Blu-Ray Blog
What To Look For In Blu-ray Player Software
If you have been wishing to upgrade your PC so that you can watch Blu-ray movies, you would have been wondering about player software and what to look for in Blu-ray player software.
As you know, Blue-ray is the latest in high definition players with the discs being able to store 25 GB (for one side) to 50 GB (two sided) of data. This means, the movies released on Blu-ray discs can be high definition (1080p) movies which look almost as good as the movie cinema version. Even 3D movies can be watched on your PC provided you have the required system specifications such as graphics card, HDMI cable, HD display, and of course BD-ROM drive.
Considering that you have all these, what do you need in the Blu-ray player software?
- Playback Speed. Your blu-ray player and graphics card is of no use to you if your software doesn’t support the playback speeds required by the movie disc. Choose one which offers the best speed.
- Blu-ray 3D. Blu-ray 3D movies are being released. Think how awful it would be if you have Blu-ray player and software but still can’t enjoy the 3 dimensional effect. Your software would be better if it can support the 3-D format.
- Audio. Though most of the times video play back won’t be a problem for the software, the audio quality might be. Hence do check that it has high definition audio support (such as HDMI 1.3 or higher).
- Backward Compatible. The existence of HD discs does not mean that DVD’s and video CD’s are done with. You would want to make sure the software plays the older discs and formats.
- BD-Live and Bonus View. If the software supports BD-Live and Bonus view, you could get on the internet for chats with director, downloadable games etc.
- Regular Automatic Updates. The software companies keep releasing software patches and updates for your software which make the software better. Sometimes, your software won’t play a particular movie because the software was not updated. It would be helpful if the Blu-ray player software that you have regularly checks for updates and does the update automatically, so that you don’t have to manually go the website and download the update, which is a tedious job.
- Auto Play. It would also help if the software opens on its own when you play the disc. While this is not a necessity, it is useful. Most software does that, but some do not.
While the player software that came with your Blu-ray drive may have some of these features, not all the features that are in a full blown software version is available in them. Hence a better option is often to buy software from third party companies.
