Blu Ray Player Software

Sotiri

Sotiri

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 5, 2011
Messages
178
I finally have the hardware to run Blu Ray and I'm hoping you folks can help me pick the software for it. There are a lot to choose from and would like your feedback on these.

PowerDVD: This seems to be popular but it appears you need the Ultra version to play commercial BD's for $100. That seems steep. It has to be pretty awesome to command that price.

Nero 10: I have their OEM burning software that came with my ASUS DVD drive and they're offering me their platinum suite for $60. Sounds like a good deal. I don't do any editing but it's almost half the price of PowerDVD. However in my research I haven't found how well their player is, which is what I'm most interested in.

Corel WinDVD Pro: Seems like good software and it's only $60 too but only for a player. If it's a much better player than Nero I'll go with this and forget about editing. Although if PowerDVD is really that great I'll flip for it.

There's also a bunch of freeware out there but after finally building my dream-machine I don't mind spending a few more bucks to make sure I get the most out of it.

Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
I see Total Media Theater mentioned more than the competition with respect to Blu-ray and HTPC use so, it's worth checking into I suppose. Does seem a bit steep at ~$100 but, all the reviews I've looked through give it very high marks in all respects.
 
TMT rocks for me primarily because of it's tight Windows Media Center integration.
 
I've heard bad news about every player -- they're all going to have some issues with some new releases it seems... but the player that I hear the most positive about is Total Media Theater. I've used it and it works good, but I no longer play blu-ray movies from my PC so I don't know how the newest versions are, but they still seem to rake in a fair amount of recommendations and positive reviews!
 
I have TMT and it has done what I have asked it to do. I haven't completely gone through all its features, plus the newer upgrade version, but so far I have been quite pleased with what it has offered.
 
Thanks for the input everyone! I'll definintly give the TMT free trial a go.
Has anyone noticed if they ever run specials to pick it up for less then $100?
 
I don't think I've ever seen it on sale. I got my version and a blu-ray reader for $100 a while back from a newegg combo. Thats the only type of sale I've ever seen on it. With that said, I don't really follow the price much...heck, I don't even use my copy anymore since I scrapped my media PC.
 
The correl bd 3d is 50usd but coupons (Google) will bring it to 33usd. That's how much I paid for mine
Posted via Mobile Device
 
DAPlayer is 100 % free and you do not need any other third party software to play Bluray
 
Azhar said:
You don't need to use AnyDVD or AnyDVD HD when watching Blu-ray on your media center with TotalMedia Theater.
Click to expand...

Not usually no but I have on occasion run into titles that don't play with AnyDVD running but that's the drive at fault. But beyond that AnyDVD is just a necessary tool I think in dealing with optical media for backup purposes.
 
I was surprised my when my ASUS OEM drive showed up Tuesday with an install disk containing PowerDVD 9. So I figured I'd give it a shot and half way through Star Trek my whole system froze. All I could do was reset. I can't believe it could by my hardware cause I've stress tested the hell out of this rig. Can this just be crap software? The second time it ran through the whole movie fine. I even tried fast forward, reverse and skipping chapters without issue. Hmmm......
 
Bu Ray playback can be temperamental because of the encryption I believe. Though I've never seen a hardlock during BD playback often times there can be anomalies with playing games afterwards or even starting up playback so I usually just reboot before and after BD playback.
 
Sotiri said:
I was surprised my when my ASUS OEM drive showed up Tuesday with an install disk containing PowerDVD 9. So I figured I'd give it a shot and half way through Star Trek my whole system froze. All I could do was reset. I can't believe it could by my hardware cause I've stress tested the hell out of this rig. Can this just be crap software? The second time it ran through the whole movie fine. I even tried fast forward, reverse and skipping chapters without issue. Hmmm......
Click to expand...

PowerDVD comes with just about every Blu-ray drives aside from OEM Blu-ray drives. I haven't had PowerDVD lock up on me in my initial trial of the software, but from the horror stories I hear, I probably would have sometimes down the line. I purchased a copy of TMT shortly after buying my Blu-ray drive, as I said in my first reply to this post, due to TMT's seamless integration with Windows Media Center. PowerDVD lacks that and doesn't support Media Center remote as completely as TMT does.
 
PowerDVD 7 still appears to play even recent Blu-Rays fine. TMT is also good. The newest PowerDVD versions are bloated and buggy. So I'd stay away from that if I could.

BD-ROMs, even OEM ones, usually come with BD software anyway. Of course, be sure to double check before buying.
 
Enigma said:
DAPlayer is 100 % free and you do not need any other third party software to play Bluray
Click to expand...

have you come across certain Blu-ray won't play at all, and got an error said "Unable to read this blu-ray: 400"

I got that in quite a few blu-ray disc now
 
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