Best blu-ray player for home theater

E

Eric142

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Jan 11, 2014
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Asus Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-Ray Drive (BC-12B1ST)

Hi all,

I just bought the blu-ray player mentioned above and not sure if I like it. The first one I had to send back because it stopped reading dvds and blu-rays. I have received the new one and it seems to be working OK so far.

My questions are:

Is this the best choice out there? It did not come with software to play blu-ray movies, I have set up VLC to play them but it uses 98% of the CPU. I have a AMD duel core processor with 2GB RAM. I guess what I would like to know is VLC blu-ray codec not that efficient or is my computer not powerful enough to decode blu-ray movies? DVDs play fine.

I can still return it for a full refund so If someone has had better luck with a different player please let me know.

Thanks,
E
 
Personally if I am want to watch a movie "right now" I use a standalone appliance. Just a blu-ray player (Mine is an Oppo BDP-93 but, really, just a dedicated appliance).... This is because dedicated appliances usually get away from most of the annoyances of PC blu-ray playback: handshakes, refresh rates, software.... bleh...

Now, I *love* running from a PC when I can rip the disc to ISO ahead of time. This lets me read it reliably without optical jitter and tweak quality however I see fit with my software.
 
I was trying to goto just having the HTPC computer on the TV and remove my blu-ray player, sounds like blu-ray is the issue, because the dvd's play with no issue at all.
 
PC bluray drives are not going to be as reliable a standalone, because the industry doesn't want you using them due to piracy concerns. And you have to pay a lot for the playback software.

I like the Samsung BR players like the F5900. A big bonus is they have included Plex so its a nice way to play your local media.
 
Another big bonus of the Samsung BD-F5900 is the Amazon Prime video playback as well. The downside is that this player respects the cinavia protection so playing back some movies using plex that have this drm embedded. I had to switch to chromecasts for plex playback due to that issue.
 
I would argue that nothing beats a PC for playback, assuming you've ripped the discs to .MKV.
 
I think really any quality name brand unit will do. Aside from load times, there really isn't much to differentiate one blu ray player from another, blu ray is a standard and I don't think there is any evidence to suggest some do worse at filling that then others.
 
chuckinbeast said:
I think really any quality name brand unit will do. Aside from load times, there really isn't much to differentiate one blu ray player from another, blu ray is a standard and I don't think there is any evidence to suggest some do worse at filling that then others.
Click to expand...

Actually there is a difference besides it just using a "blu ray loader", the analogue output, DAC/IV conversion stage and the decoder IC's all have a very big impact to differentiate a priced quality player to another.
 
rflcptr said:
citation needed.
Click to expand...

Not sure what I can provide, you just need to see the forums of any playback software too how many issues can come up. In contrast, every standalone BR player, from a $35 Walmart unit to a $5K high end one, will play every single retail BR disc with no issues at all.
 
Matthew Kane said:
Actually there is a difference besides it just using a "blu ray loader", the analogue output, DAC/IV conversion stage and the decoder IC's all have a very big impact to differentiate a priced quality player to another.
Click to expand...

Define 'very big difference.' I highly doubt anyone would notice the difference in A B testing.
 
Megalith said:
I would argue that nothing beats a PC for playback, assuming you've ripped the discs to .MKV.
Click to expand...

Eh, I've watched MKV's and still find them lacking compared to whatever blu-ray uses.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Eh, I've watched MKV's and still find them lacking compared to whatever blu-ray uses.
Click to expand...

In what areas? I find a good 1080p ripped MKV media file to be about the same as blu ray on the PC but it's a different story when I encode it and burn it to blu ray and re-watch from there. Bit hazy look to the picture.
 
Just curious, how would you even get an MKV legally? Wouldn't you still have to actually buy the blu-ray? If so, wouldn't it just be simpler to watch it on a blu-ray player?
 
xIronCrossx said:
Just curious, how would you even get an MKV legally? Wouldn't you still have to actually buy the blu-ray? If so, wouldn't it just be simpler to watch it on a blu-ray player?
Click to expand...

Well what we do here is rip them and encode them, all legally purchased and owned. Then I put them on the plex server, (my pc actually). Then I can play them from any TV in the house using chromecast devices. This eliminates the need to get the disk and move it to whatever TV to watch it. Now when I want to watch the movie with all the surround sound and best picture, I just put the disk into the BD player and play it normally. I really like the convenience of the plex/chromecast thing though.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Eh, I've watched MKV's and still find them lacking compared to whatever blu-ray uses.
Click to expand...

Then stop downloading cam version or dvdrips in mkv..lol

any good 720 at 4-6Gigs or a 1080 above that will be good, and unless you sit close to your TV, %99.999 of people wont notice the difference.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Then stop downloading cam version or dvdrips in mkv..lol

any good 720 at 4-6Gigs or a 1080 above that will be good, and unless you sit close to your TV, %99.999 of people wont notice the difference.
Click to expand...

From what was posted above, there is no benefit except if you don't want to walk throughout your house to move a blu-ray disk. I have a ~30gb The Hobbit mkv, and while it looks pretty good, it's not gonna be any better than a blu-ray. I just remember reading in the news section a year or 2 ago people somehow saying MKV's are so much better quality than blu-ray, but they must have been clueless since MKV is just a shell(or file container) from what I read.
 
No, an MKV isn't going to be better than a Blu-ray. Properly ripped, it should be close to the same quality.


The benefit is keeping a categorized library of movies. Especially convenient if you have a HT rack in a closet somewhere.
 
An encoded movie will be lower quality, but whether or not you can tell that depends on the bitrate, encoder and your equipment obviously. e.g. its been shown almost no one can detect any difference between 192kbps vbr mp3 vs source material.

A transcoded bluray->mkv rip will be exactly the same quality, there's no reason why a single pixel will be different.

Ripping a bluray/dvd for personal use is still illegal though, thanks to our corporate masters, i.e. govt.
 
MrCrispy said:
e.g. its been shown almost no one can detect any difference between 192kbps vbr mp3 vs source material.

Ripping a bluray/dvd for personal use is still illegal though, thanks to our corporate masters, i.e. govt.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ to the first point but that's another discussion thread.

As with the second point, it is perfectly legal here but you have to own the original medium and you cannot re-distribute the file in any form at all.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Just curious, how would you even get an MKV legally? Wouldn't you still have to actually buy the blu-ray? If so, wouldn't it just be simpler to watch it on a blu-ray player?
Click to expand...

Not a fan of watching 20 minutes of crap I can't skip.

1. Buy disc [1]
2. Stick disc in machine w/ a certain app running
3. Spend 3 minutes with MakeMKV getting rid of all crap but not modify the video or audio content.
4. Do other things with life for a while
5. Enjoy movie without all the crap and each follow on time I watch the movie

[1] I won't buy movies I don't plan on watching more than once.
 
Eric142 said:
Asus Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-Ray Drive (BC-12B1ST)

Hi all,

I just bought the blu-ray player mentioned above and not sure if I like it. The first one I had to send back because it stopped reading dvds and blu-rays. I have received the new one and it seems to be working OK so far.

My questions are:

Is this the best choice out there? It did not come with software to play blu-ray movies, I have set up VLC to play them but it uses 98% of the CPU. I have a AMD duel core processor with 2GB RAM. I guess what I would like to know is VLC blu-ray codec not that efficient or is my computer not powerful enough to decode blu-ray movies? DVDs play fine.

I can still return it for a full refund so If someone has had better luck with a different player please let me know.

Thanks,
E
Click to expand...

Seems as though things have gotten a little off track. My question is, what kind of video card is being used? I used to use a single core Opteron 148 CPU with a 2600xt for bluray playback with my projector and CPU usage was only 10% to 15%. I don't know much about VLC as a bluray player so I don't know if it uses hardware acceleration or not.
 
xIronCrossx said:
From what was posted above, there is no benefit except if you don't want to walk throughout your house to move a blu-ray disk. I have a ~30gb The Hobbit mkv, and while it looks pretty good, it's not gonna be any better than a blu-ray. I just remember reading in the news section a year or 2 ago people somehow saying MKV's are so much better quality than blu-ray, but they must have been clueless since MKV is just a shell(or file container) from what I read.
Click to expand...

For sure, an mkv wont be better in that sense, any conversion from the original will be less quality

But in terms of overall usability, an mkv or what ever container one prefers is easier to manage than require a disk to be shared around a house or moved from player to players.

Streaming is where it is at, so ripping that BR disk to your system and compressing it down, can save space and time in the end and you dont need it to be the original size as most people wont notice any difference anyways, why a 720p rips usually run around the 4Gig range with the odd 6Gig one when done by a higher quality group but it is often additional Audio and DTS sound that makes it larger.
 
xIronCrossx said:
Eh, I've watched MKV's and still find them lacking compared to whatever blu-ray uses.
Click to expand...
MKV is just the container. A makeMKV full-quality Blu-Ray rip is indistinguishable from the original disc. It just gives you the option to leave out some extras to save space. If you want to reduce size with something like Handbrake, then yes, the quality goes down. :p
 
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