Blu-ray Playback Software for Windows

In short, have as many blu-ray playback applications as you can get your hands on/afford. They all behave differently and in a case where one fails, another one will usually work. I currently have PowerDVD 9, TotalMedia Theatre 3 and Nero ShowTime.

PowerDVD 9:  In general, I've not been impressed with CyberLink's PowerDVD line. They include a lot of garbage that isn't easy to turn off or eliminate. Background processes are always installed that, among other things, always try to takeover disc playback duties and auto-start on disc insertion. I find PowerDVD to be the least compatible when trying to play non-commercial blu-rays. I've never been able to get the PowerDVD apps to playback a blu-ray file structure on the hard drive. On the positive side (as mentioned in another post), PowerDVD 9 does open my HD-PVR capture files and bitstreams the audio correctly out the HDMI port. At this point, I'm in no rush to upgrade to PowerDVD 10.

TotalMedia Theatre 3:  This has probably been the most compatible/robust app as far as blu-ray playback goes. Ironically, it will not playback files just captured by the Capture Module in the same ArcSoft package without resetting the audio preferences each time.

ShowTime:  This is an old version from Nero 8 and is considerably behind the times when it comes to features and compatibility, but it does occasionally come in handy when the others fail.

I would eventually like to add Corel's WinDVD and Roxio's Creator package to my arsenal of playback tools.