blu-Ray discs?
 
BRDrive + MakeMKV + MPC-HC is about as cheap as you can get, can give great results. You dont' even need AnyDVD HD.
 
E4g1e said:
Nope. WMP by itself does not support playback from Blu-ray discs at all. And most of the freebie and freeware software, if they support Blu-ray playback at all, will downconvert the output resolution to 480p before even being routed to the HDMI port.
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Wow. I guess it's MakeMKV for me then.
 
Flubb said:
Wow. I guess it's MakeMKV for me then.
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I have no idea WTF he's talking about as it applies to downconverting the video; as it applies to MPC and blue ray he has no idea what he's talking about.
 
CrimandEvil said:
I have no idea WTF he's talking about as it applies to downconverting the video; as it applies to MPC and blue ray he has no idea what he's talking about.
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Sorry, but I had been using the wrong term for the freebie software not taking full advantage of Blu-ray's resolution. Maybe I should have said that the freebie software is missing a lot of the features that are needed to play back Blu-ray discs at its best.

And Blu-ray playback gets degraded to 480p if either the video card or the monitor is not HDCP compliant. And that must be output through the analog VGA output or else the video might not be displayed at all.

And yes, I was correct that WMP by itself cannot play back Blu-ray discs at all (at least not without third-party plugins).
 
E4g1e said:
Sorry, but I had been using the wrong term for the freebie software not taking full advantage of Blu-ray's resolution. Maybe I should have said that the freebie software is missing a lot of the features that are needed to play back Blu-ray discs at its best.
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The only thing you lose with MPC is menus. :rolleyes:

And Blu-ray playback gets degraded to 480p if either the video card or the monitor is not HDCP compliant. And that must be output through the analog VGA output or else the video might not be displayed at all.
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You specifically said over HDMI. :rolleyes:

You also have a greater chance of getting downconverted when using VGA. With HDMI you're fine and the only time you'll run into any HDCP issues is when you're using old, crappy hardware anyways. Anything modern is fine.

And yes, I was correct that WMP by itself cannot play back Blu-ray discs at all (at least not without third-party plugins).
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Well, duh. WMP by it's self needs codecs to playback video, just like every video player out there.
 
CrimandEvil said:
You specifically said over HDMI. :rolleyes:

You also have a greater chance of getting downconverted when using VGA. With HDMI you're fine and the only time you'll run into any HDCP issues is when you're using old, crappy hardware anyways. Anything modern is fine.
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I stand corrected.
 
You also have a greater chance of getting downconverted when using VGA. With HDMI you're fine and the only time you'll run into any HDCP issues is when you're using old, crappy hardware anyways. Anything modern is fine.
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I completely disagree with that.

I have an i3 rig using the clarksdale chipset. I'm using the onboard Intel HD video and connecting it to my Onkyo 806 Receiver via HDMI. The receiver is connected to my Samsung TV (about a year old, and not a cheapy) via HDMI. I would consider all of this hardware to be modern.

HDCP does not work.

When HDCP doesn't work, you're lucky if it just degrades the video. In my case, the player actually prevents the playback.
 
Your setup is completely HDCP compliant, the problem is HDCP is buggy as all hell and should be added to the pile of things that should never have been invented, like dick flavored lollipops...
 
Omegas said:
Your setup is completely HDCP compliant, the problem is HDCP is buggy as all hell and should be added to the pile of things that should never have been invented, like dick flavored lollipops...
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Not only that, I think the entire HD thing as we know it in North America is full of who-knows-what. The Hollywood movie studios want to DRM this, DRM that - and if you try to bypass DRM, the entire output gets degraded or not even display at all.
 
Omegas said:
Your setup is completely HDCP compliant, the problem is HDCP is buggy as all hell and should be added to the pile of things that should never have been invented, like dick flavored lollipops...
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E4g1e said:
Not only that, I think the entire HD thing as we know it in North America is full of who-knows-what. The Hollywood movie studios want to DRM this, DRM that - and if you try to bypass DRM, the entire output gets degraded or not even display at all.
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Yup. I could have sworn (but clearly I didn't state it) that I'm talking purely about PC hardware which was the context of what I said.

There are several receivers that are known to have issues with PC inputs (HDCP in general actually since some of those also have issues with things like DVD players and game consoles). Some of Onkyo's receivers are on that list of "overly aggressive" HDCP support which means it has issues.
 
Add to that fact that some onkyo recievers have hardware issues on the HDMI boards from leaking/failing caps and you can get really annoyed with onkyo's... I'm having that same problem right now with my 606.
 
Omegas said:
Add to that fact that some onkyo recievers have hardware issues on the HDMI boards from leaking/failing caps and you can get really annoyed with onkyo's... I'm having that same problem right now with my 606.
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I'm so glad I passed on a 606 for a HK247. No problems at all with it. :D

The only thing I would improve on it is adding more HDMI ports which is easy to do with a port splitter.
 
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