what options do I have to play a bluray disc on win 7
Sfariah D
Posts: 26,250
I have a bluray writer in my computer. I am doing a trial of Netflix dvds and blurays. I put in a bluray disk that I just got yesterday. The program HP gave me will not play the bluray disk. What are my options to play the bluray disks that will not play with the HP program. Preferably free or free trial.
Thank you!
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this one is free, so far I haven't found anything it can't play
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
I'm assuming you have Windows7 on an HP computer with a Blu-Ray writer drive so I'm also assuming that you can at least read & write data (files) to a Blu-Ray disk. But I am sort of surprised that you can't play Blu-Ray disk movies. Was this system brand new? I'm assuming you have WindowsMedia Player on that system but did HP also give you a trial version of some other software that would play Blu-Ray movies? High end machines from HP should include at least a trial app to play movies.
Another thing to consider. Blu-Ray formats are updated quite frequently. Some newer disks may not play on drives that don't have the latest firmware updates. Have you tried other Blu-Ray disks? Have you checked either through HP's update app or Window's update app to make sure you have the latest driver for the Blu-Ray drive?
What apps are on your system that will play any sort of CD/DVD type of disk?
However, I have no direct experience with Blu-Ray drives on a computer. I'm just surprised that there wasn't some way to at least tease you by giving you a trial version of Blu-Ray movie player app. But considering the skinflint ways that companies cut corners now days. I guess I should expect these types of omissons.
Edited to add:
When you insert the Blu-Ray disk do you get a pop-up dialog asking which app you want to play the disk with? Or does it just automatically start playing with WindowsMedia Player (which may not be capable of playing Blu-Ray)? If you don't get a pop-up dialog you could examine your START menu ALL PROGRAMS list to see if you can find another installed app that plays movies.
I got the computer in 2010. It is the the disk player that I got with the machine.
There is a program that plays DVDs and BluRays. It just cannot play the two blurays disks I am renting from Netflix.
I can play a bluray named New Moon but I cannot play the first two bluray discs of Dexter sixth season.
Ah! Are there other Blu-Ray disks in the Dexter season that it can play? If so then you may have one of these situations:
1) out of date firmware or driver for your Blu-Ray drive (check for updates)
2) poorly written or dirty/scratched disks (try reading the disks on a different device)
3) cheap or defective drive (observe its behavior thoroughly before deciding)
is it zone locked or accidently set to a zone other than your country?
I do not have blue ray but Sony corporation and others tried to impose zone 4 on Australia and Oceana, it was ruled to be against fair trade and most our hardware now is not zone locked (or you can get a hack if it is not firmware, I did for my DVD player, just a combination code using the remote control)
many stores do it for you as it is legal here.
I can play zone 1 discs no worries from the US now that are simply not available in the limited zone 4 catalogue.
I got my Avatar bluray and DVD out of the trunk of my car. I tried the bluray version of that movie and it works.
I cannot try the Dexter blurays in another device as there is no other device to try it in. The TV downstairs has DVD but not bluray. I do not think anyone has a bluray player for me to barrow to test blurays on.
I called Netflix and they suggest updating my firmware. I do not know how to do that. I tried updating it via device manager but it said that it is up to date.
I found a trial version of a program that plays dvds and blurays. I am now watching Dexter. Probably not a good thing to watch before going to bed. People get killed in this show. This episode had a graphic scene of a body cut into pieces.
OK, so the fact that you have been able to read your "Dexter" disks (*cool!*) means that your Blu-Ray drive hardware can sucessfully get the data stream from the disk, and the drive's firmware is capable of decoding the data stream, so that leaves the player app as the primary suspect. It is either deficient, or needs updating. Getting another app solved the problem, but you might want to check into the possibility of downloading an update for whatever app it was that you were using originally.