Jim Roots wrote:Also, I noticed that all reviews of Blu-ray players, whether they're computer external drives or TV boxes, say you have to purchase the actual software separately from the player. My response: "?????"
When you buy a blu-ray player/writer for a computer, they are mostly intended as data drives, for example backing up your computer. That is why so many are writers too. So yes, buying a player by itself is usually not enough unless it comes with with software that can decrypt and play the movie stored on the disc.
In short, the studios don't want you to play blu-ray on your computer and the copy protection on the discs was designed to make it intentionally difficult.
That being said, some people use software like AnyDVD HD to play blu-ray on their computer, other people use PowerDVD. I haven't used any of these as I normally rip (and decrypt) my blu-ray movies down with MakeMKV and play the files locally rather than play from the actual discs (note, this can take a LOT of disk space and not something I would recommend for those who aren't very technical.)
Note that whatever software you get, if it doesn't get updated often you may find yourself out of luck with newer discs as encryption standards change until your software updates.
A couple articles on playing blu-ray:
http://lifehacker.com/5806252/how-can-i ... y-computer http://www.extremetech.com/computing/14 ... -windows-8Note that in both articles, the easiest solution for playing blu-ray in Windows, is yes, buying some type of software.