Play Blu-ray's on windows 8.1 HTPC

[AltSean]

Any Suggestion on software to use with my HTPC build using a ASUS Blu-ray player.

[thekeemo]

The Default Method: Blu-ray Software

The only officially supported way to play Blu-rays on Windows is to, as you say, use a commercial program like CyberLink PowerDVD. Usually this retails for around $50. However, if your computer came with a Blu-ray drive, you should already have some sort of Blu-ray-capable software on your computer. Very few manufacturers will ship a computer with a Blu-ray drive without including compatible software. Check to see if a software Blu-ray player came pre-installed on your system that you just didn't know about. If you've reinstalled a clean copy of Windows, you'll either have to reinstall it from your computer's recovery DVDs, or use one of the methods below.

If your computer didn't come with a Blu-ray drive and you added it yourself, the drive should have come with a CD that includes something like PowerDVD on it. I always, alwaysrecommend keeping the CDs that come with your computers and hardware just in case they contain important things you need later. If you threw it away by accident, you'll either have to buy the software anew or use one of the more complicated methods below.

The Easy Method: Watch Your Movie in 30 Minutes using VLC

The easiest way to watch Blu-rays without commercial software is to use a program calledMakeMKV to rip the movie, and then watch it using VLC. To do this:

1. Install MakeMKV as described in our original Blu-ray how-to.

Insert your Blu-ray disc. Make sure you have enough space on your drive (depending on the disc, this could be up to 50 GB).

Fire up MakeMKV and head to File > Open Disc and choose your Blu-ray drive. MakeMKV will open the disc, and then present you with the titles on the disc. Hit the MakeMKV button and your movie should start ripping.

When it's done, just double click on the resulting file and it will play in VLC.

This is definitely the easiest way to watch your Blu-ray movies, but you'll have to wait for the movie to rip. It shouldn't take long, so as long as you plan ahead at least a half hour, this is definitely the method to go with.

The Complicated Method: Watch Your Movie Now with XBMC

Alternatively, the XBMC media center software has a Blu-ray plugin that works similarly to the above. You'll still need MakeMKV, but it's pretty easy to set up:

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1. Install MakeMKV as described in our original Blu-ray how-to.

Install the Blu-ray plugin as described in our feature on plugins in XBMC 10.

Insert your Blu-ray disc. Make sure you have enough space on your drive (depending on the disc, this could be up to 50 GB).

Open up XBMC and go to Videos > Video Add-Ons > BluRay Player with MakeMKV. From there you should be able to play the main movie on the disc. It might take a few moments to buffer, but I've found that it works pretty well.

That's it! Whenever you want to watch a Blu-ray movie, you should be able to just open up XBMC and fire up the Blu-ray plugin to watch your movie. It should stream pretty nicely, but note that streaming is an experimental feature of MakeMKV, so you might have a buffering issue once in a while. In my experience I've found it to work quite well, though.

Note that if you'd prefer not to use XBMC, you can also stream Blu-rays from MakeMKV to VLC as described here. I chose to feature the XBMC method since it only requires manual work the first time you do it, after which it becomes easy, while the VLC method requires you to manually set up the stream every time.

As you can see, the licensing issues surrounding Blu-ray make it a bit more difficult to play them on your computer than DVDs. Hopefully, though, one of these methods works for your needs, and will help you watch those high definition movies on your computer or home theater PC.

[AltSean]

wow that was fast. thanks

[AltSean]

eh bought the asus 12x Blu-ray Writer for 29.99 AR during black friday. only came with Power 2 Go 8 CD/DVD/ burner

[dalekphalm]

Any Suggestion on software to use with my HTPC build using a ASUS Blu-ray player.

If you want actual playback software, I highly recommend:

Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. I bought version 6 on sale for 50% off not that long ago. They have sales all the time. It's by far the best Blu-Ray playback software I've ever used. Some people will just say use VLC, but the compatibility is awful for VLC, with many many movies not supported.

 

If you want to rip them to your HDD to store and Stream as you desire, then I also recommend MakeMKV.

 

I do not recommend using @thekeemo's method unless you wish to permanently store the movie after ripping if. Ripping a movie just to watch it once and then delete it is a colossal waste of your time, and adds in many unnecessary steps. If all you want to do is pop the disc in the drive and watch the movie, then just buy good playback software such as TotalMedia.

 

I don't recommend Cyberlink myself, but it's not that bad. I just find TotalMedia is much better.

[revl8er]

Either use Cyberlinke PowerDVD or TotalMedia player.  Both work great so whichever you can find cheaper. 

[syntaxgeek]

You can alternatively use AnyDVD HD and XBMC together, way simpler and doesn't require any ripping to actually happen.

 

I've been using this combo for years and it's extremely seamless, pop in the bluray, let AnyDVD HD scan the disc and remove protection and then XBMC will automatically start to play the main movie title found on the disc.