Octopus Overlords

How are PC-based Blu-Ray drives these days compared to, say, a PS4 BluRay player? Do they have all the necessary features? Do they require special premium software the way early DVD drives do, or can you just watch in something like VLC/MPC? Is there any reason to choose a console/dedicated BluRay player over a PC drive?

I would think that you still need software to decode/play blu-ray discs. I don't think that has anything to do with the drive (although the drive might come bundled with it).

Leawo player + AACS updater works great for me (both free). VLC player will work too - I haven't used it in a while for blu-rays but they've been improving it.

Ok, thanks. It would be really beneficial to be able to use our media PC to watch BluRays, but I didn't want to invest in a drive only to find out that it requires some proprietary licensed decoding software that costs $70 to use.

Wouldn't you want to just rip all the movies and put them on your media PC storage? You wouldn't need a player for that. That way all your movies are accessible from one place and you don't have to worry about handling discs ever again.

gameoverman wrote:Wouldn't you want to just rip all the movies and put them on your media PC storage? You wouldn't need a player for that. That way all your movies are accessible from one place and you don't have to worry about handling discs ever again.

I was going to suggest that, but it seemed like an obvious solution that he must have already considered. Maybe not? I just rip everything and serve it up through Plex.

It isn't a dedicated media PC, it is just the PC we use for all media. It doesn't have anywhere near the storage necessary for full-quality BluRay rips.

Besides, I'm talking about Netflix BluRay rentals here. Not only do I not actually want to own everything I rent, it would be something bad guys do!

I just want to be able to switch between movies and the PC without as much hassle if I need to check something, make use of my headphones, etc.

Blackhawk wrote:It isn't a dedicated media PC, it is just the PC we use for all media. It doesn't have anywhere near the storage necessary for full-quality BluRay rips.

Fair enough. I don't bother doing full-quality BluRay rips. I rip them and the encode them down to 720p to stream them. I have about 200 movies and about 1200 episodes of TV ripped (a ton of DVDs in there to be fair), and it's only about 800GB so far. Plenty of space on the 4TB external drive for more stuff.

RunningMn9 wrote:Fair enough. I don't bother doing full-quality BluRay rips. I rip them and the encode them down to 720p to stream them. I have about 200 movies and about 1200 episodes of TV ripped (a ton of DVDs in there to be fair), and it's only about 800GB so far. Plenty of space on the 4TB external drive for more stuff.

i assume you still watch them from the discs still? or why else compress them to nearly DVD quality... (assuming Blu-Rays are still much more expensive than the DVD versions)

hitbyambulance wrote:i assume you still watch them from the discs still? or why else compress them to nearly DVD quality... (assuming Blu-Rays are still much more expensive than the DVD versions)

Of course not. Why would I rip them, and then watch the discs? I compress them to 720p because 720p is still HD (and is still *significantly* better than DVD) - and because 720p takes up a helluva lot less space. Also, blu-rays are not much more expensive these days. Keep in mind that DVDs are 480p - but that's also a 4:3 format. Since virtually everything I have is widescreen, DVD resolution typically only has 360 lines of actual movie resolution. 720p is a widescreen format, so most blu-rays at 720p use the full display, and the detail is certainly more than adequate.

The drop from 1080p to 720p is the price I must pay to stream everything without having to use discs and without having to have a data center in my house to store it all.

Also, based on the factors here, I decided that the storage savings was more than worth it. I'm old, and generally sit 12 to 14 ft from my 65" TV. That chart tells me that at that distance, with that size TV, the difference between the two is going to be hard to tell.

Also, most of the streaming goes to my tablet. 720p looks great on the tablet. 1080p probably looks better on the tablet, but not enough for me to care, or to use 6 times the storage for each movie.

I can't afford hundreds of movies. I check out 95% of what I watch from Netflix, and only purchase personal copies of those that are particularly special for some reason and that I know I will watch multiple times. That means that what I have doesn't take up that much space (they all fit in one shelf that's about 3' wide by 4' tall, and that's including all of my old DVDs.)

And my living room is small enough that the difference between 720 and 1080 is distinct and noticeable.

Blackhawk wrote:And my living room is small enough that the difference between 720 and 1080 is distinct and noticeable.

Yeah, to each his own. Was merely suggesting some alternatives to deal with the obstacles you put up. You needn't follow those suggestions if you don't want to.