dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
uniqs
4

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz to elwoodblues

MVM

to elwoodblues

Re: Hard Drive Deals

They're not all that expensive in general. They start at about $80. Newegg has an LG unit on sale for 16% off ($95 -> $80) that has better specs than the non-sale $80 units.

Caution: Bluray burners do not typically come with bluray playback software. Such software (like WinDVD or PowerDVD) normally sells for $80 itself, although WinDVD Pro 11 is currently on sale for $50.

Another caution: Windows 8 is currently incompatible with all Bluray playback software from any company. Windows 8 can only play DVDs regardless of what software you have.
vue666 (banned)
Let's make Canchat better!!!
join:2007-12-07

vue666 (banned)

Member

I'm more interested in burning data to Blu-ray - ie: photos, digital paintings, 3D readings that I have created... instead of multiple dvds...

Thane_Bitter
Inquire within
Premium Member
join:2005-01-20

Thane_Bitter to Guspaz

Premium Member

to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:

Another caution: Windows 8 is currently incompatible with all Bluray playback software from any company. Windows 8 can only play DVDs regardless of what software you have.

Ha, they still must be sore over selecting the HD-DVD format for their xbox360, then buying back all those unwanted units.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

said by Thane_Bitter:

said by Guspaz:

Another caution: Windows 8 is currently incompatible with all Bluray playback software from any company. Windows 8 can only play DVDs regardless of what software you have.

Ha, they still must be sore over selecting the HD-DVD format for their xbox360, then buying back all those unwanted units.

No it's because they don't want to license it from Sony.
Lots of third party apps out there, in fact VLC just go an update to 2.04 this morning and is supposed to play BR (they say experimental) but I need to try it still.

Of course if you know where to look There is total media theatre which plays BR discs/images beautifully with menus.

Guspaz
Guspaz
MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC

Guspaz

MVM

It has nothing to do with Sony or HD-DVD. It's simply that Microsoft changed the APIs sufficiently to break WinDVD and PowerDVD, and neither Corel nor Cyberlink have bothered to update their software yet, despite over a year of warning. They'll probably try to sell it to us as an upgrade.

VLC's bluray support is not all that useful. Even if the experimental bluray decoding/demuxing/menu stuff works properly, it can't properly decrypt stuff all by itself (IIRC they have limited de-AACS support if you give it a list of the keys, but no BD+ support), which means you have to pay for AnyDVD HD, which at ~$155 CAD is far more expensive than commercial BluRay playback software (which tends to be eternally on sale for $40-50, or $90 if not).

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

To be fair Guspaz, I'm confidently say that most people won't be playing commercial BR discs on their PC.

If that is indeed the case, I'm pretty sure most of us know where to obtain BR discs unprotected if necessary.