BluRay Player

[SirGCal]

Anyone know of a fully capable Blu-Ray player for the nix familys? Some sort of PowerDVD equivalent for the Linux/UNIX world? With full bitstreaming capability?

 

[Praetor]

I don't think there is one yet. We can rip, stream or play many (most?) movies straight off the discs, but the menus and full-featured support is still lacking.

 

[SirGCal]

Ya, I have four HTPCs in the house and a (soon to be) 12TB file server holding my very large (yes, all mine, legal) movie collection and want to tell Micro-shaft to (insert your favorite derogatory remark here). The server will be running CentOS once I finally get the RAID 6 card for it but right now the rest have to run the-Wind-blows to handle PowerDVD for my blu-rays.

 

[Praetor]

The day we get a full featured bluray player, I'll jump for joy, but it'll be a while. Remember the css issues from way back? Linux only recently received a fully supported and legal solution in Fluendo's dvd player. Granted, we've been able to playback dvd's using mplayer, xine, VLC, etc, but that's been somewhat questionable due to patents.

Open source solutions are being worked on, like dvd before. libbluray is being incorporated for the file system structure and libaacs handles the decryption. I don't think codec support is an issue anymore thanks to ffmpeg. AFAIK, the focus is on those two with the menus and the rest being a secondary.

Otherwise, we have the (perpetual) beta of MakeMKV to rip or stream the discs. It works if all you want is to play the movie.

Out of curiousity, what are you planning on using for frontend software on your HTPC? XBMC, MythTV or ...?

 

[SirGCal]

The day we get a full featured bluray player, I'll jump for joy, but it'll be a while. Remember the css issues from way back? Linux only recently received a fully supported and legal solution in Fluendo's dvd player. Granted, we've been able to playback dvd's using mplayer, xine, VLC, etc, but that's been somewhat questionable due to patents.

Open source solutions are being worked on, like dvd before. libbluray is being incorporated for the file system structure and libaacs handles the decryption. I don't think codec support is an issue anymore thanks to ffmpeg. AFAIK, the focus is on those two with the menus and the rest being a secondary.

Otherwise, we have the (perpetual) beta of MakeMKV to rip or stream the discs. It works if all you want is to play the movie.

Out of curiousity, what are you planning on using for frontend software on your HTPC? XBMC, MythTV or ...?

Depends when/where the software comes into play and what supports what. Right now it could go any way... Unfortunately right now I'm furced to windows... Yuck.

 

[KeypoX]

Depends when/where the software comes into play and what supports what. Right now it could go any way... Unfortunately right now I'm furced to windows... Yuck.

why do you hate windows so much if its the only OS that actually can do everything you want?

 

[SirGCal]

why do you hate windows so much if its the only OS that actually can do everything you want?

Cause it cost way too darn much for the home users. Simple as that. It's composed almost 30% of the last few HTPCs at their insane even OEM pricetag. And actually it's not the only OS that can do everything I want. Mac does it also very well infact. And I use those also. I happen to have MS licesnses sitting around but it is the principal of the thing. Plus, I much much more prefer linux/unix anyhow. If I had to pay for the OSs myself, I would have gone OSx for sure. Anyone can get a fully legal copy of OSx for $10... A very respectable price for a home end-user OS. Especially when that's not where their money comes from (Companies like Microsoft make their $ in the business market, not the home market). I would have no problem with Microsoft if it was priced more respectably...

 

[m0deth]

Cause it cost way too darn much for the home users. Simple as that. It's composed almost 30% of the last few HTPCs at their insane even OEM pricetag. And actually it's not the only OS that can do everything I want. Mac does it also very well infact. And I use those also. I happen to have MS licesnses sitting around but it is the principal of the thing. Plus, I much much more prefer linux/unix anyhow. If I had to pay for the OSs myself, I would have gone OSx for sure. Anyone can get a fully legal copy of OSx for $10... A very respectable price for a home end-user OS. Especially when that's not where their money comes from (Companies like Microsoft make their $ in the business market, not the home market). I would have no problem with Microsoft if it was priced more respectably...

Wait, I'm confused, so it cost you $200+- bucks in parts to build your HTPCs?
I get this based off your 30% quote and the OEM pack cost of Win7x64 @ Newegg for $99.

If so...I'd be more worried about hardware inadequacy than the OS. I run multiple OSs at home here, and they do what I want them to, but after much fiddling, fighting, patching, loading of dubious software on *nix for a HTPC setup...I fell back to XBMC on Win7 because the combo does what I want it to. So far, nothing else has, close, but no cigar. I even found the Linux/Live ports of XBMC to be nothing but a bug riddled pain in the butt.

This said however, everything not needed for it's function has been stripped from my HTPC box, she now boots faster, runs cleaner than ever before, and I have it boot straight into XBMC so the WAF factor is high.

It can be done well with windows, but much like linux, it takes some effort to shovel past the bs.

 

[SirGCal]

Yes, it's quite easy to build a fully capable HTPC for ~ $200-300 bills, no problem. There is no hardware inadequacy what-so-ever. They all work wonderfully. Even the cheapest one I've built plays full Blu-Ray media without a problem what-so-ever. Not even using a quarter of the CPU. The problem with cost in a Windows HTPC is entirely the software. It can cost more than the hardware... (Win7 + PDVD would be $200 right there...)

I also run multiple OSs, my file server is Linux. I have some OSx systems too. (I have way too many computers...) I just don't like fueling the MS $ pit. My HTPCs were Linux until blu-rays won out.

 

[Binky]

I agree 100% that blu-ray software seems hideously overpriced at $60-$100 per copy, but the price of Windows7 seems pretty reasonable at $40 (family pack) to $100 per license. For a blu-ray equipped HTPC there really is no other choice right now.

 

[SirGCal]

I agree 100% that blu-ray software seems hideously overpriced at $60-$100 per copy, but the price of Windows7 seems pretty reasonable at $40 (family pack) to $100 per license. For a blu-ray equipped HTPC there really is no other choice right now.

$40 for three licenses total and done would be reasonable.. Not $40 for upgrade-only software. $100 per license is ludicrous. But that's the problem. There's no good alternative for Blu-Rays ATM...