Windows 7: what is the best blu ray drive software for windows 7?

Hello,

I just installed a LG BH14NS40 blu ray rewriter and player and was wondering what everyone thought the best software is to use with it?

It comes with Power DVD 10, but I've read some not so nice reviews about that particular product.

oh, and if possible, mention both free and pay programs and why you think they are good. (I'm trying to learn)

thanks in advance!

Do you want burning software or a player?

ideally both. But if it's seperate, that's okay too.

This is actually a good question as I myself have been wondering what to get since I have nothing Blu-Ray in my system. Anyway I'm not necessarily looking to record but play. That said, what should I look for.

For playback I like this free one, it can play almost any video file format...and it's free. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

I have not used anything for BD burning other than what Windows 7 has built in. I used it to burn several HD movies to a disk.

I used to use software from Roxio for music CDs. Here's a few paid items. Blu-ray Burning Software Review 2013 | Best Blu-ray Burner Software | Burn Blu-ray Movies - TopTenREVIEWS
Some free ones. 6 Free Blu-ray Disc Burning Software Apps

Note that I haven't used any of them though.

VLC or ArcSoft Theatre.

why are they good? Free or pay?

If you want to play an encrypted Bluray disk ( almost all movie disks are encrypted) as you would play on a hardware Bluray player with all features, then your only option is to go in for standard authorised bluray software players. I say authorised as only these players pay a royalty to the Bluray Disk Association permitting them to decrypt the disks and play for your pleasure. There are only a handful of such players like Cyberlink's Power DVD, Arcsoft's Total Media theatre, Corel's WinDVD and Nero's Player ( not available as a standalone player unlike the other three but bundled with their multimedia suite). They do cost and quite substantially because of the royalty factor.

My recommendation will be 1. Arcsoft's Total Media Theatre and 2.Power DVD in that order. You may download the trial versions of these, use them during the trial period and then choose the one that you like most. You have to experience the real blu-ray playback, if you have to appreciate what you will miss using other work-around players like VLC.(VLC does not natively play bluray movies.) I am not going to elaborate further on this.

As far as blu-ray burning software is concerned you may google search on the topic and you will get any number of freeware burners which are way better than the Windows native burner.( One major drawback of Windows native burner that can lead to creating coasters: Windows 7 may not calculate the size of writable area on BD-R, BD-R DL and BD-R XL correctly. )

My recommendation will be to start with the simple and compact freeware burners like Free Any Burn The Official Free Any Burn Website and CDBurnerXP CDBurnerXP: Free CD and DVD burning software. Once you get a grip on BD burning, you can migrate to other feature rich burners like ImgBurn etc. You would have grown enough to search, try and make your own choice. In both these cases - player and burner - what is best for me or anyone else may not be the best for you.

Coasters? I thought those were Chihuahua frisbees.

good info, thanks.