Play Blu-ray movies with FreeSmith Free Video Player

Just an hour back, I stumbled upon this FreeSmith Free Video Player, that said it can play 200+ blu-ray movie disks.

FreeSmith Video Player -- Free All-in-one media player

Support Different Media Types
Audio, Video, DVD, Blu-ray, all can be played smoothly with the smart FreeSmith video player. It supports almost all popular audio and video formats by default, including MKV, AVI, MP4, MPEG, FLV, WMV, HD and more. Besides, it offers you convenience to play DVD and blu-ray discs.

When the 8MB download completed, Windows 7 said that this type of file is not normally downloaded and can cause harm. But Softpedia had certified that it is free of any malware. ( I normally do not care for these warnings, smug in the fact that I can always restore my system in the event of any mishap and try all software but some people do take it seriously.)

OK, I played Night at the Museum 2 briefly and it did play the BD. ( My computer did not crash :))

So anyone wanting a free Blu-ray player can try this out.

But let me say, sooner or later you would like to changeover to the regular blu-ray software players which are a class apart. These freeware playerss can only be fillers.

Tried this on a BD-RW disk I created myself. FreeSmith failed to play it properly - it started at a chapter that was not the main menu and it played the chapter with no sound. Cyberlink PowerDVD8 plays the same disk correctly.

^ That prompted me to try out two Home-made BDs on the FreeSmith Video Player and the result was surprising.

Both the BDs were wriiten on Verbatim BD-RE disks. One was made with Freemake Video Converter and the other with NeroVision.

The one made with NeroVision played on all the players - Sony PS3(Hardware Player), Power DVD10, Nero Blu-ray player, Total Media Theater5, MPC-Home Cinema, FreeSmith Video Player

The one made with Freemake Video Converter played on all players except Total Media Theater5, and FreeSmith Video Player.

For playing Home-made BDs I would therefore think that the freeware MPC Home Cinema will be the best bet.

Well, I tried MPC Home Cinema on my BD-RW and it behaved just like Freesmith except it did the playback with sound. Why neither one would start with the disks main menu is beyond me. When I tried to use the MPC Navigate function to go to wither the next or previous chapter I got the "Application has stopped working" message and it crashed.

Obviously there are numerous quirks in the process of making BluRay disks. I made mine with Sony DVD Architect Studio and burned it to a Sony W/R BluRay disk. Teh disk plays fine with PowerDVD8 but nothing else seems to play it. Weirdness for sure.

bbinnard said:

........Obviously there are numerous quirks in the process of making BluRay disks.... .

I would agree.