What would you recommend to do in order to get blu-rays to play on a PC??

I built my brothers PC awhile back, and he was dead-set on investing in a blu-ray player for his tower. I recommended he use VLC player to play his blu-rays, because in all my experience on my old machine it pretty much plays any file type, as well as any dvd. He let me know that it wouldn't play most of his blu-rays. He tried looking into it himself, but he couldn't get it figured out so he asked me for help.

I did a little research last night and as far as I can tell VLC won't play blu-rays with strict DRM on them. Unfortunately, many studios have pretty strict DRM, especially the movies he likes. One site recommended that he use a program called "MakeMKV". Another mentioned a few programs you can purchase online, but many people claim those aren't worth it because they still don't work half the time.

He wants me to come over tonight and figure it out, but I work all day so I won't have time to actually look into it hence why I'm posting here. Anyone out there watch blu-rays on their PC's, and if so, how do you do it?? I keep telling him to not worry about it since he has a PS4 and a 4k tv, but he swears he wants to watch movies while he plays his PS4. lol

You know you need a different drive for BlueRays, right?
...a BlueRay-disc wont play in a DVD-player, as much as vinyl will not be playable in a cd-player.

originally posted by: droneonline
You know you need a different drive for BlueRays, right?
...a BlueRay-disc wont play in a DVD-player, as much as vinyl will not be playable in a cd-player.

*ahem*

originally posted by: Necrobile
and he was dead-set on investing in a blu-ray player for his tower.

a reply to: droneonline

He said his brother bought a blu-ray drive 😋

I feel your pain OP. I have a laptop that has a blu ray disc reader yet I tried to play a movie for my son and I could not. I tried everything and had to install something, which was probably, spyware but it worked ok. But I would like to follow this to see if anyone has recommendations as well.

Get the K-Lite Codec Pack.

It brings many library's and a media player. I haven't had a single issue playing bluray movies or files with it.

You may also want to look into methods of extracting the files out of the Blu-ray Disc so that you can play the file directly on your PC than having to read from the disc.

a reply to: Necrobile

Have you tried divx yet? Their codec packs tend to be pretty comprehensive.

If I'm not mistaken.

Most Blu-Ray discs come with some sort of software to play a Blu-Ray on the computer.

Cyberlink PowerDVD is supposed to play Blu-Ray's however it's not free to buy. But check your Blu-Ray drive package. It might have the disc bundled in.

Lifehacker has an article on different ways to watch said discs on the pc.

lifehacker.com...

originally posted by: grey580
Cyberlink PowerDVD is supposed to play Blu-Ray's however it's not free to buy.

I own it and it's pretty good, but rather slow. But that could be due to me acquiring the software through unorthodox methods. I use it in rare instances/occurrences where MPC-HC can't read a file or disc.

I still recommend the K-lite codec pack. It brings Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC). Combined with the codecs, it it does what PowerDVD does without it being slow or all flashy and big. It's also useful for playing music and other forms of media.
www.codecguide.com...

Now I could be mistaken here, but it sounds like a driver issue if some blu-ray discs fail to read completely.
If the drive detects the disc but the files are unplayable, that's a software issue.

Perhaps see if the drive is region locked like certain DVD drives.

Right-click on start, select device manager, find the blu-ray drive in device manager, right-click it and select properties.
The region selection should be in the properties some where.

Also find out if the drives failure to read certain disks means that the drive doesn't detect the disc at all or if the files are visible but there's no software installed that can play them.

originally posted by: Kuroodo
Get the K-Lite Codec Pack.

It brings many library's and a media player. I haven't had a single issue playing bluray movies or files with it.

You may also want to look into methods of extracting the files out of the Blu-ray Disc so that you can play the file directly on your PC than having to read from the disc.

Thanks for this, I'll look more into it once I officially get home from work. I like the fact that they're all .exe files, because it makes it easier to have him do it over the phone rather than me driving all the way across town to do it for him. lol

As for extracting, I know it's a good option available, but I'm not sure I want to go that route with him. It's one of those things where if we go this route, it'll be me doing it all of the time, so I'd rather keep it as simple as possible so he can do it. lol

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Necrobile

Have you tried divx yet? Their codec packs tend to be pretty comprehensive.

I haven't tried divx yet, I'll look into that later on as well. I was hoping to not have to worry about codecs, hence why I loved VLC for so long regarding my dvd's, but I guess it was inevitable. XD

To answer your question, GreenGunther, I don't know if it's a driver issue. The blu-ray drive does actually see the discs, it just won't play a lot of them. It's weird, when I first setup the player for him we tested it out on Back to the Future blu-ray and it worked fine. When it comes to the discs it won't read the drive still sees them, the player just won't play them. I can't remember what the error msg's say, but I believe it could be a codec issue. We'll see tonight.

Thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate it.