Blue-Ray and HTPC / GB-PVR

[McBainUK]

I'm considering buying a new TV () and I'd like to eventually watch HD movies on it via Blue-Ray.

Some questions:

• What's the situation regarding Blue-Ray playback on GB-PVR and HTPC's in general?
  
• Can a PC handle all the Blue-Ray features that a standalone player can; for example fancy menus, the BD live thing and so on?
  
• What codecs/software/hardware would I need?
  

[pBS]

using Cyberlink Powerdvd you get pretty much same experience as standalone bluray player..menus,i believe bd-live also..[i never used so not sure]

yesterday i saw a pc bd recorder drive that does 3d! it even upscales your dvd's to 3d! new cyberlink software version...apparently also plays 3d if you have the extra hardware also..
[nvidia 3d glasses for pc]

i would check cyberlink site for latest in state of the art bd playback...
for a free solution, mpchc plays them natively...doubt it has menus tho...it does play movie from an original disk..

personally i just use AnydvdHD to rip the .m2ts and then ffmpeg them down to around 5 gigs .mp4 for storage...i can only barely tell difference...

[BigMoose]

I use whurlston's movie plugin to play Blurays natively in GBPVR (along with AnyDVDHD) - you don't get the menus or anything clever, but it plays the movie fine direct from the disk. Uses the MPC H264 codec or I think I also got it to work with the PDVD one, plus ffdshow for the HD audio streams. I don't think it supports TV show disks though in that it just picks what it thinks is the main feature to show. Also there can be issues with it picking a useless audio track.

[teookie]

Anyone know if there will be native support for bluray in NPVR???

[whurlston]

There is native support for m2ts (provided you have the appropriate decoders installed) but if you mean with menus, no. Given the cost of the licenses involved, it's unlikely to ever support them natively.

I do plan on adding a Bluray plugin that will read the playlists though.

[McBainUK]

So am I right in saying to get Blue Ray to play in my HTPC with menus I'll need a £70ish Blue Ray drive, HDMI cable and "PowerDVD 10 Ultra 3D" which is another £70!? Or I can use the free MPCHC with no menus (and limited remote control support / GB-PVR integration)?

Seems a shame as a £60 standalone Blue-Ray player will do all of it but I'll loose the 5.1 as thats only on the PC speakers.

[whurlston]

You won't loose the 5.1. ffdshow will decode all audio formats with one exception: Only DTS Core gets decoded for DTS-MA. It will however bitstream all formats if you have a receiver and video/audio card that is capable of bitstreaming the HD audio codecs.

You can also use WinDVD or TotalMedia Theatre instead of PDVD if you prefer. I hit a special on WinDVD sometime back where I got it for $39 USD.

[McBainUK]

I've seen PDVD 10 for £55 at Amazon. Googling seems to indicate that this is the best option for BlueRay playback software.

Need to research Blue-Ray drives and HDMI cables now. Getting the TV next week

[imilne]

Some of the drives come with OEM copies of the playback software (mine came with PDVD 7). Chances are some still do, perhaps with more up to date versions too, although 7 still does everything I need, especially as they released a patch to give it full 7.1 audio decoding support making it identical to the retail version.

You might still want to upgrade at a later date, but this would be a good way of testing things, etc, before you splash out yet more cash.

Iain

[BigMoose]

Are either PDVD or WinTV controllable from a remote? I've got the OEM of PDVD7 with my drive too, not that I have it installed... But if it's possible to launch it from GBPVR and control it from the remote then it would be a very handy addition.