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How I play, store, and burn Blu-Ray


cwdjr

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Blu-Ray encryption is different from encryption used for standard DVDs. If you insert a Blu-ray disc into a Blu-ray optical drive, navigate to the drive, right click,

and select Explore, you likely will see up to 3 first level sub-files. One always will be BDMV which contains the Blu-ray movie, often encrypted, and is many GB in size.

There may be a small Certificate file. If the disc is encrypted, there is an AACS folder. If you want to know more about AACS encryption, see a short discussion of it at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS . For either a computer or stand alone Blu-ray player to work on AACS encrypted discs, the player must have keys that are updated from

time to time to make it more difficult to break the encryption. The organization that manages AACS changes these keys that players must have to work from time to time.

For instance my Sony stand alone Blu-ray player is connected to the internet and has had 2 updates this year. Computer Blu-ray players must also have these key updates, or

they will not play encrypted Blu-ray discs, or at least newer ones. Apparently the Cine player included in many of the Roxio suites does not allow the required key updates,

so it may work on Blu-ray discs that are not encrypted, but it does not work on commercial discs that have AACS encryption.

 

You usually can make a new folder with a movie name and open it.Then you can open a new window to explore your Blu-ray discs and then drag and drop the BDMV file and

certificate file, if present, to the empty movie folder you created. For an encrypted disc you can also drag and drop the AACS file, but this will do you no good.

The decryption will not work if you copy the encrypted disc anywhere including the HD. If you try to play the encrypted disc on the HD, the player will not work, and some

players will give you a message that the movie can not be played.

 

There are a few players that will play an unencrypted movie directly from the HD. I am using ArcSoft's Total Media Extreme package that includes the Total Media Theatre

which will play Blu-Ray movies directly from a folder on the HD containing the Blu-ray files. Thus for files you created on the HD or for those from unencrypted discs

that you drag and drop on the HD, you can play the movie directly without converting to an iso image and mounting it on a virtual clone drive.

 

In case you wish to burn a Blu-ray discs from files you have on the HD, I find it best to convert the files to an iso image. The most simple way to create the iso image

I have found involves the free ImgBurn program. Just bring this program up and select to create an image. The navigation may confuse a bit at first, so just bring up a

new window to display the folder that contains the Blu-ray files and drag the folder over to the large white box on Img-burn. If ImgBurn asks for more information about

the file type, just accept the suggestion it makes for Blu-ray. You also need to specify where to store the iso file created. In addition to the iso file, another small

file is created, but you can ignore it since we are going to use Roxio to burn the disc. Burning the disc is now child's play. If you value your money, you may wish to

burn a test disc first on a rewritable disc. This slows things down and is not necessary if you can tolerate a few ruined discs. To burn, just go to the Roxio Creator 2009

Ultimate main page and select to burn image there. You only have to select the location of your iso file and your burner. I have burned both 25 and 50 GB Blu-ray discs

without problems.

 

For 25 GB discs, I often burn these at about 4x. Because of excessive cost of 50 GB DL discs, I do not burn them. Rather it is much cheaper to buy an external

1 TB HD which can be had for about US$ 120. I use one with both SATA and USB connections and always connect to my computer with SATA because it is so much faster than

USB or firewire. Since most 50 GB discs will not be completely filled up, the HD usually will hold about 30 Blu-ray movies rather than about 20 if all files were 50 GB long.

When and if the cost of DL blanks comes down, one can always burn to disc later.

 

I had to get a new computer to easily work with Blu-ray, as my old 5 year old Dell Dimension was much too slow. I am using a Dell Studio XPS 435T with RAID 1 which uses 2 1TB

HDs. Memory is 6 GB. It uses an Intel Core i7 processor. Using this setup, processing Blu-ray movies is often just as fast as processing ordinary DVDs on my old Dell

Dimension.

 

Finally, here are a few hints: (1)If a Blu-ray player does not work, especially for encrypted discs, be sure to check for an update and make certain that security software is

not blocking access to the player maker's site and thus blocking notification of new updates. This is especially true if you install a player from a CD, as the keys for the

player on the CD may be way out of date. (2) Some makers of Blu-ray discs block use of the cursor when the disc is played back on a computer. In most such cases, you can

navigate using the arrow and enter keys. Some player makers, such as Arcsoft, notify you of this situation. ArcSoft then offers you a fix for this inconvenience.

(3)Some, if not all, Blu-ray players for computers will not display the movie if you have output to more than one monitor. The solution is to change your video card settings

to output to only one monitor. For instance you can turn off your computer monitor and view only on a HDTV using a HDMI connection to it. I suppose the movie companies do not

want Hollywood motels with mirrors above the beds to use Blu-ray discs to distribute movies to all of their rooms, and if this is inconvenient for home users, so be it.

 

 

 

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Blu-Ray encryption is different from encryption used for standard DVDs. If you insert a Blu-ray disc into a Blu-ray optical drive, navigate to the drive, right click,

and select Explore, you likely will see up to 3 first level sub-files. One always will be BDMV which contains the Blu-ray movie, often encrypted, and is many GB in size.

There may be a small Certificate file. If the disc is encrypted, there is an AACS folder. If you want to know more about AACS encryption, see a short discussion of it at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS . For either a computer or stand alone Blu-ray player to work on AACS encrypted discs, the player must have keys that are updated from

time to time to make it more difficult to break the encryption. The organization that manages AACS changes these keys that players must have to work from time to time.

For instance my Sony stand alone Blu-ray player is connected to the internet and has had 2 updates this year. Computer Blu-ray players must also have these key updates, or

they will not play encrypted Blu-ray discs, or at least newer ones. Apparently the Cine player included in many of the Roxio suites does not allow the required key updates,

so it may work on Blu-ray discs that are not encrypted, but it does not work on commercial discs that have AACS encryption.

 

You usually can make a new folder with a movie name and open it.Then you can open a new window to explore your Blu-ray discs and then drag and drop the BDMV file and

certificate file, if present, to the empty movie folder you created. For an encrypted disc you can also drag and drop the AACS file, but this will do you no good.

The decryption will not work if you copy the encrypted disc anywhere including the HD. If you try to play the encrypted disc on the HD, the player will not work, and some

players will give you a message that the movie can not be played.

 

There are a few players that will play an unencrypted movie directly from the HD. I am using ArcSoft's Total Media Extreme package that includes the Total Media Theatre

which will play Blu-Ray movies directly from a folder on the HD containing the Blu-ray files. Thus for files you created on the HD or for those from unencrypted discs

that you drag and drop on the HD, you can play the movie directly without converting to an iso image and mounting it on a virtual clone drive.

 

In case you wish to burn a Blu-ray discs from files you have on the HD, I find it best to convert the files to an iso image. The most simple way to create the iso image

I have found involves the free ImgBurn program. Just bring this program up and select to create an image. The navigation may confuse a bit at first, so just bring up a

new window to display the folder that contains the Blu-ray files and drag the folder over to the large white box on Img-burn. If ImgBurn asks for more information about

the file type, just accept the suggestion it makes for Blu-ray. You also need to specify where to store the iso file created. In addition to the iso file, another small

file is created, but you can ignore it since we are going to use Roxio to burn the disc. Burning the disc is now child's play. If you value your money, you may wish to

burn a test disc first on a rewritable disc. This slows things down and is not necessary if you can tolerate a few ruined discs. To burn, just go to the Roxio Creator 2009

Ultimate main page and select to burn image there. You only have to select the location of your iso file and your burner. I have burned both 25 and 50 GB Blu-ray discs

without problems.

 

For 25 GB discs, I often burn these at about 4x. Because of excessive cost of 50 GB DL discs, I do not burn them. Rather it is much cheaper to buy an external

1 TB HD which can be had for about US$ 120. I use one with both SATA and USB connections and always connect to my computer with SATA because it is so much faster than

USB or firewire. Since most 50 GB discs will not be completely filled up, the HD usually will hold about 30 Blu-ray movies rather than about 20 if all files were 50 GB long.

When and if the cost of DL blanks comes down, one can always burn to disc later.

 

I had to get a new computer to easily work with Blu-ray, as my old 5 year old Dell Dimension was much too slow. I am using a Dell Studio XPS 435T with RAID 1 which uses 2 1TB

HDs. Memory is 6 GB. It uses an Intel Core i7 processor. Using this setup, processing Blu-ray movies is often just as fast as processing ordinary DVDs on my old Dell

Dimension.

 

Finally, here are a few hints: (1)If a Blu-ray player does not work, especially for encrypted discs, be sure to check for an update and make certain that security software is

not blocking access to the player maker's site and thus blocking notification of new updates. This is especially true if you install a player from a CD, as the keys for the

player on the CD may be way out of date. (2) Some makers of Blu-ray discs block use of the cursor when the disc is played back on a computer. In most such cases, you can

navigate using the arrow and enter keys. Some player makers, such as Arcsoft, notify you of this situation. ArcSoft then offers you a fix for this inconvenience.

(3)Some, if not all, Blu-ray players for computers will not display the movie if you have output to more than one monitor. The solution is to change your video card settings

to output to only one monitor. For instance you can turn off your computer monitor and view only on a HDTV using a HDMI connection to it. I suppose the movie companies do not

want Hollywood motels with mirrors above the beds to use Blu-ray discs to distribute movies to all of their rooms, and if this is inconvenient for home users, so be it.

 

 

 

I am also looking to upgrade my computer since HD editing and rendering is very slow on my dual core processor. I was looking at the i7, but do you think I need to go that extreme. Would the regular quad core be OK. Which i7 do you have?

 

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I am also looking to upgrade my computer since HD editing and rendering is very slow on my dual core processor. I was looking at the i7, but do you think I need to go that extreme. Would the regular quad core be OK. Which i7 do you have?

 

I have not had experience with using processors other than the i7 for Blu-ray work. Just as important as having a high speed processor is having enough high speed memory. I am now using 12 GB of memory. The computer can support up to 24 GB of memory. To effectively use more than about 4 GB of memory on Windows, you need their 64-bit version. I am using the basic i7 processor. You have to pay much more to increase the speed just a little. Since 12 GB of memory will support several threads at once, this can greatly speed up a program if it is written to allow this. Roxio's program to burn iso files on the HD is now running at exceptional speed for me for iso Blu-Ray files. I have ordered TDK BD-R DL 50GB blanks that are rated as 1-4 X. Using these, and the Roxio iso image burning program, the actual speed starts out a bit below 4 X and then increase to around 6 X in a short time. I have burned several DL discs this way now. A 42 GB disc took only about 30 minutes to burn. I have had no bad burns yet using the mentioned discs. I ordered 2 10 packs from eBay, and the total cost was only US$9.30 per disc. They were in individual thin jewel cases. Air express postage from Japan was included in the cost, and they took only 3 1/2 days to arrive to the central USS from Japan. The seller shipped the next day after receiving my eBay order. I still am storing some Blu-ray files on the external HDs, but I now burn most that I decide to keep to discs.

 

I am sorry for the late response. Health problems keep me away from the computer for a time, but I have no recovered fairly well.

 

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