Bluray Drive.

Big_Graeme

googler wrote: »

Any time I've replaced a CD or DVD drive, it's just been a physical replacement, and it works immediately. I've never installed any suites of software, or specific drivers.

You need some software to play Blu-Ray video disks though, there are some propriety codecs that are needed and these are not freeware.

googler

Big_Graeme wrote: »

You need some software to play Blu-Ray video disks though, there are some propriety codecs that are needed and these are not freeware.

Fair nuff. I upgraded at least two CD-ROM only to DVD writers, and a brace of other swaps ....

Nilrem

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Nero 2015 Classic says Bluray on the front of the box and, on the back, it says "Play and Stream All of Your Media".

The actual product page however states

Nero_15_Classic_Play_Everything wrote:

Play Everything with Nero Media Home

All inclusive: Do you have a party video on your mobile phone? Vacation videos from your AVCHD digital camera? Your favorite HD movie? Or the latest music CD from your favorite band? We’ll play everything: Nero 2015 supports virtually any playback format, giving you total freedom to play it all straight through one interface. Play any file, be it video, photo, audio, music playlist, slideshow, DVD-Video™ or audio discs. Just double-click on virtually any format, sit back and enjoy.

Whilst the Platinum version states

Ner0_15_Platinum_playback_info wrote:

All inclusive: Do you have a party video on your mobile phone? Vacation videos from your AVCHD digital camera? Your favorite HD movie on Blu-ray Disc? Or the latest music CD from your favorite band? We’ll play everything: Nero 2015 Platinum supports virtually any playback format, giving you total freedom to play it all straight through one interface. Play any file, be it video, photo, audio, music playlist, slideshow, DVD-Video™ or audio discs. Just double-click on virtually any format, sit back and enjoy. Even play back Ultra HD video (4K) and Blu-rays Discs ™ right within Nero MediaHome to transform your laptop or PC into the ultimate home theatre machine.

The difference seems to be that Classic only includes DVD playback but includes the actual codecs for HD formats, whilst Platinum includes the ability to play Blu-ray in the format that they are on the disc.

You can for example play an x264 or mpeg4 file from virtually any storage device (in the case of x264 with totally free software), but the moment they get put on a blu-ray disc the software has to use a licensed blu-ray decryption key which requires a payment to the blu-ray consortium.

Classic may work with blu-ray discs, but reading those two descriptions I wouldn't like to bet on it.

[Deleted User]

Nilrem wrote: »

Classic may work with blu-ray discs, but reading those two descriptions I wouldn't like to bet on it.

As I already have Classic installed, it won't cost me anything to find out.