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.

Arcsoft TotalMedia Extreme 2

This will be of somewhat limited scope as I only use the Total Media Extreme 2 package in a few specific ways.
The main reason I have the TotalMedia Extreme 2 package is because I own the Hauppauge HD-PVR and this unit comes with the TotalMedia Extreme (version 1) package. The included TotalMedia Extreme is quite old, so I was poking around ArcSoft's website and discovered they were offering a discount price for owners of the OEM TotalMedia Extreme to upgrade to TotalMedia Extreme 2, so I took them up on the offer.
Before I go any further, it is important to note that Hauppauge considers the included OEM version 1 of TotalMedia Extreme to be the only supported capture software. If you contact them and tell them you are using TotalMedia Extreme 2, they will tell you that version is not supported and will decline to offer help.
Having said that and despite what Hauppauge says, TotalMedia Extreme 2 (and when I refer to TotalMedia Extreme, I'm primarily referring to the Capture Module it contains) seems to work just fine with the HD-PVR. I had some problems that I was initially attributing to the TME2 Capture Module, but in the end, I think most problems really stem from the HD-PVR not being exactly robust in the face of less than perfect video on it's inputs.
Tip:  always check the length of the resulting file after a recording against what the record length was set to when you began the capture. If it is more than about 5 seconds off, you probably had a glitch in the video and the encoder restarted. The TME Capture Module will not warn you that there has been a break in the video (though I wish it would.)
Also note, the preview in the Capture Module and the playback in TotalMedia Theatre 3 (the playback software included in TME 2) are often somewhat jerky with footage from the HD-PVR. This can lead you to believe you are not getting a good capture. This can lead you off on a wild goose chase and waste a great deal of time. Check the footage in some other application and you will probably see that it is fine.
The other component of TME 2 that I use a lot is the TotalMedia Studio 3. I primarily use this to do some basic trimming/editing of HD-PVR footage and then produce a blu-ray folder. TotalMedia Studio 3 has been good and basically gets the job done. The editing functionality is on the sluggish side, so I try to avoid anything beyond trimming off beginning and ending excess.
The other major app from this package I use is the TotalMedia Extreme Theatre 3. It has it's strengths  and weaknesses. I find that all of the blu-ray capable playback applications behave differently and if you do a lot of work in this area, it pays to have as many different playback options as possible. For example, ironically, I can't use TotalMedia Theatre 3 to check the footage I've just captured with the TME 2 Capture Module. It locks up if I don't reset the audio preferences each time I use it. (My audio output is the HDMI audio on my video card.)  Instead, I use PowerDVD 9. It plays the files fine and correctly bitstreams the audio out the HDMI on the video card. But once I make the captured footage into a blu-ray file structure/folder, it is switched:  PowerDVD 9 won't even recognize the blu-ray file structure, but I can play it back correctly with TotalMedia Theatre 3.
In summary, I'd say that version 2 of TotalMedia Extreme is a worthwhile update from version 1, even though Hauppauge does not officially support it for use with the HD-PVR.

Roxio

What horrible tech support!

Earlier this year, I purchased a copy of Roxio's Toast Titanium 10 with the HD plugin option. Altogether, about $120. Not cheap.
I had a problem with Toast not correctly multiplexing recordings from my Hauppauge HD-PVR. During the muxing process, Toast will just quit muxing prematurely and move on to the next stage without warning, leaving you with an incomplete recording (which you could easily miss if you don't check your results carefully.) Now granted, this was not happening all the time and when it did happen, it seemed to be with more problematic recordings from VHS. But, the thing is that the same file would mux correctly using other software tools. So Toast obviously had a problem.
So I contacted Roxio tech support.
I won't bore you with all the details, but it took about a month to get a response. And when I did get a response, it was the standard uninstall-reinstall advice. I sent them the output from my System Profiler. They replied they couldn't open it. Which says to me their tech support people are doing Mac support on Windows machines. I asked them "What next?" and even suggested they allow me to upload samples they could process themselves and see the problem. Their response was "Considering the extensive, unsuccessful trouble shooting attempts of your problem we are unable to offer you any further solutions for your issue and will have to discontinue any further support." So they consider uninstall-reinstall extensive. They did offer a refund. I told them I didn't want a refund (besides, considering how things had gone up to that point, I'd never see the refund anyway), I wanted them to support their software. That's basically where it ended.
So, in my opinion, Roxio has no tech support.


Don't get me wrong, there are some good things about this software package and it is a very important package for the Mac as there are few alternatives for some of the functionality in this package. Which makes it all the more frustrating that it is not supported.


So if you are someone who gets very annoyed with this kind of lack of support, you might want to look at other alternatives if possible. If not, it is a very useful software package to have. I'm just not confident about it's future.