I need good Blu Ray play/recording software

[Madmaxneo]

Inexpensive is great free is better!
I recently purchased my first internal Blu Ray multi Drive from LG. Is is a 16 Blu Ray writer/rewriter with dual layer and M-Disc support (not even sure what M-disc is except the discs last a real long time). I was a little upset when i discovered that no matter what I did I would be unable to watch my movies in Windows media player, even after downloading the media player codec pack that supposedly has support for Blu Ray playback.. So I researched some software. I found some free software on these forums but they all had adware/malware that they installed automatically. I found out of the paid programs that Cyberlink Power DVD 14 seemed like a good fit for me. After installing the program I played my Blu Ray version of Star Trek: Into Darkness. The first thing I noticed is a message popped up asking to change my monitor's refresh rate to match the media, I clicked yes and the video got real choppy and was out of sync with the audio. I restarted the software and clicked no when the message came up and the video ran fine at that point, no stutter or anything and the video was real clear (I think it looked better than the Blu Ray Player I have connected to my TV). The audio was another matter. During various intense scenes in the movie when the audio would get loud and the bass effect would rumble I was getting some very bad popping and cracking sounds in my sound system. I at first thought it might be my sound system so I removed the Blu Ray and put in the DVD version and played it in Windows media player with Dolby digital and it sounded great, no popping or cracking. FYI I have a Sound Blaster Zx sound card connected to a Logitech z906 5.1 speaker system via optical cable. I have played various movies at a somewhat high volume and have never experienced the sound problems I had with the cyberlink software. I sent an email to their customer support and perused their forums and their support is not that great after going through the forums, many problems remain unanswered after months from the original post.

So, is there any really good software that will work with my LG Blu Ray player other than the Power DVD 14?
Remember, Inexpensive is great free is better! But no matter what I need software that will allow me to use my Blu Ray player to the best of it's capabilities.
Bruce

 

[Martell1977]

I ran into the same issue when I bought my ASUS bluray burner. I could make blurays but not watch them. I ended up buying Nero2014 Platinum:
http/www.amazon.com/Nero-AMER-12240000-569-2014-Platinum/dp/B00FB5R4L2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405745317&sr=8-1&keywords=nero+2014+platinum

At the time Amazon had it for $29.99, but it seems to have gone up since then. Maybe you can find it cheaper elsewhere, but be sure its the platinum version, the lesser versions do not have bluray playback.

 

[Madmaxneo]

Cool, I will look and see if they have a trial version. Maybe Newegg will offer a software discount with this title soon. I installed the corel winDVD pro trial and it at least works for watching the movie. Oddly enough even VLC will not let the Blu Ray movies play, this is the first time that VLC as a player has let me down.

 

[Martell1977]

Cool, I will look and see if they have a trial version. Maybe Newegg will offer a software discount with this title soon. I installed the corel winDVD pro trial and it at least works for watching the movie. Oddly enough even VLC will not let the Blu Ray movies play, this is the first time that VLC as a player has let me down.

Might be a codec licensing issue. Sony is keeping a tight grip on the patent.

 

[Madmaxneo]

Now I am having problems playing half of my music files. Something may have changed when I installed and uninstalled the power DVD, or it might be the codec pack I installed for media player... The codec pack claimed that with the codecs I could play Blu Ray movies in media player.....
Some songs play and some don't, I have no idea why only some of the songs don't play, they are all the same format!
Now I need to figure out how to fix this.

 

[TE5LA]

I've had no problem playing Blu-ray on VLC Player (no additional modifications) and Daum Potplayer (nicer interface). Both are free and both play Blu-rays. The only problem I've run into is finding a player that supports the menus.

 

[Madmaxneo]

I've had no problem playing Blu-ray on VLC Player (no additional modifications) and Daum Potplayer (nicer interface). Both are free and both play Blu-rays. The only problem I've run into is finding a player that supports the menus.

I tried VLC and it didn't work originally. But I ended up purchasing Nero 2014 platinum for a great discount, it plays Blu Rays and has the extra recording stuff I needed any way. I haven't tried running a Blu Ray in VLC in awhile, not since the last update at least. I wonder if there was a fix in that to run Blu Rays now...

 

[TE5LA]

I tried VLC and it didn't work originally. But I ended up purchasing Nero 2014 platinum for a great discount, it plays Blu Rays and has the extra recording stuff I needed any way. I haven't tried running a Blu Ray in VLC in awhile, not since the last update at least. I wonder if there was a fix in that to run Blu Rays now...

Well, I found the (probably) best player, but it isn't free: CyberLink PowerDVD 14. It's the only one I've seen so far that plays Blu-rays with the menus intact and you can skip back and forth in the movie's timeline without issues, at least for me. I needed this capability because I'm making Battlestar Galactica files from my Blu-ray set for my media center. The only way to know what episode you're ripping is to start an episode from the menu and match it up because Blu-ray files aren't in any logical order or naming convention and the episode's title is not included in the show. I would start the episode, then load one of the ripped files into another player, align the time count and see if they matched up. Tedious but it worked out great.

The other player I used was Zoom Player. It's great and has a free version if all you need to do is watch Blu-rays. Another good free one is Daum Potplayer.

By the way, Wal-Mart has PowerDVD 14 Standard listed for $41.

 

[Madmaxneo]

I tried VLC and it didn't work originally. But I ended up purchasing Nero 2014 platinum for a great discount, it plays Blu Rays and has the extra recording stuff I needed any way. I haven't tried running a Blu Ray in VLC in awhile, not since the last update at least. I wonder if there was a fix in that to run Blu Rays now...

Well, I found the (probably) best player, but it isn't free: CyberLink PowerDVD 14. It's the only one I've seen so far that plays Blu-rays with the menus intact and you can skip back and forth in the movie's timeline without issues, at least for me. I needed this capability because I'm making Battlestar Galactica files from my Blu-ray set for my media center. The only way to know what episode you're ripping is to start an episode from the menu and match it up because Blu-ray files aren't in any logical order or naming convention and the episode's title is not included in the show. I would start the episode, then load one of the ripped files into another player, align the time count and see if they matched up. Tedious but it worked out great.

The other player I used was Zoom Player. It's great and has a free version if all you need to do is watch Blu-rays. Another good free one is Daum Potplayer.

By the way, Wal-Mart has PowerDVD 14 Standard listed for $41.

Yeah I tried the cyberlink power DVD14, and it didn't work all that great, sound and video were way out of sync. Not to forget that it messed up the codecs for my windows media player and I had to install a special set of codecs to get all music to play again. Like I said I got Nero platinum 2014 for like $30 and it is one of the top rated (if not the best).

 

[TE5LA]

Sync is perfect with my PowerDVD. Probably has to do with codecs. They can get messed up by other programs adding them or breaking them. Never liked Nero products, personally, but whatever works best for each individual is the best. All we can do is give people our experiences.