Boxee and Blue Ray drives

**jatkins** · July 21st, 2009, 02:54 PM

I'm new to Boxee and happened to be describing it to somebody and they asked if it can handle Blue Ray drives. By that I assume he was meaning can Boxee access a Blue Ray drive and play a movie in HD on an HD screen.

I know he's had lots of problems playing some Blue Ray movies due to needing firmware upgrades in his player. I also know he's interested in a media PC of some kind so perhaps Boxee and a PC is a way of solving the player firmware problem.

I only have a DVD drive in my PC so can't test. Can anyone tell me how or if Boxee supports Blue Ray and if so do the codecs support most Blue Ray movies? He's using Windows Vista. Perhaps somebody can even recommend a good reader or reader/writer drive.

Thanks,

John.

**Hondo88** · July 21st, 2009, 04:01 PM

I have a Blu-Ray drive in my HTPC that runs Boxee and it's very difficult to get it to play a Blu-Ray disc... at all. There are so many controls (HDCP) that regulate if the disc will play on the TV. Basically, your drive, PC, Video Chip/Card, HDMI connection and display device need to be HDCP compliant. I can only do it with Power DVD software.

The current DVD (Not Blu-Ray) player in Boxee (windows) is broken, but it worked in version 9.9. I suspect it will be fixed in the next release. I also think it will be awhile before Boxee supports Blu-Ray.

Ironically, in version 9.9 when I put a Blu-Ray disc in the drive, Boxee would select "Aint no Sunshine" from my music collection... LOL.

**agentlame** · July 21st, 2009, 04:02 PM

i doubt we will ever see blu-ray support in boxee.

unless sony open-sources bd+, that is.

(you can search the forums for the details)

**Fuzzgtp** · July 21st, 2009, 07:05 PM

Boxee is my BD alternative Oo

**jatkins** · July 24th, 2009, 12:37 AM

Thank you for the replies.

I'll pass on that Boxee doesn't sound like a good choice for Blue ray support.

**pyrohtml** · July 24th, 2009, 10:38 AM

I don't know if this would be a viable option but if you had other DVD software that could handle BR would it be possible to write something that would allow boxee to launch that program? I suppose allowing boxee to launch other software could be a security issue but it would be convenient to have other media software launch from boxee to have everything consolidated.

**foghorn2** · July 24th, 2009, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by pyrohtml

I don't know if this would be a viable option but if you had other DVD software that could handle BR would it be possible to write something that would allow boxee to launch that program? I suppose allowing boxee to launch other software could be a security issue but it would be convenient to have other media software launch from boxee to have everything consolidated.

Boxee on windows should morph itself into a HTPC front end for everything. Its should overtake the windows spashscreen, background, soundeffects, everything and look like and OS from the users prespctive.

Either that or release a universal Linux release that does the same as above.

**pyrohtml** · July 24th, 2009, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by foghorn2

Boxee on windows should morph itself into a HTPC front end for everything. Its should overtake the windows spashscreen, background, soundeffects, everything and look like and OS from the users prespctive.

Either that or release a universal Linux release that does the same as above.

That would be dreamy.

**nalthien** · July 25th, 2009, 09:36 AM

I can verify that assuming you have external means to bypass encryption, Boxee will indeed play the content from Blu Ray discs (though it won't support things like menus, BD-J, etc.) Using something like AnyDVD HD, you can indeed play the .m2ts files that exist on the disc through boxee.

**agentlame** · July 25th, 2009, 10:04 AM

Originally Posted by foghorn2

Boxee on windows should morph itself into a HTPC front end for everything. Its should overtake the windows spashscreen, background, soundeffects, everything and look like and OS from the users prespctive.

Either that or release a universal Linux release that does the same as above.

this can be done in linux; it is actually how i have my neuros link configured.

sadly, ms does not allow OEMs this level of configuration. you can't just boot in to a blank windows system--ie: just running x on linux--also, there is no legal way to modify the windows boot experience for OEMs.

this is equally true of apple hardware/software.