blu ray playback via htpc?

Devrij

Devrij

Devrij

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I have a blu ray ODD, I also have the bits for my htpc (finally pulled the trigger) on the way. I remember powerDVD being one of the few options out there, but is there a way I can play blu ray discs via xbmc, which will be the portal for most of my media?

I've seen a few plugins that act as a workaround, but I really want something that isn't a bodge job. Am I best off just getting PowerDVD or is there a better way?
 
Power DVD is the best but it is expensive
Use the free trial and see if it's worth it

I'm not aware of any other decent ones
They require a paid licence to the group who owns the blu-Ray brand to be able to decrypt the codec or something along those lines which is why there are no free versions available. Ligitimately at least
 
The only way to get XBMC to play BR directly would be to rip each disc to the HDD as an MKV file (Handbrake, DVDFab or AnyDVD-HD).
It really depends if you are always buying a BR, taking it home and immediately playing it. Ripping takes a bit of time, so would not allow immediate playback, but once you have it ripped, it will be in the library for playback whenever, without having to find the disc.
 
El_Watcher said:
The only way to get XBMC to play BR directly would be to rip each disc to the HDD as an MKV file (Handbrake, DVDFab or AnyDVD-HD).
It really depends if you are always buying a BR, taking it home and immediately playing it. Ripping takes a bit of time, so would not allow immediate playback, but once you have it ripped, it will be in the library for playback whenever, without having to find the disc.
Click to expand...

Mainly I just want to get the same quality playback without having 30GB files rapidly clogging up my HDD. For films I don't re-watch often I would rip them to a reasonable compression though (any suggestions on software for this?), but my LOTR/Hobbit discs must be watched at 100% quality :D
 
MonsterMoshi said:
Power DVD is the best but it is expensive
Use the free trial and see if it's worth it
Click to expand...

I wouldnt bother, It's unstable & it wants you to upgrade to the latest version all the time, I Learned my lesson :mad:

Much cheaper to buy a standalone BR player.
 
Unfortunately due to the protection on the discs, most of the open source software will not play blu-rays; I know MediaPortal can play but only if you are using software to decrypt the key on the fly(such as AnyDVD HD) etc and even then its not so good with certain discs.

The only certain way is Windows Media Centre and PowerDVD or one of the other commercial software systems.
 
I tried various flavours of PowerDVD and they did my head in.. 'optional' upgrades.. licence keys that wouldnt work on upgraded versions etc.

Then I discovered Total Media Theather. That combined with AnyDVDHD did everything I wanted. I found a discount code for TMT online so the cost was cheaper than a real BR player.
 
I bought a BR drive when I built my HTPC, quickly discovered it was a pain and bought a standalone BD player for about £50
 
Looks like I won't be binning my old bd player just yet then! I think I used to use TMT years ago when I first bought my BD drive, so I might give that a go.
 
daver said:
I bought a BR drive when I built my HTPC, quickly discovered it was a pain and bought a standalone BD player for about £50
Click to expand...

LOL, found this out too. Wanting to get cozy on the sofa with the GF and watch a film. Boot up HTPC, wait for drive to spool up, wait for player to load, fight with player a bit to get the right sound playback, fight with the PC why it won't play any sounds, faff with the receiver to get it talking to the PC properly. 10 minutes later your ready to rock and GFs fallen asleep. :)
 
EddScott said:
LOL, found this out too. Wanting to get cozy on the sofa with the GF and watch a film. Boot up HTPC, wait for drive to spool up, wait for player to load, fight with player a bit to get the right sound playback, fight with the PC why it won't play any sounds, faff with the receiver to get it talking to the PC properly. 10 minutes later your ready to rock and GFs fallen asleep. :)
Click to expand...

That's why I have an SSD going into the htpc. Turns on and loads faster than my ancient BD player, which often won't read newer discs on the first try.

I really want this to work, so it sounds like anydvdHD + TMT is the way forwards. Hmm, more research to be done!
 
Well, it seems that despite getting everything working, I am still plagued by some stuttering when playing from disc. I've wrestled with this in the past and lost, so I may just give up now rather than going through the torment of installing/uninstalling a million drivers, fiddling with frame rate settings etc. Why must this be so difficult?!
 
Rip everything to hdd

I would also use a standalone if wanted to play from blu ray disk
 
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