Blueray Playback, it seems complicated.

[superj]

Does anyone have suggestions for getting blueray's to playback under windows 7?
I built on i7 rig for friend. He just threw a blueray drive in, but can't get it to play Blueray discs.
Is there some software that doesn't cost $80, that will play bluerays?
I can see how Blueray is having trouble gaining traction, giving all the hoops you have to jump through.

[lowfat]

You need software. And unfortunately all the software out there isn't all that good. You are going to either need:
1. Cyberlink PowerDVD
2. Arcsoft Total Media Theater
3. AnyDVD, rip the movie to your HDD as an mkv, and playback w/ any software.

[Chris]

I heard vlc can do it. I might be wrong, but it is free. won't hurt to try.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by Chris

I heard vlc can do it. I might be wrong, but it is free. won't hurt to try.

It can not.

[gingerbee]

option 1 and 3 are my personal fav's.

[grinder]

option 1 yes. My sound system does not favor option 3 very much.

[JD]

Drive didn't come with some OEM copy of PowerDVD? That kind of sucks. I remember whenever I bought DVD drives a while back, they always came with PowerDVD5 or 6.

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by jdrom17

Drive didn't come with some OEM copy of PowerDVD? That kind of sucks. I remember whenever I bought DVD drives a while back, they always came with PowerDVD5 or 6.

LG comes w/ a bunch of bundled crap. My Lite-on BD however did not.

[gn2]

My most recent build with Win7 would only allow WinDVD Pro 2010 to install properly AND playback BD's it uses the Intel X4500HD graphics chipset though, which is likely the restricting item....I've got another Win7 box that allowed ArcSoft TMT3 to install and it works better, using an ATI HD4350 low profile video card...Its a hit and miss proposition to get BD working properly, you are using your time wisely to try different playback options before buying one that ends up not working with your combination of hardware and operating system...

I didn't try PowerDVD because it is the one software company that is actively pursuing breaking different playback options in order to please the DRM idiots...

[biff]

I have TMT and it works just fine & integrates nicely with VMC... Don't know about win7 though. Also getting into putting BD onto HDD via Lowfat's guide and that works too, though I haven't set up a media center front end to play nice with it.

I really don't know a hell of a lot about this so I may be talking out of my ass here but I've heard of a lot of issues particularly with sound as (I think by law) the software has to look for hardware that is copy protection compliant which has caused some people some issues. I use a mobo that was specifically designed for HT use (Asus P5E-VM HDMI) supporting HD audio and video with a 4670HD (using the HDMI) vid card and on-board digital co-ax out for audio so maybe that has spared me any of the troubles.