I have a sony laptop and it plays dvd's in WinDVD. All the play
options are greyed out in Windows Media player. If I uninstall WinDVD
can I play blue ray discs in WMP? Would I need drivers? If so, who
sells them?

As long as you have the correct CODEC, sure. Not out of the box, stock
Vista.

PowerDVD Ultra supports HD-DVD and Blu-Ray:
[url]http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_112_ENU.html[/url]

EXPENSIVE, though: $99.95. I'm sure there may be some other software out
there, or in development.

--
Dustin Harper
[email]dharper@vistarip.com[/email]
[url]http://www.vistarip.com[/url] | Vista Resource & Information Page


[email]william.hooper******.com[/email] wrote:[color=blue]
> I have a sony laptop and it plays dvd's in WinDVD. All the play
> options are greyed out in Windows Media player. If I uninstall WinDVD
> can I play blue ray discs in WMP? Would I need drivers? If so, who
> sells them?
>[/color]

you need 2 things for that

- A Blue ray Drive (buyable / installable if not allready installed.)
- A Blue ray Codec (proberly gonna be downloadable soon if not allready)

So basicly yes.

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:50:21 +0200, "Martin Vaupell"
<Eqvaliser@MSN.dk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>you need 2 things for that
>
>- A Blue ray Drive (buyable / installable if not allready installed.)
>- A Blue ray Codec (proberly gonna be downloadable soon if not allready)
>
>So basicly yes.[/color]

Just a suggestion, instead of trying to play a blue ray or any HQ DVD
through your computer directly, much better to have a better quality
computer monitor that has multiple inputs like the Dell Ultra Sharp
series wide screen models, (1920 x 1200) resolution and just plug into
it's input, assuming you get/have a set top DVD player. There is a
series of buttons on these Dell monitors that easily switch between
the input from your PC to a DVD player or some other analog or digital
source. Works great for me. You can even do split screen. It just
makes no sense to pay through the nose for a computer based blue ray,
fight with codecs and driver issues, then watch your system crawl
under the load likely resulting in out of sync audio and dropped
frames, even on upper end systems with tons of memory and a very fast
CPU. Better to just totally bypass the computer, unless you plan on
making your own blue ray discs. For that you need very deep pockets,
true HD DVD Authoring software STARTS at around $9K.

Having spent a while looking, I believe the answer is:
Windows Media Player only supports HD DVD. Even then you need a
special graphics chipset to play protected HD DVD discs. The only
machine in the world playing Blue Ray discs is the Sony VGN AR31S on a
custom build of WinDvd. Even if you go out and buy a blue ray disc
player for your desktop you will currently have no way to play
protected content.

Conclusion Sony screws costumers (sony fanboys) once again ;)
Thank god i dont support sony. (directly or intentionly, i know i do
indirectly.)

oh well..


<william.hooper******.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news:1175022039.965734.318330@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
> Having spent a while looking, I believe the answer is:
> Windows Media Player only supports HD DVD. Even then you need a
> special graphics chipset to play protected HD DVD discs. The only
> machine in the world playing Blue Ray discs is the Sony VGN AR31S on a
> custom build of WinDvd. Even if you go out and buy a blue ray disc
> player for your desktop you will currently have no way to play
> protected content.
>[/color]

For that you need very deep pockets,[color=blue]
> true HD DVD Authoring software STARTS at around $9K.
>[/color]

Completely false. Ulead's MovieFactory ($49) authors both Blu Ray and HD
DVD.

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:39:42 -0700, "Alpha" <none@none> wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> For that you need very deep pockets,[color=green]
>> true HD DVD Authoring software STARTS at around $9K.
>>[/color]
>
>Completely false. Ulead's MovieFactory ($49) authors both Blu Ray and HD
>DVD.[/color]

You don't have a clue what real DVD Authoring is.

"Martin Vaupell" <Eqvaliser@MSN.dk> wrote in message
news:upUleLKcHHA.4808@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> Conclusion Sony screws costumers (sony fanboys) once again ;)
> Thank god i dont support sony. (directly or intentionly, i know i do
> indirectly.)
>
> oh well..[/color]

They are still angry about getting aced out with VHS.
[color=blue]
>
>
> <william.hooper******.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:1175022039.965734.318330@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...[color=green]
>> Having spent a while looking, I believe the answer is:
>> Windows Media Player only supports HD DVD. Even then you need a
>> special graphics chipset to play protected HD DVD discs. The only
>> machine in the world playing Blue Ray discs is the Sony VGN AR31S on a
>> custom build of WinDvd. Even if you go out and buy a blue ray disc
>> player for your desktop you will currently have no way to play
>> protected content.
>>[/color]
>[/color]

I tried that PowerDVD trial but it didn't play blue ray. Maybe the
full version does but I like to try before I buy. Shame

On 29 Mar 2007 13:41:04 -0700, [email]william.hooper******.com[/email] wrote:
[color=blue]
>I tried that PowerDVD trial but it didn't play blue ray. Maybe the
>full version does but I like to try before I buy. Shame[/color]

I would advise against it. The whole point is to play such movies full
screen, if you do, expect frame drop out and stuttering and audio sync
errors even on very high end systems. I got a buddy that build a
system he overclocked to 3.4 Ghz and trying to play back HQ HD at full
screen the results are disappointing. If you shrink down whatever
player you use to maybe half size or less then ok, but doesn't that
defeat the purpose?