Good Blu-Ray Software?

[rct2guy]

I recently got a new Blu-Ray drive for my PC, but found that software used to play said movies seems to be a rarity. The only ones I can find seem to cost $50 to $100, which is definitely an amount I don't want to spend. Does anyone know of any good (possibly free) software that plays Blu-Ray movies? I heard VLC has limited support for it, but haven't heard much else besides that.

 

[The Howling Wolves]

Free Blu-ray media player/codec??? - Multimedia-2 - Applications

There are several free programs that some of these people recommend.
If not satisfied just Google ....Free Blu ray movie software and check out each one...

 

[jaimerox]

Bluray Software

I use arcsoft totalmedia theatre 5 platinum. It retails on the site for 99 USD but if you look around you can find it for cheaper.

It is great because it not only plays blu-rays but other less common forms of hd formatted disks. The only con that I see is that some of the enhanced blu-rays turn off mouse pointer support and so you have to use this clunky onscreen remote.

 

[jumanji]

I recently got a new Blu-Ray drive for my PC, but found that software used to play said movies seems to be a rarity. The only ones I can find seem to cost $50 to $100, which is definitely an amount I don't want to spend. Does anyone know of any good (possibly free) software that plays Blu-Ray movies? I heard VLC has limited support for it, but haven't heard much else besides that.

Your best bet will be Media Player Classic Home Cinema which can play Bluray discs. Download Media Player Classic Home Cinema, Free Video Player Download

You also need to download DVDfab's Passkey lite Passkey Lite -- Free and Lite version of Passkey for DVD & Blu-ray and run it in the background to take care of the DVD/BD protection algorithms. The only disadvantage of the free DVDFab Passkey lite is that updates to take care of new protection algorithms may take one to two months whereas you can expect almost immediate updates to the paid version of Passkey for Blu-ray ($60 to 105.60 depending on the subscription period).

In this category, if you are inclined to go with a paid software my recommendation will be anyDVDHD (63-119 EUR depending on the subscription period) SlySoft AnyDVD HD

I am using MPC - Home Cinema with anyDVDHD(lifetime subscription) on my desktop. ( I also use Arcsoft TMT player3 Platinum and Power DVD 10 Ultra Mark ii on my other machines.)

To start with you can go with MPC-HC and free Passkey lite.

 

[Wishmaster]

AnyDVD is an excellent program, and one of the best all around out there for its intended purpose.

However, if the intent is solely to watch commercial Bluray, you can buy ...

Nero10, PowerDVD, etc for about the same price, and have many more features and abilities for playback.
I mean, Nero10 for example will play all BDs, with DTS support. Look around you can get it for about $60, which is cheaper than AnyDVD.


AnyDVD is NOT worth the price just so a free player can playback BluRay.
It is however worth it for what its intended to do.


Just my opinion.

 

[MilesAhead]

You can use MakeMKV to rip the BluRay to your hard drive. Then you can play with any software player that can play HD resolution .mkv files such as SplashLite, SPlayer etc..

I bought a license for MakeMKV over a year ago. But the author still considers it "beta" and provides a license key on the forum so that you can use it for free. The advantage I have with the paid version is I can reinstall old versions if a bug is introduced in the latest beta release, whereas the free license key only allows you to use the latest beta.

It can also rip standard DVD to .mkv. Very convenient for playing on set top box. If you have a set top box like WD Live it also acts as a server to feed the player over your network. Pretty nice software.

You can report bugs, ask questions, get the beta license key etc.. on this forum:
http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/

 

[Wishmaster]

Agreed.

Although I dont use that particular program myself, extracting the BD to MKV file is the best way to go.

 

[Zepher]

I have bd Roms in both of my machines and ended up getting a stand alone Panasonic bd player for ease of use.

both pdvd and tmt had issues with certain newer movies.

 

[jumanji]

You can use MakeMKV to rip the BluRay to your hard drive. Then you can play with any software player that can play HD resolution .mkv files such as SplashLite, SPlayer etc..

I bought a license for MakeMKV over a year ago. But the author still considers it "beta" and provides a license key on the forum so that you can use it for free. The advantage I have with the paid version is I can reinstall old versions if a bug is introduced in the latest beta release, whereas the free license key only allows you to use the latest beta.

It can also rip standard DVD to .mkv. Very convenient for playing on set top box. If you have a set top box like WD Live it also acts as a server to feed the player over your network. Pretty nice software.

You can report bugs, ask questions, get the beta license key etc.. on this forum:
www.makemkv.com • Index page

Agreed.

Although I dont use that particular program myself, extracting the BD to MKV file is the best way to go.

I have bd Roms in both of my machines and ended up getting a stand alone Panasonic bd player for ease of use.

both pdvd and tmt had issues with certain newer movies.

hmmmm..... very interesting. I do have a licensed version of MakeMKV but still cannot come to terms with making an mkv out of a BD and playing it when I can straight away play the BD with MPC-Home cinema. One can argue that this requires an on-the-fly decrypter like Passkey or AnyDVDHD but IMO that is by far better than using MakeMKV, which just repacks the original BD contents into an mkv container without any reencoding. (Of course MakeMKV has other uses - no denying)

And the bane of any software that takes care of the protection algorithms is that when a new protection emerges, these require an update - which may not come as fast as you would like or even not at all .

If Zepher has problems with PDVD and TMT it is because of this. MakeMKV is no exception and for that matter any hardware player too.

These too will require firmware updates for newer protection algorithms. With newer software player versions and newer hardware player models you will be required to update to the newer versions/models. It will be in their business interests not to provide patches/firmware updates for the older versions forcing you to buy/ugrade to the latest.

I will not update my PDVD10 or TMT 3. I go with anyDVDHD which releases patches almost immediately after a new protection algorithm emerges. PDVD 9 or 10 or TMT3 will tuck their tail and play almost anything I throw at them. No worries as long as Slysoft is in business.

My Sony PS3 Slim does not play Region A discs. No worries. I shove the BD into an external BDROM drive conected to my mini-HTPC with AnyDVDHD and play it on the big screen.

 

[Maguscreed]

powerdvd10 is the only one that has ever worked for me, have gotten dts problems with every other blu ray playing software I have tried.

 

[MilesAhead]

@jumanji, the OP doesn't want to spend $50 for a player, never mind $50+/year subscription to decrypt discs. The solution varies with the budget. I believe jdobbs, the author of BD Rebuilder, uses AnyDVDHD to rip. So it must work well. But some people have to figure word-arounds that work on the cheap. I'm still using Gen1 WD player. No DTS downmix. I have to encode the audio many times. But the video quality is high. Sometimes one has to cut corners.

 

[Maguscreed]

For conversion there is handbrake. It's free and works awesome.
HandBrake
it's also immune to encryption because it converts the actual stream.

 

[mjf]

I recently got a new Blu-Ray drive for my PC, but found that software used to play said movies seems to be a rarity. The only ones I can find seem to cost $50 to $100, which is definitely an amount I don't want to spend. Does anyone know of any good (possibly free) software that plays Blu-Ray movies? I heard VLC has limited support for it, but haven't heard much else besides that.

You can try DAPlayer. It's free but I found it a bit flaky and don't use it. Others like it though.