Can you play UHD blu Rays on a Windows 7 PC with a BDXL drive?

[RRW359]

My DVD drive is starting to have problems. I still have a lot of games on disk, and I could just get another DVD drive, but I am also concidering just going all in with a Blu Ray drive. One important factor in that decision is movies, and I was wondering if there was a drive I could get that could play the new 4k Blu Rays.

[_I_]

if the software supports bluray then yes

the drive is the same, its how the data is encoded on the disc

[Bad 💀 Motha]

UHD Bluray are new 4K Bluray, that would require a new drive that supports them.

You also have to buy good software that supports the Bluray formats; as they are encrypted.
Media Player or VLC will not play Bluray discs. VLC will however play videos decoded from Bluray and turned into an AVI, such as the MKV video formatted movie files.

And Win10 will not even play a movie DVD; without 3rd party software, such as VLC, which I recommend using anyways.

[banzaigtv]

Cyberlink PowerDVD may be updated to support 4K Blu-rays, but the problem is getting a compatible optical drive. I have not heard anything about 4K Blu-ray compatibility with PCs, whether it be newer drives or driver updates in Windows 10. For now, you need either a dedicated 4K UHD Blu-ray player for TVs or an XBOX One S to play 4K Blu-rays.

[RRW359]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

UHD Bluray are new 4K Bluray, that would require a new drive that supports them.

You also have to buy good software that supports the Bluray formats; as they are encrypted.
Media Player or VLC will not play Bluray discs. VLC will however play videos decoded from Bluray and turned into an AVI, such as the MKV video formatted movie files.

And Win10 will not even play a movie DVD; without 3rd party software, such as VLC, which I recommend using anyways.

As I said, I'm planning on replacing my drive, I was just wondering if it would be worth investing on a better drive. I know *4k/UHD Blu Ray are the same, I just used them interchangably when I probably shouldn't have.

As for software, until now, I'd heard mixed things about VLC and regular Blu Ray, but I'm not surprised it can't play UHD Blu Ray yet. I was wondering:
1. Is there any free software that you know for sure can play 4k Blu Rays (and 1080p ones, obv.)
2. If question 1 is no, what's a cheap, good one you recommend?
3. Would a commericial BDXL drive work for UHD blu? And if it does, what specs do you recommend for playing them?

*Is there a better thing to call them asside from UHD Blu Ray? It's a bit of a mouthfull.

[banzaigtv]

If you can get a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive, you generally want an i5 or better CPU and at least 8 GB RAM. Most current i3 and AMD multicore CPUs should also work.

[RRW359]

Originally posted by banzaigtv:

If you can get a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive, you generally want an i5 or better CPU and at least 8 GB RAM. Most current i3 and AMD multicore CPUs should also work.

So an *A10 7890k with 16GB of RAM should work?

*GPU=iGPU in dual with 2GB R7-250 (GDDR3).

[banzaigtv]

Originally posted by RRW359:

Originally posted by banzaigtv:

If you can get a 4K UHD Blu-ray drive, you generally want an i5 or better CPU and at least 8 GB RAM. Most current i3 and AMD multicore CPUs should also work.

So an *A10 7890k with 16GB of RAM should work?

*GPU=iGPU in dual with 2GB R7-250 (GDDR3).

Looks fine to me.

[RRW359]

Originally posted by banzaigtv:

Originally posted by RRW359:

So an *A10 7890k with 16GB of RAM should work?

*GPU=iGPU in dual with 2GB R7-250 (GDDR3).

Looks fine to me.

Originally posted by banzaigtv:

Originally posted by RRW359:

So an *A10 7890k with 16GB of RAM should work?

*GPU=iGPU in dual with 2GB R7-250 (GDDR3).

Looks fine to me.

I thought so by the way you discribed the requirements, I just wanted to be sure.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I would suggest just buy one Bluray Drive that is External USB 3.0; this way it will work on any PC/Mac and Laptop you own. No need for an Optical Drive for each system all on their own. And that would also cover as acting as a CD/DVD drive too.

Your specs are not even good enough for anything 4K, even video, so why bother.
It will be fine for 1080p Blurays though

Try viewing Netflix or YouTube @ 2160p actual videos; if they chugg hard, your specs are not good enough for 4K video viewing. I can link some videos if u need a video test method. Netflix it can be hard to know which content of theirs will play fully @ 4k actual embedded res, so if u need links, I can do that.

[RRW359]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

I would suggest just buy one Bluray Drive that is External USB 3.0; this way it will work on any PC/Mac and Laptop you own. No need for an Optical Drive for each system all on their own. And that would also cover as acting as a CD/DVD drive too.

Your specs are not even good enough for anything 4K, even video, so why bother.
It will be fine for 1080p Blurays though

Try viewing Netflix or YouTube @ 2160p actual videos; if they chugg hard, your specs are not good enough for 4K video viewing. I can link some videos if u need a video test method. Netflix it can be hard to know which content of theirs will play fully @ 4k actual embedded res, so if u need links, I can do that.

I thought I tried 4K YT videos before and they worked, but yeah. I tried a few now and you're right.

I have an external *DVD drive, but I like having an internal drive. IDK why.

*It's actually a 360 HDDVD drive, but believe it or not, it actually works just fine on PC.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Here is a good example of what it takes for 4K Video

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

But again, there is a difference with Online Streaming 4K Video -vs- Playing 4K Bluray via Local Disk Drive.

Course with something such as Netflix, they are being very picky to where alot of HD Movies simply will not play in 1080p or 4K unless you are using a compatible TV to do that. Most content will not actually run at 1080p or 4K when using the service via PC/Mac

[RRW359]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Here is a good example of what it takes for 4K Video

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/13444

But again, there is a difference with Online Streaming 4K Video -vs- Playing 4K Bluray via Local Disk Drive.

Yeah, my internet speed is weird. I still live with my family and share their internet, and different sources say different things about speed. I looked at the bill from my ISP (comcast), and if I understood the plan correct, I should be getting 25 mbps. However, when downloading off Steam, I rarely get above 10 (and sometimes when I do it's over 25), when I tried 4k on youtube just now the stats for nerds said I have 30, and I tried oolka when writing this comment and got over 86mbps, no joke.

My point is that I can't be sure if it's my specs or my internet connection that's the problem, but I did notice my PC being a little slugish when clicking things like settings while watching the 4k YT videos.

I'll probably just get a high-end DVD drive with all the features like lightscribe and mdisk. They may be dead-end, but at least I know exactally what I'm getting.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Comcast customers who have the 25mbps plan, should actually get between 50-105mbps, cause they do that for free. But to keep that speed, you have to get on a new special when you old special expires. That is a trick alot of customers do not know about.

I pay for 50mbps and get 200mbps from them (which is approx 25 actual MB per sec in downloads)

Use SpeedTest.net and PingTest.net from IE Browser and see what you actually get.
However that will always various in downloading, such as file downloads or Steam.

[RRW359]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Comcast customers who have the 25mbps plan, should actually get 50mbps, cause they do that for free. But to keep that speed, you have to get on a new special when you old special expires. That is a trick alot of customers do not know about.

I pay for 50mbps and get 200mbps from them (which is approx 25 actual MB per sec in downloads)

Didn't know that. We plan on moving soon and are rethinking our ISP (which may mean anything from getting a different plan under the same provider to getting a different one), and I'll mention that next time we are looking up alternatives.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Not sure where u moving to, but yea look into Verizon FiOS or Google Fiber