Options for playing Blu-Ray on HTPC?

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coder_t2

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 31, 2005
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Hey guys, what are my options for playing Blu-Ray discs on a HTPC now? I know when I built my HTPC over a year ago, the only options were a couple of Blu-Ray player software that you had pay for. I got my entire DVD collection on my HTPC, and I like how easily it plays in WM7. So I was wondering if I purchased a Blu-Ray ROM drive, if WM7 can handle Blu-Ray discs natively, or am still in the same boat where I have to pay for something like PowerDVD, and exit WM7 to play the disc. Thanks.
 
As far as I know, you're in the same boat. I think the main ones are Cyberlink PowerDVD, Corel WinDVD, and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theater. Roxio and Nero also have BD playback options with packages they sell.

Another option is to get MakeMKV and rip them to MKV files (no additional video compression and lossless sound). Then you can play them with various software that play MKVs, like VLC. This is the only free option I know of, but it requires the ripping.
 
TMT's MC integration is that it adds an icon to the tile screen. To play a BD you select TMT, it closes MC, and opens TMT. Once you exit TMT then MC start back up.
 
danman said:
TMT's MC integration is that it adds an icon to the tile screen. To play a BD you select TMT, it closes MC, and opens TMT. Once you exit TMT then MC start back up.
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Ok Cool thanks. I am running Windows 7, but using a VGA cable to connect to my TV. Will I have any issues wit HDCP or no?
 
I use AnyDVD HD and Media Player Classic: HomeCinema to play BluRays.

Using AnyDVD HD will allow you to play BluRays over a non-protected channel like VGA.
 
How long would it take to rip a blue ray as a mkv without compression on a core 2 duo at 2.1 GHz? Also, with MakeMKV, are menu's intact, or does it became just a plain video?
 
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Not super long, to compress it however, it will take days.
 
The MKVs I get from MakeMKV do not have intact menus...just a bunch of files. I usually just extract the main movie file with the audio track I want and English subtitles.
 
Hmm. Ok. Yea I am not interested in compressing currently. Thanks for the info guysl
 
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For 3D blu-rays I use Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. (Well I'll usually rip to an iso and then mount that...) For everything else, I rip them to an MKV first (via makemkv) and just play it in WMP.
 
ripping would be as fast as the drive, since your just copying data, as mentioned above, compression would take days.
 
coder_t2 said:
Hmm. Ok. Yea I am not interested in compressing currently. Thanks for the info guysl
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If you decide to do compression, and you use MakeMKV to rip the Blu-ray content to the hard drive, you can feed the MKV directly to HandBrake and create far smaller files with x264 encoding (which creates h.264 video streams) and then keep the AC3/DTS/etc 5.1/7.1/etc soundtracks whole (or crunch 'em down to simple AAC stereo tracks, that's what I do myself since I don't have a full blown HT setup).

Using even the basic defaults with HandBrake and the High Profile preset, the end result is typically an MKV that's about 3 to 6x smaller (given most Blu-rays hold anywhere from 20-40GB of content I'll end up with files that are roughly 6-10GB in size most of the time and the visual quality is a spot on match, as far as my rather limited human vision notices. And that's with keeping the resolution at 1920x1080 which I rarely do, actually.

My preferred final result is an MKV at 720p resolution (1280x720) of any Blu-ray content I bother to rip, with an AAC stereo audio track (192 Kbps) and the h.264 video stream done with the default High Profile preset (Constant Quality RF setting of 20), which results in a file anywhere from 5 to 7GB for almost everything. I can drop the bitrate down (change the CRF setting to 18.5 or something) and save some space, or just tell HandBrake to crunch to a given average bitrate and it still looks fine for me.

HandBrake is simply awesome for transcoding DVD and Blu-ray for portable device encodes as well.

But this is a Blu-ray playing thread... ;)
 
use cyberlink power DVD 8 here. if you are looking for building just a HTPC a core i3 paired with a 64bit current gen Ati/Nvidia card will do nicely.

I use a studio 1558 with an ATi 4570 and it performs flawlessly @ 1080p and will even pass stuff over HDMI if needed. setup uses approximately 5% CPU (Core i520M running at lowest speed of 1.463Ghz) when paired with above mentioned card. Average temps for the machine are about 100F when running a movie....

Windows 7 and Vista both support Blu-Ray file formats so if you add a a BD-Rom drive, you can access the data on the drive but not play movies back. Windows 8 may or may not have native Blu-Ray playback but for now you gotta pay to have software
 
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With the newer i3's you don't even need a discrete GPU, the integrated works fine @ 1080p.

I use TMT5 for my software...both for blurays and playing back MKV's (audio was always quiet/out of sync for some reason with Haali, AC3 filter, CCCP, Shark, etc...so I gave up). My cheapo HTPC remote works fine with it, and it pops right back to WMC once the video/file is done. Haven't had a problem with it. It's $100 regular price, but sales are pretty frequent and with a little patience you can find it for $50-60.
 
Here is what i do, Rip Blu-Rays to Iso format with AnyDVDHD, Virtual Clone Drive to Mount the Image, PowerDVD to Play the Movie, Download MyMovies 2 to organize all your Rips and Intergrate them into a My Movies Tab in WMC, it will download all the cover art and Information for each movie. Its really slick controlling everything from a Remote, anyone that comes over and sees it says, I gotta have this setup!
 
I extract the main movie file to mkv using makemkv. I keep the lossless audio and usually english subtitles. My HTPC is a quadcore AMD with an ATI 57xx vid card. Running Windows 7 and XBMC (using MPC-HC as an external player until Eden is released). Doing HD bitstreaming to my AV receiver. Works like a champ.
 
Marcdaddy said:
Here is what i do, Rip Blu-Rays to Iso format with AnyDVDHD, Virtual Clone Drive to Mount the Image, PowerDVD to Play the Movie, Download MyMovies 2 to organize all your Rips and Intergrate them into a My Movies Tab in WMC, it will download all the cover art and Information for each movie. Its really slick controlling everything from a Remote, anyone that comes over and sees it says, I gotta have this setup!
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Well just ordered myself a 55" LED Toshiba, so getting 1080p content is more of a priority for me now. :p I like what you do Marcdaddy. Does the movie automatically mount when selected in WMC? Also does PowerDVD come with any bluray drive? I remember DVD Drives used to always come with it.
 
The movie will automatically Mount for you, Just Head over to http://www.mymovies.dk/ For the MyMovies Plugin ( which is free ) I got a Free copy of Power DVD when i bought a Sony Blu-Ray player from Newegg which worked out great. Basically On a Fresh install of windows i Installed AnyDVD first, 2ndVirtual Clone Drive, 3rd Powerdvd, I made sure all of these were working then i installed MyMovies. Launched WMC and the MyMovies tab will be in there with your movies. You must Launch MyMovies everytime you wish to add a new movie to the Database or it wont get added into WMC. There is a option to have it do it for you automatically but i really dont like it. Also there is a MyMovie App for smartphones which will keep track of your database, its really awesome. I can walk you thru the process it really only takes minutes. Right now i have my main HTPC setup in my movie theater with a Sans Digital 8 bay tower hooked upto it, Its really the greatest thing. I can post pics if you wanna see it all setup.
 
coder_t2 said:
Well just ordered myself a 55" LED Toshiba, so getting 1080p content is more of a priority for me now. :p I like what you do Marcdaddy. Does the movie automatically mount when selected in WMC? Also does PowerDVD come with any bluray drive? I remember DVD Drives used to always come with it.
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You might try this: http://www.macblurayplayer.com/ (free for MAC and PC for the time being)

I did get some version of powerdvd with an LG player. It did play BDs.
 
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Here are some Pics, Sorry for the Quality of my CRAPPY IPHONE 3G


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Sans Digital 8 Bay Towers X 2 im not using the 2nd one yet, And only using 4 bays on the 1st one.


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The Theater
Panasonic PT-AE4000U , Carada 110 Inch screen, 7 Niles Audio HD-6 Speakers, Velodyne 12 inch sub, Sony STR-DA6400ES .


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Nice setup. The process sounds simple enough. I might try it with DVDs first just to make sure I don't have any issues. Does AnyDVD ever run discounts? Sounds like it would be necessary to get the lifetime version to make sure it will always work.
 
Marcdaddy said:
The movie will automatically Mount for you, Just Head over to http://www.mymovies.dk/ For the MyMovies Plugin ( which is free ) I got a Free copy of Power DVD when i bought a Sony Blu-Ray player from Newegg which worked out great. Basically On a Fresh install of windows i Installed AnyDVD first, 2ndVirtual Clone Drive, 3rd Powerdvd, I made sure all of these were working then i installed MyMovies. Launched WMC and the MyMovies tab will be in there with your movies. You must Launch MyMovies everytime you wish to add a new movie to the Database or it wont get added into WMC. There is a option to have it do it for you automatically but i really dont like it. Also there is a MyMovie App for smartphones which will keep track of your database, its really awesome. I can walk you thru the process it really only takes minutes. Right now i have my main HTPC setup in my movie theater with a Sans Digital 8 bay tower hooked upto it, Its really the greatest thing. I can post pics if you wanna see it all setup.
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Which version of the Sans Digital 8 bay tower do you use, Marcdaddy? I see more than version on Amazon.com. Thx.
 
I bought the Lifetime version of AnyDVD, they have sales every couple of months, i bought it for $79. Now i know it sounds steep but almost weekly it is updated when new movies come out to combat new protections. The best price for the Sans Digital 8 bay towers is actually Frys, here is a link to the versions that i have http://www.frys.com/product/5692931?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG It is very easy to setup, basically install the supplied Esata card in a Pci slot, connect the cables to the tower and power everything up, If you are running in JBOD mode which is what i do there is nothing to do at all. Windows finds the tower, assigns drive letters and your done. I bought a 2nd tower at the time just for the future.
 
$79 sounds worth it. If I check there website every few days, will I catch a deal? Or should I go to a deal website or something to pick up a promo code?

Edit: Oh just realized the $119 standard lifetime pricing is in Euros. It is actually $171 USD. Might just need to wait for a weak Euro and Strong Dollar to get the best deal. :p
 
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They generally run specials around holidays, They always go real cheap for a year end sale, Hell my brother is so cheap he just has me rip everything for him, he bought a a key cheaply a few years ago that cant be upgraded so he cant rip newer movies hehe.
 
Ha cool. Thanks for the help Marcdaddy. Going to embark right now and test your method with DVDs before buying anything. Do you have any recommendations on Blu Ray drives? Reader vs burner? Or brand?
 
I have a cheaper LG and a Sony they both foot the bill, I would honestly go with whatever you can find that is the cheapest.
 
Gotcha. Yea I thought there was only like a $5 difference between burners and ROMs, but I guess that is not true. More like $30-$50. There a Samsung for $55 that looks good on newegg.

Edit: So far the DVD test went well!
 
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Marcdaddy said:
The movie will automatically Mount for you, Just Head over to http://www.mymovies.dk/ For the MyMovies Plugin ( which is free ) I got a Free copy of Power DVD when i bought a Sony Blu-Ray player from Newegg which worked out great. Basically On a Fresh install of windows i Installed AnyDVD first, 2ndVirtual Clone Drive, 3rd Powerdvd, I made sure all of these were working then i installed MyMovies. Launched WMC and the MyMovies tab will be in there with your movies. You must Launch MyMovies everytime you wish to add a new movie to the Database or it wont get added into WMC. There is a option to have it do it for you automatically but i really dont like it. Also there is a MyMovie App for smartphones which will keep track of your database, its really awesome. I can walk you thru the process it really only takes minutes. Right now i have my main HTPC setup in my movie theater with a Sans Digital 8 bay tower hooked upto it, Its really the greatest thing. I can post pics if you wanna see it all setup.
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Sweet, thanks for the tip! Are you able to utilize any type of compression with this setup, or do we just need to add a few TB of space?
 
From whgat i remember and also researched Blu-Ray is only supported in PowerDVD 10 "Ultra" version, If you lookin the desciption it doesny say anything about Blu-Ray Playback. Let me check, i think i have a New Shiny copy of PowerDVD that supports Blu-Ray playback im not using, i can send it to you for free. Let me check and ill get back to you by 5PM central time, So dont buy anything yet.
 
Bam I found it allready! LOL, Its poweerDVD 8.0 with Blu-Ray playback, You will just have to update it after you install it. PM me you info and ill ship it to you ASAP.
 
Ah good catch. I was just debating between buying this open box burner and buying the software separate, or just buying a retail drive that comes with software. I think I will just buy the retail drive. I think I will wait until labor day too to see what deals POP up. Since I need RAM, a video card, and a blue ray drive.
 
Marcdaddy said:
From whgat i remember and also researched Blu-Ray is only supported in PowerDVD 10 "Ultra" version, If you lookin the desciption it doesny say anything about Blu-Ray Playback. Let me check, i think i have a New Shiny copy of PowerDVD that supports Blu-Ray playback im not using, i can send it to you for free. Let me check and ill get back to you by 5PM central time, So dont buy anything yet.
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It is also supported by ArcSoft Total media theater 5. Similar price to powerDVD.
 
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