BluRay Media Player

[Fuganater]

Any suggestions for a BluRay Media Player? Doesn't have to be free. Just has to work well.

[Fuganater]

Bump

[TheMainMan]

I know PowerDVD by Cyberlink is capable of it as is WinDVD by Corel. There doesn't seem to be any significant freeware presence yet. I put a Blu-Ray in my parents comp then found out that you need one of those two. Something to do with the licensing and Sony not wanting to share with MS.

[x88x]

I've used PowerDVD since it came for free with my drive. It's ok, but personally I didn't like it that much...too bulky...got in its own way too much. The reason there's not any free software for playing BD's is because the AACS decryption license still costs a good bit and is still kept separate from the hardware licensing.

[crenn]

I do not recommend PowerDVD at all. I'd pick WinDVD over PowerDVD at all. I have a few movies, but AVATAR refuses to work with PowerDVD 8 (what my drive came with) even though it should be working fine. Later versions play it, but have issues with BD-Live. WinDVD worked with both BD-Live and my copies of Avatar.

[Fuganater]

I found Total Media Theater 5 and it is pretty awesome. Resource hog tough. Makes Windows go to Basic because of the video.

[x88x]

Makes Windows go to Basic because of the video.
PowerDVD always did that to me as well. Anyone had one that didn't?

[x88x]

If anyone's interested, I just found a better solution. :D

It's called DAPlayer, and it's the only blu-ray player I've found that's actually free!
http://www.digiarty.com/

From what I can find in reviews and such, apparently they update their compatibility on a weekly basis, so some new titles might not for for a week or so after release, but imo that's outweighed by three things:
1) It's free.
2) It doesn't kick my computer into 'Basic Mode' like the version of PowerDVD that I have does (f***ing annoying, and it looks like crap).
3) It's a hell of a lot lighter on system resources than the version of PowerDVD that I have.

[Fuganater]

If anyone's interested, I just found a better solution. :D

It's called DAPlayer, and it's the only blu-ray player I've found that's actually free!
http://www.digiarty.com/

From what I can find in reviews and such, apparently they update their compatibility on a weekly basis, so some new titles might not for for a week or so after release, but imo that's outweighed by three things:
1) It's free.
2) It doesn't kick my computer into 'Basic Mode' like the version of PowerDVD that I have does (f***ing annoying, and it looks like crap).
3) It's a hell of a lot lighter on system resources than the version of PowerDVD that I have.

I actually found that one last week. And like you said, not all titles work with it right away.

[OvRiDe]

I have completely different problems with PowerDVD.. On my computer it doesn't doesn't bump my dispaly to Basic Mode and when watching a BRD it uses less then 15% CPU. Memory is higher than other programs running but I still have PLENTY in reserve.

My BIGGEST problem with PowerDVD is all I want is a DVD/BDR player. I don't want it to scan for music, or photos, or even other videos. All I really want it to do is PLAY BLURAYS. I don't even really need it to play DVDs, I have other better music players, as well as photo viewers.

I will have to check that one out for sure.

[x88x]

I would hope that PowerDVD only kicked me to basic mode because it's an old version...that seems like a pretty huge bug to not fix. I'm assuming it's because it couldn't use DX9.

As for system resources, imo 15% is still way too much for it to need unless you have a really weak CPU. I have DAPlayer running right now, playing a blu-ray disc, and it is currently using... 0% CPU and 32.256MB of RAM. I never actually watched the system resource usage with PowerDVD, but any time I started it, if I forgot to stop FAH running beforehand it would take about a full minute of Windows trying to figure out WTF it was supposed to be doing before the video finally started playing, and during that time my computer is entirely unresponsive. Even if FAH wasn't running it would take around 20-30 seconds. In contrast, DAPlayer starts right up in less than a second and takes about 2-3 seconds to load the BD-ROM. It's also a much sleeker, simpler UI that, imo, looks a lot better than PowerDVD's cluttered UI.

[OvRiDe]

I timed PowerDVD11 and it takes about 2 seconds to start on my system. I was being lazy at 15% .. that's actually my combined CPU usage. I had some updates running in the background at the time. I pulled up task manager and it bounces between 4-6% of one of my cores.

I agree on the PowerDVD's UI.. Like I said earlier.. I just want a player for BRD, but unfortunately I haven't found a Bluray available that works. (I only have rentals at the moment)

I just wish VLC would play them natively so I can be done with it. :)

[x88x]

I just wish VLC would play them natively so I can be done with it. :)

Haha, you and me both. :D

Most of the startup time for PowerDVD on my system is it switching to basic mode and recovering, so it makes sense that if yours doesn't do that it would start up faster....either way, I'm glad to be rid of it. :D

[TheMainMan]

Does DAplayer integrate itself with WMC7 at all? That's the single most frustrating thing about WMC is that MS left users up the creek on getting Blu-ray functionality.

[x88x]

Looks like no...at least, I can't figure out how to make it work. Fortunately I don't use WMC, so it doesn't bother me. *shrugs*

[TheMainMan]

Bummer, that would have been enough for me to go out and buy a Blu-ray drive. I guess I'll just keep using the PS3. Thanks for checking it out for me!