BD drive - a waste of money?

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aucklander

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#83463 17-May-2011 08:48

Hi all,
I have the HTPC working satisfactory, but I decided to add a BD drive to get advantage of some BD disks I will get in the next months (2-mths Fatso free membership through TreatMe offer).

The short story is that I could not get anything from it (DVDs play just fine, and they used to work fine with the old DVD drive I had). Furter reading revealed that you cannot watch BD with Media Portal??? You have to (basically) close MP and use PowerDVD? Then you have no remote control (I have a wireless keyboard myself, but this is not the point).

Looks like it was VERY poor decision to get a BD drive (approx $100) instead of a stand-alone BD player for around $150 off TradeMe. At least then you have remotes for everything and you do not have to use keyboard...

I tried PowerDVD which was already installed on the system and that did not work either. I was reluctant to install the software supplied with the BD drive as this might mess up the codecs already in place for MP?

any ideas or advice will be highly appreciated.
I have to admit I did not spend a lot on trying to fiddle with the settings, I just plugged it in this morning and expected to work. Such a dreamer, eh...?

Thank you.

mobo Intel DH55PJ, RAM: 4GB RAM, Nova-T 500 HD + Avermedia Trinity tuner card, Geforce 520 video, 120GB SSD Sandisk + 640 WD + 1000SG, Win7 Home Prem 64-bit, Media Portal 1.15.0; BTC 9019URF Cordless Keyboard, Panasonic 55" (HDMI cable), HTPC Case Silverstone Grandia GD05B.

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#469958 17-May-2011 08:51

Sounds like it might be DVD region locked as most DVD drives for PC are

in XP or Windows 7, go into Device Manager, double click the blu-ray drive and then choose DVD region

Change to New Zealand(region 4) and try your dvds

What is the model number? as there might be a way to unlock the dvd with a custom firmware. But yeah that is the risk of using a HTPC over a blu-ray/standalone dvd player. Most standalone players just require a quick code entered into the remote to unlock them

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

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davidcole

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#469973 17-May-2011 09:21

You;'d probably have more joy to rip the BD to hard drive, and then with the proper codecs installed MediaPortal is most likely to play the raw m2ts files.

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jjnz1

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#469976 17-May-2011 09:30

vinnieg: Sounds like it might be DVD region locked as most DVD drives for PC are

in XP or Windows 7, go into Device Manager, double click the blu-ray drive and then choose DVD region

Change to New Zealand(region 4) and try your dvds

What is the model number? as there might be a way to unlock the dvd with a custom firmware. But yeah that is the risk of using a HTPC over a blu-ray/standalone dvd player. Most standalone players just require a quick code entered into the remote to unlock them

Sup VG,

Na its not a locked drive problem, it an open source Bluray codec problem.

An open source (and licence free) Bluray codec is not yet available, hence it can not be used with Mediaportal, XBMC etc. It is only available with specific software like PowerDVD with Bluray which is generally what comes packaged with your drive.

I have a slot loading BD drive installed on my (linux based) XBMC and it to cannot play BD properly. I have installed a hack to enable some discs to play, but all it does is find the biggest file on the disc and try and use the internal player to play it.... a %60 success rate.

We have ben waiting years for someone to release a solution, but until this licence problem is sorted....

So, as of 2011, in order to get a user friendly Bluray solution with a 10 foot user interface, get a standalone BD player. Otherwise crack out the wireless keyboard and mouse.

jjnz1

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#469981 17-May-2011 09:36

davidcole: You;'d probably have more joy to rip the BD to hard drive, and then with the proper codecs installed MediaPortal is most likely to play the raw m2ts files.

What format shifting a copy you don't own? Don't tell anyone ;).

It would also take around 4 hours on an average PC to format shift.

You could also download a 1080p version in 1 hour... As long as you have the disc in your hands, and then you delete it when you return the disc...*

(*I know thats not legal...And I don't condone it either...)

vinnieg

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#469988 17-May-2011 09:47

jjnz1:

Sup bro, whoops yeah, my bad. I didn't see the part where he could play DVDs

Too early in the morning to be thinking straight, haha

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

aucklander

472 posts

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#469996 17-May-2011 10:00

but I should be able to play the BD disks OK through Windows -> Cyberlink PowerDVD (no Media Portal involved at all), correct?

PowerDVD did not launch the movie, it is showing it as Bluray but when press "Play" nothing happens, maybe I need to install the version on the disc supplied with the BD drive?

davidcole

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#469999 17-May-2011 10:06

Yeah you should. I used to have a BD drive (USB one) and was playing BD disks in PowerDVD (version 8 I think it was).

jjnz1

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#470002 17-May-2011 10:08

aucklander: but I should be able to play the BD disks OK through Windows -> Cyberlink PowerDVD (no Media Portal involved at all), correct?

PowerDVD did not launch the movie, it is showing it as Bluray but when press "Play" nothing happens, maybe I need to install the version on the disc supplied with the BD drive?

Powerdvd do a version that doesn't come with a Bluray player, so make sure you check that. The version that comes with your drive will be fine.

gehenna

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#470022 17-May-2011 11:11

jjnz1:

You could also download a 1080p version in 1 hour..

1 hour!? Are you kidding?

mm1352000

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#470108 17-May-2011 14:11

PDVD no play == copy protection problem???

jjnz1

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#470134 17-May-2011 15:07

gehenna:
jjnz1:

You could also download a 1080p version in 1 hour..

1 hour!? Are you kidding?

Nope, an 8GB 1080p MKV (not as good as a 40GB bluray mind you) would take a little over one hour on a adsl2+ connection.

If you wanted full bluray quality, say 14GB, then allow 2 hours. Still faster than format shifting it.

aucklander

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#470148 17-May-2011 15:49

a lot of people do not have this kind traffic allowance.
I am on 25GB/month plan but there are so many plans out there with much less.

Nety

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#470367 18-May-2011 06:23

Not to mention getting your internet cut off ;-) anyway back on topic
You will need a version of PowerDVD that supports bluray playback or just use the software that came with the drive. WARNING the versions that will play Bluray's nicely have locked codecs so that they cannot be used with anything else so if you are using them for another application they do not install a later version.

Personally I use TotalMedia Theatre from Arcsoft. It integrates very nicely with Media Center but I do not know if it is possible to make a nice solution for MediaPortal. Of course it is also not cheap and would well blow the $150 for a stand alone by the time you add it to what you have already spent.

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Deev8

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#470682 18-May-2011 17:51

Nety: You will need a version of PowerDVD that supports bluray playback or just use the software that came with the drive.

I believe that the software usually bundled with BluRay drives will only deliver stereo sound. So if multi-channel sound is important to you, you have to buy the "full unrestricted" version of the software. It certainly works out more expensive than buying one of the cheaper BluRay players.

stevenz

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#470704 18-May-2011 18:41

jjnz1:
gehenna:
jjnz1:

You could also download a 1080p version in 1 hour..

1 hour!? Are you kidding?

Nope, an 8GB 1080p MKV (not as good as a 40GB bluray mind you) would take a little over one hour on a adsl2+ connection.

If you wanted full bluray quality, say 14GB, then allow 2 hours. Still faster than format shifting it.

That equates to around an average of a bit over 2.2MB/second. Not many people would get that over their DSL. Plus 8GB is likely to be a good chunk of most peoples monthly allocation. A good h.264 encoded movie with 5.1 audio should be a good way towards the quality at a filesize of around 2gb for the typical 90-100minute movie.

BluRay on PC is a PITA. Virtually nothing other than PowerDVD supports it as a media player. AnyDVD HD is very expensive if you want to manipulate the data in realtime & "de-region" the drive as a result.

Making it such a closed system helps no-one except the BluRay consortium. I've got a BD drive in my PC, I've hardly used it as it's too much mucking around and IMO PowerDVD is pretty horrible.

@KnightNZ

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