No, 1.1.11 is the latest *released* version. A nightly build is a version that is still in development, which means it's not ready for release to the public and lots of things are being worked on.
Thanks for clearing that up. I hope they fix the crashing issue. My VLC seems to crash a lot while WMP never does. WMP (without moddification) doesn't play many file types while VLC plays them all though.
WMP does indeed play back just about format out there, you just need to install a codec pack that works with WMP and has DirectShow filters and codecs... for example, the "KLite" packs are excellent and totally compatible with WMP and Media Player Classic (which is bundled in the KLite packs). KLite packs are available in four different builds from "Basic" up thru "Mega". More info and downloads: http://www.codecguide.com/about_kl.htm The download link is at the bottom of that page.
I happened to buy a BluRay drive for my PCH C-200 just 2 weeks ago and since then I've "improved" my collection of some hundreds DVDs with the presence of 12 BluRay movies, none of which happens to play on the PCH at the moment. Bummer!
It's almost as if Hollywood desperately wants the people to invest in fast Internet connections and pirate the movies rather than buy them. At least that's my impression from all the PITA I have had to take from trying to stay honest with DVDs and BluRays: Starting with minute long non-skippable anti-piracy trailers (of course only for people buying the originals), over all this pseudo encryption nonsense preventing legal(!) copies, HDCP preventing viewing on legacy displays (and again preventing no illegal copying of the film), ending in major compatibility issues thanks to AACS, PIP, BD+, BD Live ...
Wholeheartedly agree with you! DRM only serves to handicap the honest consumers. Hollywood seriously thinks its current business model will work in the Internet age. I think they are in for a rude surprise as the years go by (they shut down one MegaUpload, a few others will spring up in Russia or elsewhere / the P2P and Usenet scene will thrive on). They should adapt to newer methods of distribution and realize that the amount they are charging for movies (in theaters or on Blu-ray discs) doesn't reflect the true value.
My pet peeve is the BD-Live feature.. on almost all the Blu-ray discs I have seen, it is being used to push down the trailers for the latest movies.. You pay $10 - $30 for a Blu-ray disc and they deliver you advertisements in the form of trailers on top of that! I seriously don't see why anyone would want to enable BD-Live in their Blu-ray players.
I was going to make the same comment about BD-Live, I was watching the Green Hornet the other day and I was surprised at how intrusive the adverts were. On the home screen it had a large panel at the top right flicking through different adverts and it was highlighted instead of play movie by default so when you pressed enter to start the film it instead launched the site for the trailer. Having never seen anything useful with BD-live either I'd see it as a plus if it wasn't supported.
It is one feature I miss from old magnetic VHS tapes that you could just mechanically fast forward the adverts at the start of a film.
My pet peeve is when I buy a new Blu-Ray movie (like the day it comes out) and then I go to watch it and my player needs a key update, but there is no update available.
LOVE THAT.
Thanks DRM.
If I would have just pirated the movie, it would just work.
Their business model is seriously broken when they just hinder honest consumers.
My dad bought a blu-ray player when avatar came out, let me tell you when he found out you had to update the firmware to watch it, he freaked! I gave him an iso of the pirate movie while I flashed his player lol, so sad that they force paying customers to go this way. It should never be more convenient to the pirates!
Because of this I predict optical disks will disappear and soon. Amazon prime, iTunes etc are very convenient.
Setting aside the advantages of no cost and open source, one of the other reasons this is important news is that it means VLC might be able to offer a good BluRay player, which is something that seems to have so far eluded all the commercial contenders.
PowerDVD came with my system. Compared to VLC, the program takes forever to start up and then forever again to start playing a new disc. There are plenty of navigation commands offered in the menus and in keys, but somehow not one of them will reliably and cleanly get me to where I want to go without a lot of awkward stutters, pauses, retries, etc. The UI is cluttered with a lot of self-promotion for player upgrades and pushes features that seem at best peripheral and at worst downright disruptive of my overall viewing experience. And then there's the discs with the many minutes of forced previews I really don't need to see when all I was hoping to do was share a scene I really liked with a friend.
You'd think the commercially supported efforts should enjoy a big advantage over VLC, but if anything it seems the reverse.
PowerDVD BD came with the BD drive I bought a while back, and its exactly you describe. Bloated, slow, crappy UI, etc. Complete and utter junk.
I was a little excited to finally be able to play BD content on my PC, but with the shitty players available, its not worth the effort. The first few BDs I bought, I ended up having to rip and transcode them just to play them effectively. Now, I end up waiting until the BD version is vastly discounted, and then grab the 1080p BD rip from a torrent site. I think my copy of the Expendables still has the seal tape on the plastic. :/
Irritating as hell.
I'm still mystified with PowerDVD feels the need to turn off Aero to 'improve performance' on my i5 2400, 8GB of RAM, and Radeon 6950 too. VLC can play back a lossless 1080p rip without a hiccup.
LOL! Seriously mine still work to this day with no silliness or updates they just work and look every bit as good as my Blu-Ray discs. Why are there still sooo many hassles with Blu-Ray?
Personally, there should be a date stamp in the player. Any movie older than a month is required to boot straight to the menu. Newer films would be permitted to start with trailers, but the owner can still fast forward through them. After the first month, then you'd need to watch trailers by navigating through the menu system. I rip mine because: 1. I don't want everyone messing with the original discs (reduce damage and they stay categorized) 2. $300 was cheap enough for a player and 4 TB of storage space 3. Any family member can use it and find what they want 4. Even I get irritated with all the garbage that pops up before I can even play the movie 5. I don't have to wait for a disc to boot before going through the garbage
Yes, it will be able to! But, not guaranteed with the latest discs.. should work well for the older ones though. You still don't get HD audio decode in all cases / bitstreaming etc.
Cool, thanks! A pity on no lossless audio though. That said, I've never compared the lossless track against the regular Dolby/DTS track.
Now I would just have to deal with HDMI handshake and HDCP issues between four different links in the chain...
Anybody miss those blissful five or so years when you could buy the highest quality disc and be sure it played on your home theater, your laptop, your friend's laptop, etc? All without compatibility or noticeable DRM issues?
Actually, if VLC or AnyDVD is used, I don't believe HDCP even comes into the picture. And if you're going to use Apple earbuds or laptop speakers, DD is way overkill in terms of quality anyway.
I output to B&W 804s hooked up to a McIntosh amp, actually :-P (too bad my current apartment's too small, has bad acoustics, and pretty awful ambient noise characteristics. The downsides of living in NYC...)
I'm intrigued as to how VLC would be able to bypass all of the HDCP issues. In fact, I thought the weak point in the chain would have been HDCP over a USB2 or Firewire connected blu-ray drive.
Of course, all of this is 'nice to have.' As you partially pointed out, blu-ray really doesn't enhance the experience that much (or at all) if I were to watch on a laptop or even an iMac's 27" display. The purpose for this exercise (from my point of view) is to have a backup blu-ray player (in case something goes wrong with the standalone player), or if I happen to purchase blu-rays in the future without DVD copies included.
HDCP is to secure the link. The player software has to setup HDCP with the display. Technically speaking, there is nothing preventing BluRay players from not using HDCP at all. Licensing and legal is another issue, of course.
BluRay content protection is via AACS, which hasn't been an issue for years.
Why would anyone want menus? I cant stand menus, because then you usually have to wait an eternity to get to the menu, forced to watch all sorts of filler content that makes me feel like they should be paying me to watch their crap.
I liked the video store. That is almost gone. I am not a fan of Netflix mail delivery. I can live with the online model if the prices goes down and the movie selection get serious. Then, there is the BR disc but I converted all my DVD movies to digital and I don't want to go back. So, there are options but all have serious disadvantages. One option had been the Blockbuster kiosk where I rent DVD movies for a dollar (I mean, now for 2-3).
In the end I don't have a BR player. With the money I will put on a decent BR player I decided only to buy online a few movies and series I really like. Blue-Ray is a demo, it hasn't happened for me yet and I am waiting for online prices on BR to go down. Meanwhile I buy or rent DVDs.
For TV series I know there is a higher cost for production, but what is the excuse on movies that are made using film and then converted. Isn't BR mature enough now to go mainstream? Why are we still paying the premium price these days?
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28 Comments
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kenyee - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
We have no problem buying blurays including 3D ones...we just want the convenience of putting them on our HTPCs running MythTV...MGSsancho - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
True competitor to AnyDVD on windows system. I welcome it!naikrovek - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
"since VLC 1.2"VLC 1.2 isn't out yet.
ganeshts - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
Ah! The perils of being on the cutting edge.. I always get my builds from here:http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/last/
sigmatau - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
VLC 1.1.11 is the latest version. Not sure what that is you linked.cparka23 - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
No, 1.1.11 is the latest *released* version. A nightly build is a version that is still in development, which means it's not ready for release to the public and lots of things are being worked on.sigmatau - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Thanks for clearing that up. I hope they fix the crashing issue. My VLC seems to crash a lot while WMP never does. WMP (without moddification) doesn't play many file types while VLC plays them all though.hoda2k - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
WMP does indeed play back just about format out there, you just need to install a codec pack that works with WMP and has DirectShow filters and codecs... for example, the "KLite" packs are excellent and totally compatible with WMP and Media Player Classic (which is bundled in the KLite packs). KLite packs are available in four different builds from "Basic" up thru "Mega". More info and downloads: http://www.codecguide.com/about_kl.htm The download link is at the bottom of that page.Daniel Egger - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
I happened to buy a BluRay drive for my PCH C-200 just 2 weeks ago and since then I've "improved" my collection of some hundreds DVDs with the presence of 12 BluRay movies, none of which happens to play on the PCH at the moment. Bummer!It's almost as if Hollywood desperately wants the people to invest in fast Internet connections and pirate the movies rather than buy them. At least that's my impression from all the PITA I have had to take from trying to stay honest with DVDs and BluRays: Starting with minute long non-skippable anti-piracy trailers (of course only for people buying the originals), over all this pseudo encryption nonsense preventing legal(!) copies, HDCP preventing viewing on legacy displays (and again preventing no illegal copying of the film), ending in major compatibility issues thanks to AACS, PIP, BD+, BD Live ...
ganeshts - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
Wholeheartedly agree with you! DRM only serves to handicap the honest consumers. Hollywood seriously thinks its current business model will work in the Internet age. I think they are in for a rude surprise as the years go by (they shut down one MegaUpload, a few others will spring up in Russia or elsewhere / the P2P and Usenet scene will thrive on). They should adapt to newer methods of distribution and realize that the amount they are charging for movies (in theaters or on Blu-ray discs) doesn't reflect the true value.My pet peeve is the BD-Live feature.. on almost all the Blu-ray discs I have seen, it is being used to push down the trailers for the latest movies.. You pay $10 - $30 for a Blu-ray disc and they deliver you advertisements in the form of trailers on top of that! I seriously don't see why anyone would want to enable BD-Live in their Blu-ray players.
Johnmcl7 - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
I was going to make the same comment about BD-Live, I was watching the Green Hornet the other day and I was surprised at how intrusive the adverts were. On the home screen it had a large panel at the top right flicking through different adverts and it was highlighted instead of play movie by default so when you pressed enter to start the film it instead launched the site for the trailer. Having never seen anything useful with BD-live either I'd see it as a plus if it wasn't supported.It is one feature I miss from old magnetic VHS tapes that you could just mechanically fast forward the adverts at the start of a film.
John
Braumin - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
My pet peeve is when I buy a new Blu-Ray movie (like the day it comes out) and then I go to watch it and my player needs a key update, but there is no update available.LOVE THAT.
Thanks DRM.
If I would have just pirated the movie, it would just work.
Their business model is seriously broken when they just hinder honest consumers.
noeldillabough - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
My dad bought a blu-ray player when avatar came out, let me tell you when he found out you had to update the firmware to watch it, he freaked! I gave him an iso of the pirate movie while I flashed his player lol, so sad that they force paying customers to go this way. It should never be more convenient to the pirates!Because of this I predict optical disks will disappear and soon. Amazon prime, iTunes etc are very convenient.
Soulkeeper - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
I won't buy blu-ray until fully cracked.This is a good start.
brucek2 - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
Setting aside the advantages of no cost and open source, one of the other reasons this is important news is that it means VLC might be able to offer a good BluRay player, which is something that seems to have so far eluded all the commercial contenders.PowerDVD came with my system. Compared to VLC, the program takes forever to start up and then forever again to start playing a new disc. There are plenty of navigation commands offered in the menus and in keys, but somehow not one of them will reliably and cleanly get me to where I want to go without a lot of awkward stutters, pauses, retries, etc. The UI is cluttered with a lot of self-promotion for player upgrades and pushes features that seem at best peripheral and at worst downright disruptive of my overall viewing experience. And then there's the discs with the many minutes of forced previews I really don't need to see when all I was hoping to do was share a scene I really liked with a friend.
You'd think the commercially supported efforts should enjoy a big advantage over VLC, but if anything it seems the reverse.
Bateluer - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
PowerDVD BD came with the BD drive I bought a while back, and its exactly you describe. Bloated, slow, crappy UI, etc. Complete and utter junk.I was a little excited to finally be able to play BD content on my PC, but with the shitty players available, its not worth the effort. The first few BDs I bought, I ended up having to rip and transcode them just to play them effectively. Now, I end up waiting until the BD version is vastly discounted, and then grab the 1080p BD rip from a torrent site. I think my copy of the Expendables still has the seal tape on the plastic. :/
Irritating as hell.
I'm still mystified with PowerDVD feels the need to turn off Aero to 'improve performance' on my i5 2400, 8GB of RAM, and Radeon 6950 too. VLC can play back a lossless 1080p rip without a hiccup.
mi1stormilst - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link
LOL! Seriously mine still work to this day with no silliness or updates they just work and look every bit as good as my Blu-Ray discs. Why are there still sooo many hassles with Blu-Ray?Rick83 - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
The point of BD was to be more of a hassle than HD-DVD. That's how they won the format war.Fujikoma - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Personally, there should be a date stamp in the player. Any movie older than a month is required to boot straight to the menu. Newer films would be permitted to start with trailers, but the owner can still fast forward through them. After the first month, then you'd need to watch trailers by navigating through the menu system.I rip mine because:
1. I don't want everyone messing with the original discs (reduce damage and they stay categorized)
2. $300 was cheap enough for a player and 4 TB of storage space
3. Any family member can use it and find what they want
4. Even I get irritated with all the garbage that pops up before I can even play the movie
5. I don't have to wait for a disc to boot before going through the garbage
aliasfox - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Does this mean that Macs with an aftermarket blu-ray drive will be able to play blu-ray discs?ganeshts - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Yes, it will be able to! But, not guaranteed with the latest discs.. should work well for the older ones though. You still don't get HD audio decode in all cases / bitstreaming etc.aliasfox - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Cool, thanks! A pity on no lossless audio though. That said, I've never compared the lossless track against the regular Dolby/DTS track.Now I would just have to deal with HDMI handshake and HDCP issues between four different links in the chain...
Anybody miss those blissful five or so years when you could buy the highest quality disc and be sure it played on your home theater, your laptop, your friend's laptop, etc? All without compatibility or noticeable DRM issues?
Zoomer - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 - link
Actually, if VLC or AnyDVD is used, I don't believe HDCP even comes into the picture. And if you're going to use Apple earbuds or laptop speakers, DD is way overkill in terms of quality anyway.aliasfox - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 - link
I output to B&W 804s hooked up to a McIntosh amp, actually :-P (too bad my current apartment's too small, has bad acoustics, and pretty awful ambient noise characteristics. The downsides of living in NYC...)I'm intrigued as to how VLC would be able to bypass all of the HDCP issues. In fact, I thought the weak point in the chain would have been HDCP over a USB2 or Firewire connected blu-ray drive.
Of course, all of this is 'nice to have.' As you partially pointed out, blu-ray really doesn't enhance the experience that much (or at all) if I were to watch on a laptop or even an iMac's 27" display. The purpose for this exercise (from my point of view) is to have a backup blu-ray player (in case something goes wrong with the standalone player), or if I happen to purchase blu-rays in the future without DVD copies included.
Zoomer - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 - link
HDCP is to secure the link. The player software has to setup HDCP with the display. Technically speaking, there is nothing preventing BluRay players from not using HDCP at all. Licensing and legal is another issue, of course.BluRay content protection is via AACS, which hasn't been an issue for years.
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
Why would anyone want menus? I cant stand menus, because then you usually have to wait an eternity to get to the menu, forced to watch all sorts of filler content that makes me feel like they should be paying me to watch their crap.jecastejon - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
I liked the video store. That is almost gone. I am not a fan of Netflix mail delivery. I can live with the online model if the prices goes down and the movie selection get serious. Then, there is the BR disc but I converted all my DVD movies to digital and I don't want to go back. So, there are options but all have serious disadvantages. One option had been the Blockbuster kiosk where I rent DVD movies for a dollar (I mean, now for 2-3).In the end I don't have a BR player. With the money I will put on a decent BR player I decided only to buy online a few movies and series I really like. Blue-Ray is a demo, it hasn't happened for me yet and I am waiting for online prices on BR to go down. Meanwhile I buy or rent DVDs.
For TV series I know there is a higher cost for production, but what is the excuse on movies that are made using film and then converted. Isn't BR mature enough now to go mainstream? Why are we still paying the premium price these days?
joseph stalin - Wednesday, June 28, 2017 - link
No Survey or No Human Verification hacks, you can now use a few tricks to add unlimited resources to your account. If you are a fan of gaming and are addicted to playing games, thenwww.withoutverification.com is just the right thing for you. You can now play without having to spend all those money on the real in games and Gift Cards. All you need to focus now on is winning as long gone are the days when you had to worry about running out of resources.
From : https://www.withoutverification.com/