$25 blu-ray drive for pc

munkle

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$25 blu-ray drive for pc. It only reads discs. Doesn't burn anything but for the price you can't complain. Does not come with software to play movies so don't expect it. Good deal for a htpc if you have software to play movies.
 
I picked one up so I can take the blu-ray burner out of my htpc and put it in my main pc and use this for my htpc since I never burn blu-rays in my htpc and its the only pc I have with a blu-ray drive.
 
really thinking about it... not that im really going to be burning i dont think but i own a bunch of blu rays anyways and i wouldnt mind watching on my comp i got at home.
 
A guy in the feedback says that he got it for $52 and though it to be a steal and look at the price now :p
 
I saw a deal like this a few months ago, and while it's appealing, the cost to buy BR-reading software is prohibitive. I mean, if you can get reading software for $50, it'd be a wash, since you can get very decent BR set-top players for $75 on sale.

Just saying, these can be deceptive deals sometimes.
 
I saw a deal like this a few months ago, and while it's appealing, the cost to buy BR-reading software is prohibitive. I mean, if you can get reading software for $50, it'd be a wash, since you can get very decent BR set-top players for $75 on sale.

Just saying, these can be deceptive deals sometimes.

Powerdvd usually goes on sale for like $20-30 at the end of the year right before the new version comes out.
 
If you want a burner, it looks like Newegg has got an Asus one for $39.99 after a $20 MIR. Seems like a pretty good deal.
 
1. download a file
2. put it in the right folder
3. ?????
4. decrypt blu-rays

The instructions are still poorly written. In order to get this to work in Windows 7 do this.

1. Download the file named KEYDB. Create a folder named AACS. Put the KEYDB file in the AACS folder you created. The important part is that this new folder goes into the Roaming folder not just APPDATA like the website suggests.

*I didn't do much looking for an x64 version of VLC for Windows so I used the 2.0.4 version that was on the site. I believe this is a 32 bit program*

2. Using the 7zip package of VLC I extracted this and then put the 32bit version libaacs.dll (448KB in size) in the root directory of VLC.

I popped in Batman Begins and it plays. This was done on Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with SP1. Going to test other Blu-ray disc I have. Wonder if there is a solution for HD-DVD or if this same method works with them. Going to test this out as well.
 
If you want a burner, it looks like Newegg has got an Asus one for $39.99 after a $20 MIR. Seems like a pretty good deal.

Personally, id never want anything just for "reading" discs. I guess you cant complain when its $25 but, id rather have a burner..... When you consider the fact it only costs maybe $10-15 more to be able to burn discs, thats a small amount of money to have a burner on top of a reader.
 
http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ Theres always alternatives to paying for expensive software. Gotta love VLC.

** Did a little reading as I was curious now too. Seems the above link is hit or miss if it'll work 100% or not.

I couldn't get the menu work correctly with this plugin, and still have some issue with finding the right video files. I have to manually choose the right track to make it play just the video.
 
I couldn't get the menu work correctly with this plugin, and still have some issue with finding the right video files. I have to manually choose the right track to make it play just the video.

Menus don't work properly on any Blu-Rays in VLC yet, AFAIK. (But I haven't tried in a couple months.) It's only good if you want to watch or rip the main feature at this time. If you want to watch any other parts, you should just rip it first with MakeMKV and then watch from the ripped file.
 
Bluray drives in PCs just don't work well in my experiences.

I bought one a while back (3 years maybe?) to put in my computer, thinking I'd use it as a player in the computer room. Installed the generic PowerDVD it came with, update after update after update, each update would mess stuff up, new discs would play, older ones wouldn't, etc. Bought Arcsoft TMT5 for $60, locked up about 7/10 times trying to use it for the year or so I tried using it.

Gave up and took my standalone bluray player out of the extra family room to put in the living room. Wasn't worth the headaches.
 
I got this same drive almost 2 years ago from a guy of craigslist he didn't realize that it didn't burn, so he sold it to me for like $35 which at the time was a great price, but anyway i can say that its been running well for almost 2 years plays blu-rays nice with PowerDVD it is very quite. for 25 its an amazing deal.
 
So, PowerDVD is $70 for the cheapest option that plays BluRays.
$70+$25drive= $95. I mean, sure, you can rip the BluRays if you go with a drive like this, but for the price, I'm not sure it's worth it over a set-top player.(links above)
 
Bluray drives in PCs just don't work well in my experiences.

I bought one a while back (3 years maybe?) to put in my computer, thinking I'd use it as a player in the computer room. Installed the generic PowerDVD it came with, update after update after update, each update would mess stuff up, new discs would play, older ones wouldn't, etc. Bought Arcsoft TMT5 for $60, locked up about 7/10 times trying to use it for the year or so I tried using it.

Gave up and took my standalone bluray player out of the extra family room to put in the living room. Wasn't worth the headaches.

Sounds like you have some other problem going on. I have been using a htpc with a blu-ray drive as my only blu-ray player and it has been perfect for about a year and a half now. Only problem I have run into is that when I upgraded to windows 8 my powerdvd 11.0 wouldn't launch from media center anymore but it launchs fine from the start menu. I can't fault 2 year old software for not being compatible with a brand new os.

So, PowerDVD is $70 for the cheapest option that plays BluRays.
$70+$25drive= $95. I mean, sure, you can rip the BluRays if you go with a drive like this, but for the price, I'm not sure it's worth it over a set-top player.(links above)

Newegg usually has a sale on powerdvd for cheap around the end of the year when they are clearing out the old version right when cyberlink is abou tot release a new version.
 
I picked one up so I can take the blu-ray burner out of my htpc and put it in my main pc and use this for my htpc since I never burn blu-rays in my htpc and its the only pc I have with a blu-ray drive.
Cool story, bro.
 
$54.99/$4.99 shipping w/o Shoprunner/Free shipping Shoprunner, BD-ROM "combo" drive, reads Blu-Ray, can burn DVD's: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136253

Comes with PowerDVD v10 I believe for Blu-Ray playback, works on Win7 fine. Probably cheapest option on Newegg that comes with legal playback software.

Like I said before, you can get a Blu-ray burner for about the same price, plus a $20 MIR.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135252

Doesn't come with PowerDVD probably, but still seems like a better deal.
 
Actually, the listing says it comes with Power2Go, so it should include the software to play BRs.
That's the best deal on this page.

I went through this last week with a customer who wanted a gaming machine/Blu-Ray player machine with Win7. The link I posted was the lowest price that included actual software for playing Blu-Ray.

As for the item you listed, read some of the comments:

Wish software was included so I can watch Blu-ray movies on my machine.
When I purchased this drive from Newegg, somehow I thought that it would include the necessary software for the drive to actually work. Unfortunately I was wrong and the drive did not ship with any software able to actually play blu ray discs. Free software such as DAPlayer was unreliable on the drive, so if you actually want to play blu rays on this blu ray drive you have to spend an additional $50-$100 for third party software. I contacted Asus and they had me convinced they would resolve the issue but instead sent me a useless cd of software that still did not include a blu ray player. Overall very disappointing experience. Asus customer service is very ineffective and completely unhelpful.
Works as intended, burns without problem
Plays bluray (with capable software, not out of box) and DVD
Very quiet
Does not come with playback software that should be purchased separately

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Anonymous,

I'm sorry that this optical drive did not come with a Blu-ray player. Please try this link from CNET to obtain a free Blu-Ray codec so that you’ll be able to playback Blu-Ray discs on your computer: http://download.cnet.com/K-Lite-Codec-Pack-Full/3000-13632_4-64246.html?tag=mncol;2
Also, before you download and install or make changes to your system, please backup all your files and documents. For comparison of K-Lite codec, please visit: http://codecguide.com/klcp_ability_comparison.htm

Another alternative codec packs: http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10749065.html?tag=mncol;2
http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack-Plus/3000-13632_4-75683928.html?tag=mncol;7

If you’d like to respond and discuss this further, please contact me at [email protected] and include ref#1072-5573 in the subject line.

Sincerely,
Celeste
ASUS Customer Loyalty
 
In for one. Will probably just throw it in my HTPC for ripping blurays. Don't have any blurays but I figure its time I start watching them.
 
I went through this last week with a customer who wanted a gaming machine/Blu-Ray player machine with Win7. The link I posted was the lowest price that included actual software for playing Blu-Ray.

As for the item you listed, read some of the comments:

AH, thx for that. Power2Go must be DVDs only. Lame.
 
I saw a deal like this a few months ago, and while it's appealing, the cost to buy BR-reading software is prohibitive. I mean, if you can get reading software for $50, it'd be a wash, since you can get very decent BR set-top players for $75 on sale.

Just saying, these can be deceptive deals sometimes.

A lot of people on these boards may already have playback software (other PC's etc) and/or may merely want it so they can rip their movies (at which point playback software becomes irrelevant). I'm holding out for a burner since I'm not in any hurry to be able to rip my BRs, tho it'd be nice to be able to rip a Redbox rental on occasion so I can watch it at my leisure and return the disc immediately.
 
I wound up buying for my dad as a Christmas present. Now he can finally watch Blu-Ray movies with the included PowerDVD 10 (OEM 2-speaker version). :)
 
I wound up buying for my dad as a Christmas present. Now he can finally watch Blu-Ray movies with the included PowerDVD 10 (OEM 2-speaker version). :)

It doesn't come with software. Some people say it comes with powerdvd but it is listed as oem and I would doubt you'll get software with it. My previous oem drive from newegg came with software. My buddy ordered the exact same drive about a month later than I did and didn't get software. It's pretty much up to newegg if they want to throw in the bundled oem software or not so would err on the side of caution and just say it doesn't come with software.
 
http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ Theres always alternatives to paying for expensive software. Gotta love VLC.

** Did a little reading as I was curious now too. Seems the above link is hit or miss if it'll work 100% or not.

Worked fine on my msi gt70 laptop with win7 ultimate. I dvi output to my tv and without this patch vlc was black screen, with patch the video plays. I don't use hdmi out because my samsung tv seems to dislike hdmi from a pc as it drops to 720p and only shows part of the screen.
 
Thank you. I got the drive...are all BD-Drives long? I currently have an Asus one that this will replace, and it's long as hell too.

The instructions are still poorly written. In order to get this to work in Windows 7 do this.

1. Download the file named KEYDB. Create a folder named AACS. Put the KEYDB file in the AACS folder you created. The important part is that this new folder goes into the Roaming folder not just APPDATA like the website suggests.

*I didn't do much looking for an x64 version of VLC for Windows so I used the 2.0.4 version that was on the site. I believe this is a 32 bit program*

2. Using the 7zip package of VLC I extracted this and then put the 32bit version libaacs.dll (448KB in size) in the root directory of VLC.

I popped in Batman Begins and it plays. This was done on Windows 7 Home Premium x64 with SP1. Going to test other Blu-ray disc I have. Wonder if there is a solution for HD-DVD or if this same method works with them. Going to test this out as well.
 
Sounds like you have some other problem going on. I have been using a htpc with a blu-ray drive as my only blu-ray player and it has been perfect for about a year and a half now. Only problem I have run into is that when I upgraded to windows 8 my powerdvd 11.0 wouldn't launch from media center anymore but it launchs fine from the start menu. I can't fault 2 year old software for not being compatible with a brand new os.



Newegg usually has a sale on powerdvd for cheap around the end of the year when they are clearing out the old version right when cyberlink is abou tot release a new version.

He is right I have a blu ray player and its not strait forward and when it is it is very expensive. PowerDVD sucks but thats the one that comes free with almost every player. Almost all options cost money and I am not sure any of them work all the time. You gotta drop like $200 to get up and running with blu rays.

I am glad this will be the last optical format. No sale on power dvd is cheap enough the software is garbage and they will try to screw you over at some point. My powerDVD worked for about a year then they updated it and it stopped working and they wanted money to "upgrade" money to seriously freaking fix the software they broke.
 
Also, the two drives I got came with software, I didn't install them yet, but they do say "BD" on the end of the name, so THIS MAY COME WITH BLU-RAY SOFTWARE.
 
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