Blu-ray Home Theater Systems

Ryland P answers:

Your Blu-Ray drive should have come with software. If not, Cyberlink makes some players.

Ryland P answers:

They usually come with software for that, unless you bought a bare drive. Which I guess you must have.

All the DVD players and my Blu-ray player came with Cryberlink’s software, so I guess I’ll suggest that.

Ryland P answers:

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VLC player can handle it!

Ryland P answers:

This site has updates for many models

http://www.blu-ray.com/firmware/

Otherwise, go to the manufacturer’s site.

You will need to create an update disk using your PC, then load it in the player. The exact details may vary from model to model.

Ryland P answers:

I have used Rip Blu-Ray for a long time. And it meet my desire. This iToolsoft Blu-Ray DVD Ripper helps you share your Blu-Ray and general DVD movie or music on more portable players, like iPod, iPhone, Gphone, Apple TV, PSP/PS3, Xbox, Mobile Phone, Mp3 Player.
So you can download it in http://www.softwarewikipedia.com/index.php/Blu-Ray_Ripper ,and have a try first . If it meet you desire, you can buy it in http://www.softwarewikipedia.com/index.php/Blu-Ray_Rippe. Now you can get a discount from this website!
Hope it can help you! Good luck!

Ryland P answers:

DVDFab Blu-ray Copy is the first full-featured and the most powerful Blu-ray Copy/Burner/Cloner/Decrypter.
DVDFab Blu-ray Copy can remove all known AACS copy protections including the newest MKB v25, all known BD+ copy protections up to 10th generation BD+, Region Code, BD-Live, and UOPs, thus can copy any Blu-ray to your hard drive, or any blank Blu-ray disc with very fast speed. Don’t be surprised that DVDFab Blu-ray Copy even can burn Blu-ray to any blank DVD/AVCHD disc. It will be constantly updated to remove newest protections and work with all Blu-ray burners and Blu-ray discs.
DVDFab Blu-ray Copy makes perfect 1:1 ratio clone, also can compress BD-50 to a single BD-25, BD-9 or BD-5 with fabulous effect. Note that you can clone 3D BD with the same effect like the original disc. During the copying process, when compression is needed, it will remove HD audio (convert Dolby TrueHD to Dolby AC3, convert DTS-HD Master Audio to DTS) to save space for video.
DVDFab Blu-ray Copy has the power to support both NTSC and PAL Blu-ray. There is no need to install a third party driver, since internal UDF 2.50 parser is included to read Blu-ray. It also supports multi-core CPUs, and what’s more, the newest NVIDIA CUDA to ensure a fastest copy speed.
DVDFab Blu-ray Copy really lives up to its reputation as “the most powerful all-in-one Blu-ray copier”.

Ryland P answers:

PS3 games will work on any console bought anywhere around the world. Only Blu-ray Disc Movies are region coded.

Here are the region codes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes

Ryland P answers:

I’d like to recommend this DVD Creator to you. It can convert any videos to High-definition (HD) Blu-ray movies and burn into DVD or Blu-ray Disc. Almost all kinds of videos are supported by HD Movie Maker including WMV, MKV, AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, MP4, QuickTime Movie, Real Video, H.264/AVC, M2TS, etc, which can be coded to the high definition videos and be viewed on Blu-ray players (including Sony PlayStation 3).
You may get it for a try.

Http://sothink-hd-movie-maker.kooksoft.com

Hope it helps. Feel free to email me if you need further help to search more answers.

Ryland P answers:

For this you will need a blue ray player and a blue writer. If you have both of them then pro blue ray writer will help your cause.

Ryland P answers:

The Sony BDP-S350 is a solid player. However, in my opinion the best Blu-ray player (beside the PS3) is the Panasonic DMP-BD35. It’s cnet’s highest rated stand-alone player. Costco has them for $280-$50 coupon=$230. Not bad for the best player out there.

Http://www.blu-ray.com/players/players.php?p=1&id=62&show=specs

http://reviews.cnet.com/video-players-and-recorders/sony-bdp-s350/4505-6463_7-32868775.html

http://www.blu-ray.com/players/players.php?p=1&id=93&show=specs

http://reviews.cnet.com/video-players-and-recorders/panasonic-dmp-bd35/4505-6463_7-33248632.html

I believe the Sony plays more DVD formats, but the Panasonic is able to decode both HD audio formats. The Sony can’t decode DTS-HD MA. Though this doesn’t matter if you don’t or won’t have a home theater system.

That said, the PS3 is still the best player out there in my opinion.

Ryland P answers:

Manufacturers often create firmware updates to fix bugs or add new features, so even if you buy a player with the current firmware, it could be out of date in a few weeks and need a firmware update.
If the player is connected to the internet, then it will tell you when a new firmware update is available and ask you if you want to install it. If you tell it to install the firmware update, it does it automatically – just be sure not to use the player or press any buttons while the update is taking place – in other words, leave it completely alone or it could crash. If it’s not connected to the internet, then the manufacturer will have instructions in the manual about how to get the updates – typically you download them to your computer from the manufacturers website, then save the update on a flash drive, then insert the flash drive into the blu-ray player and let it do the update.

Ryland P answers:

Every BluRay disk is really a computer program. The language is called “BD-Java”. The down-side is the specification was ‘loose’ and newer disks try to take advantage of things that were not well thought out a year ago so some people have problems.

I have not updated my firmware in about 8 months but I have not had problems with any disk so far. Anything you buy today will be updated beyond what I have.

Even if you dont have a ‘good’ internet connection, it’s not hard to down-load and burn the firmware to a CD and they will even mail you a disk if you want.

Remember – you always hear about the problems, but there are millions of people who do not have problems so dont let this sway you.

Ryland P answers:

Customer Reviews
Sylvania NB500SL9 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player with HDMI Cable

50 Reviews
5 star: (31)
4 star: (11)
3 star: (3)
2 star: (1)
1 star: (4)

Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (50 customer reviews)

108 of 112 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Sylvania has built an outstanding player!, August 27, 2008
By D. Means (Yorktown, VA USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What’s this?)
Sylvania has produced a real winner in this Blu-Ray player! I hooked it up to a 42inch HDTV using the high speed HDMI cable that came with it (a big plus in itself). I connected the audio to my receiver using the coaxial digital output. I turned it on and waited a bit less than a minute for it to power up. I anxiously inserted my first blu-ray disk. It started playing perfectly a about 30 seconds later. The picture and sound are completely outstanding. This could not have been any easier!

I ran it through it’s paces doing various tests (I’m an engineer at heart). Jumping backward and forward between titles was quick and flawless. Pausing and then resuming play was equally flawless. I stopped it and restarted it. It gives you the option to playback from the beginning or to resume where you left off. I chose resume and was very quickly watching it where it left off. Perfect!

Even though it worked perfectly right out of the box, I was curious to check out the menu system. Without even looking at the instructions I found the the setup menu to be very easy and intuitive. I didn’t make any changes since the defaults were all what I would have chosen anyway.

Next, I wanted to try playing back a regular DVD. This unit upscales to 1080p. To my surprise, the picture I saw was actually very close to looking like blu-ray! Wow! This is going to make me want to play a lot of my regular DVDs again. Nevertheless, I’m sure I’ll always want to watch my favorites using Blu-Ray when I have that option.

Finally, I tried playing back a DVD I recorded myself. Again, it played perfectly with no problem at all. Then, I tried a CD and found it to play perfectly. I also tried a CDROM that has jpeg images on it and that too worked showing the images as a slide show and giving me the ability to choose to view a specific image, or to quickly jump between them.

This is really a great bargain for the price. About the only thing it doesn’t do that I would have wanted is to playback mp3 files. But that isn’t really a big deal since I have other ways of playing them.

I absolutely recommend this player – 2 big thumbs up!
———–

Ryland P answers:

Whether or not it comes with the firmware is dependent upon the manufacturing date. If not, it’s easy enough to download and install it. And yes, all blu-ray players upscale DVDs. Hope this helps.

Ryland P answers:

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Good value player, March 17, 2009
By tmark (Columbus, Ohio USA)
This is a good value for a blu-ray player with the new online features available such as Netflix, Pandora, and BD-Live. It is small and easy to install and setup. I use the HDMI output to my Samsung HDTV and the Optical Digital Audio output to my AV receiver. The Anynet+ feature is convenient which helps the Samsung components work together reducing button pushing. I hooked up an ethernet cable and easily got it online and setup with my pre-existing accounts with Netflix and Pandora. I’ve read BD-Live requires a USB 1GB flash drive. I have download cable modem speeds in 6MB/s range so the picture quality is very good from Netflix, I’d say equivalent to upconverted DVD quality. Audio quality from Pandora is also excellent and the commercial-free music service is supreme. Blu-ray DVDs look fantastic and upconverted standard DVDs look great too. This does not have the higher-end HQV chip to my knowledge. The face pushbutton interface is cool and has a high-tech feel to it. Load time is very fast – about 8 to 10s. The menus look good and are easy to navigate. No complaints here. I’m very pleased getting all these features for entry level money.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Sucks, March 21, 2009
By Nicholas Gemas (Lawrence, KS)
I purchased the Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-ray player the other night at a “big box” retailer. For the first 24 hours, it performed flawlessly. But starting on the second night, it started having weird problems.

First, the remote control stopped working for no apparent reason. The batteries in the remote control were brand-new lithium rechargeables (fully charged), so they weren’t the issue. Then the player completely locked up (while playing a standard DVD) and would not respond to manually touching the controls on the front panel of the unit.

The front panel of the player swings open, and underneath it are six touch-sensitive controls (eject, play/pause, power, etc.). These aren’t buttons that you press, they’re merely something you run your finger over. All six of these front controls became unresponsive. I want to reiterate that the player completely locked up (while still playing the DVD) and would not power on, off, or eject the disk.

This all happened during normal conditions while playing a standard DVD. Since the controls on the front panel aren’t actual buttons, I had to physically disconnect the unit from the power outlet in order to restart it.

I thought this was all some kind of one-time anomaly, so I inserted a different standard DVD into the player, and after 30 minutes, it starting doing this all over again. First the remote control became unresponsive, then the front controls on the unit stopped working, then I had to (once again) unplug the unit to get my disk back.

This player is going back to the store ASAP. This is the third time I’ve owned problematic Samsung equipment.

Considering the frustration of having this brand-new player not work correctly, and the time and effort spent in returning it, I definitely will not be buying another Samsung product again.

(I want to add a footnote about how shoddily-made these new Samsung products have been. My old plasma TV, an upconverting DVD player and this new Blu-ray player were all made by Samsung, and all have had major problems with construction and engineering (especially the TV). They really felt/feel cheap, especially compared to similar products being made by Sony and Panasonic. Just my $.02 worth.)

Ryland P answers:

Here is one review from amazon:
“I have had this unit for a couple of days now and am very impressed. Picture and sound quality are both excellent. As the other reviewer stated load times haven’t really improved much over the last generation Panasonic units. The big thing going for Panasonic though is it provides outstanding customer support by providing frequent firmware updates that actually work without creating new problems. That cannot be said for most of its competitors.”

For more informations check the link below….

Ryland P answers:

The most helpful favorable review The most helpful critical review

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Solid performance you expect from Denon
I bought this DVD player to replace my Denon 3910. Now that the format wars appear over, I wanted to start my Blu-ray collection.

Unit performs well. For regular DVD’s picture is about the same as the Denon 3910. Blu-ray disks are comperable to HD television. Uses the same remote codes as the older 3910, so I did not need to get my Pronto universal remote…
Read the full review ›
Published 10 months ago by Thomas Sladowski

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8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Denon’s Customer service is lacking.
I took a big gamble when I bought this product as I would not be using it for at least a year.Also, I live in Singapore.
Main reasons for my hurried purchase was a price drop of US$200 from US$999(Vann’s at the Marketplace) and that it was a Denon.The novelty of a Dedicated Transport was another attraction.However I was mildly disappointed when I read the words…
Read the full review ›
Published 5 months ago by J. Aravindhan

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Most Helpful First | Newest First

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Solid performance you expect from Denon, May 9, 2008
By Thomas Sladowski (NY) – See all my reviews

I bought this DVD player to replace my Denon 3910. Now that the format wars appear over, I wanted to start my Blu-ray collection.

Unit performs well. For regular DVD’s picture is about the same as the Denon 3910. Blu-ray disks are comperable to HD television. Uses the same remote codes as the older 3910, so I did not need to get my Pronto universal remote re-programmed — a real advantage. Also has some features I have not tried yet, such as markers.

Remote is OK, reasonably well laid out.

Negatives:
I have not found any negatives on the features I used, but here are a few to keep in mind. The only method of connecting the device is via the

Ryland P answers:

Find the player for the lowest price you can on the net. Subtract $20-25 & throw in free shipping. That would be reasonable.

Ryland P answers:

VLC will play blue-ray
FREE DOWNLOAD is here:

http://www.videolan.org/index.html

Videolan’s major release, VLC Media Player has been downloaded 8.9 million times since its release last week, it is by far the most complete open source multimedia player which also even supports Blue-Ray, HD audio-video files and DVD recording. Now you can have the VLC goodness as a portable app which you can carry on your USB drive. Portableapps.com has released an Portable VLC player which is free to download, is fast like the normal version and will play almost any media file you throw at it.

Ryland P answers:

FreeSmith free blu-ray player, a new and good free blu ray player software, but not sure whether it can be used on Mac.

Ryland P answers:

Cyber Link Power DVD 10

Ryland P answers:

Hi, i think this blu ray player will be your best choice, you can have a try – http://www.blu-ray-software.net/blu-ray-player/

wish i can help you!

Ryland P answers:

I know one–Holeesoft Blu-ray ,is the best Blu-ray iPhone ripper which offers a perfect solution to convert Blu-ray Disc to iPhone MPEG-4(*.mp4) video formats with high conversion speed. Download the Holeesoft Blu-ray to iPhone converter for free and try to convert Blu-ray dvd movies to iPhone MPEG-4(*.mp4), you can enjoy great Blu-ray movies on iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 anytime you want.Maybe you can look it up here:
http://www.softmapwiki.com/index.php/Software

Ryland P answers:

Try the KMPlayer which is also free. You can get it from the filehippo.com website.

Ryland P answers:

The free KMPlayer can play bluray discs:
http://filehippo.com/download_kmplayer/

Ryland P answers:

You should try updating your graphics card driver first before you try another expensive piece of software to play Blu-ray discs.

Ryland P answers:

Old news is old. This software has been out for nearly a year.