Hi Guys I've recently aquired quite a few blu rays as gifts and now need a method of playback. I use my PC as my main entertainment hub so don't want a player. Could any of you fine people direct me to the best affordable internal (or external) BD drive. Budget is probably max £60 as chrimbo is round the corner. Thanks
That budget will not cover even the software needed to play your BR movies , unless you can find some drive with a bundled player.
BD ROM: http://www.ebuyer.com/194807-lg-ch1...-lightscribe-sata-blu-ray-drive-ch10ls20-auau BD writer: http://www.ebuyer.com/290171-lg-bh1...vd-rw-dl-ram-sata-blu-ray-drive-bh10ls38-auar Edit: Retail driver with software (I think) http://www.ebuyer.com/240172-samsun...-lightscribe-sata-optical-drive-sh-b123l-rsbp
Yeah, it seems that Samsung drive has Power DVD bundled, the only issue is the Power DVD support... Something like this : http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=21159718#post21159718
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/samsung-sh-b123l-rsbp-12x-bd-rom-and-dvdrw-combo-player-retail-box this is pretty good, I've got one and its a good drive, good looking, comes with it's own bundled software, it is a bit loud when it starts playing films/DVDs etc, but that's just initially once the movie's playing it seems to settle down
calling your bluff on that. I'm using an older version without any issues. been watching every new release from blockbuster for the past 2 months.
Ehm ? http://www.cyberlink.com/downloads/support/powerdvd/patches_en_US.html So pretty much every year they expect you to cash out $80 for upgrade. Yes, it says "may not be", but that is wording bad enough, don't you think ?
You might try some of these opions- http://m.lifehacker.com/5806252/how-can-i-play-blu+ray-discs-on-my-computer
I recently bought the Samsung SH-B123L.. costs £44 from BT with £3 delivery . Here for what Faugusztin was referring to. The copy of PowerDVD 9 that came with it works fine, but I only have one Blu-ray so far and that was made pre-June 2011 If you really want to, you can upgrade to PowerDVD 11 for half-price just now (=£26.99). EDIT: Remembered from looking around before buying myself a drive: The compatibilty refers not to playing back blu-rays made after the mentioned date - you will always be able to watch blu-rays - but instead that you may not be able to use all of the new features that have came out since PowerDVD 9 was manufactured.. As in you need PowerDVD 10 to use 3D.
Bought a Plextor PX-B120U for my netbook. £66 and comes with a reduced functionality copy of PowerDVD 9 in the box. Only supports stereo audio but does the job and 1080p playbook is pretty smooth. I've installed the app onto my netbook and gaming rig without problems. It's USB 2.0 powered and only requires one socket. Only downside is that it's a reader only - it can't write to any type of CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
I got power DVD 9 with my Samsung and have been playing the latest Blu Rays with no problems so far. Make sure you patch the software and upgrade the drive firmware (both easy to do). Power DVD have regular upgrade offers to power DVD 11. As TraumaticHug pointed out there is an offer right now for under £30 which is not bad. Power DVD seems to be universally loathed on some forums but I can honestly say it has never given me a problem. I suspect that only blu ray releases that use new features (such as new versions of Blu Ray 3D) will be affected in the future. In any case I have: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/samsung-sh-b123l-rsbp-12x-bd-rom-and-dvdrw-combo-player-retail-box as thetrashcanman says this is very good. Good for me and well reviewed. The Samsung has power DVD9, some other drives only have 8. In addition the Samsung comes with an OEM version of Powerdvd 9 that has multi channel support enabled. Many OEM versions of Blu Ray software do not support multi channel audio. As far as free software to play Blu Ray goes, I would be dubious about this. The Blu Ray codec must be licenced which means free software is probably illegal. I would not trust it not to carry malware (probably it is fine and this is paranoia on my part, but there you go). In addition, if there is one thing to bring instability to your machine it is dodgy codecs. Even worse case, seeing as good quality stand alone Blu Ray players are still quite expensive, the cost of the Samsung and a software update is still pretty fair imo.
I used to play my Blu-rays through PowerDVD but got so fed up I ended up using MakeMKV, which is excellent by the way! Simply RIP films to a single file completely none compressed and use that to playback at my pleasure with VLC Media Player. A special mention to Media Player Classic and CoreAVC which works wonders on my Dell D630, allows me to playback 1080P video including the ultimate laptop killing Avatar (uncompressed!). Although it does need to be connected to the mains for such a monstrous task!
Probably going for this as it's a brilliant price and it comes with software guaranteed to work (I've heard some very bad horror stories about Power DVD and Blu-ray in my research). Thanks Trashcan, have some rep.
