Blu Ray in MCE2005/Vista?

[Decipher]

Hi Guys,

I'm considering buying the upcoming Pioneer BDC-S02 Blu Ray player, and I'm curious to find out other peoples experiences with Blu Ray or HD-DVD in MCE2005 and/or Vista.

Currently my HTPC runs MCE2005, I did try the Vista RC on it for a short while but driver glitches made it unusable, so I was wondering if anyone has managed to use either Blu Ray or HD-DVD on XP MCE 2005?

Also, from the research I've done so far it doesn't look like it's possible to run Blu Ray or HD-DVD through the MCE interface itself, is this the case or is there a hack out there that fixes this issue?

Look forward to your experiences,
Decipher.

[chuffy]

I have had a play with HD-DVD in Vista using the 360 add on ($200) and have got it working very well. You can not as yet use inside the MCE interface but one of the MCE microsofties has posted how to edit the registry to get it to shutdown MCE and open the chosen software for playback. It sort of works but is a bit flakey. I use Power DVD Ultra for playback and Anydvd HD for copy protection removal. I am picking up a new HDCP compliant 8600GT video card today so i do not have to use ANYDVD (Trial ended and not worth US$79 IMO for this one function) Obviously with Blu Ray you have region encoding to deal with as well. As far as picture quality goes i don't think i can get it as good as the Xbox 360 playback. THe image to me looks slightly noisy by comparrison. Also i am running at 1080i.

Geoff

[Decipher]

Thanks for the reply Chuffy.

I also have the 360 HD-DVD player, but as much as it sucks to say it I really don't see HD-DVD coming out on top anymore. Retailers and Rentals all seem to be leaning towards Blu Ray.

I think I may just hold out a bit longer and look at something like the upcoming LG HD-DVD/Blu Ray combo drive, I just don't like the fact that they rumors point to it being released at around US$1000.

[warren13]

Originally Posted by Decipher

Thanks for the reply Chuffy.

I also have the 360 HD-DVD player, but as much as it sucks to say it I really don't see HD-DVD coming out on top anymore. Retailers and Rentals all seem to be leaning towards Blu Ray.

I think I may just hold out a bit longer and look at something like the upcoming LG HD-DVD/Blu Ray combo drive, I just don't like the fact that they rumors point to it being released at around US$1000.

Yes, retailers here are stocking more BluRay but not so sure BluRay is winning, in some markets around the world and they may co-exist such as as DVD-R and DVD+R and DVDRAM etc.. America is BluRay happy but Europe is more HD-DVD, as for types I think Porn industry say HD-DVD, Studios were originally BluRay as Sony thing..but some are picking up HD-DVD now, Independent and China I believe wil like HD-DVD as it is cheaper to produce.

HD-DVD is being relaunched soon so having both will probably be worth it unless we all get 48M internet links in the near future...unlikely...but it all comes down to content and cost in the end, one of which will expand dor both (in the short term) and the other which will come down for both probably quicker, but depends of course on early adopters like yourself.

warren13

[warren13]

Originally Posted by chuffy

I have had a play with HD-DVD in Vista using the 360 add on ($200) and have got it working very well. You can not as yet use inside the MCE interface but one of the MCE microsofties has posted how to edit the registry to get it to shutdown MCE and open the chosen software for playback.

Do you have this article?

[chuffy]

I saw it here on this page

http://blog.mediacentersandbox.com/H...diaCenter.aspx

Got it to work but not consistantly. Sometimes nothing happens????

Geoff

[TRHR]

Hi there,

I currently run MCE 2005 too, just because I find it more stable and I still use alot of plugins for it.

I don't have a HD DVD drive or Blu-ray, but as a test I created a new menu item on the main MCE menu called" Play HD Movie" and then I used Gamelauncher to launch PowerDVD Ultra, worked great.

I'll find the code to add the item to the menu, but it's also on the a blog somewhere, and the Gamelauncher stuff is on a thread here.

Cheers, hope that helps.