SlySoft working on user friendly Blu-ray player software
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted May 20th 2009 at 12:29PM
There is no shortage of Blu-ray playback software for Windows, but most of it can be pretty annoying. Assuming you even have all the HDCP compliant hardware to use it, it is still pretty limited in regards to audio capabilities and then worst of all, there is all the forced video like previews and legal warnings. Lucky for us the AACS LA's worst nightmare, SlySoft, has plans to make Blu-ray playback on a computer even less painful. While AnyDVD already allows you to playback Blu-ray Discs on non-HDCP complaint hardware, in addition this should let you output uncompressed PCM audio via HDMI without the protected path that is only available in very expensive audio cards. It would also let you disable BDJ and skip straight to the start of a movie -- possibly even resuming BDJ discs. And our personal favorite is the ability to skip those annoying legal warning, of which we are actually close to reciting the one in French because we've read it so many times. No word on availability but at free, the price is right. While SlySoft is working so hard, we'd also like some Mac software to help ease Apple users' "bag of hurt."
Filed under: Blu-ray
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RenegadeELEN @ May 20th 2009 12:32PM
It's free per many posts in that forum by Slysoft themselves.
RenegadeELEN @ May 20th 2009 12:36PM
Here is the post....
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=189992&postcount=309
FNG @ May 20th 2009 4:31PM
sweet. free kick ass program for me! (well free because I already paid for anydvd hd before the subscription model)
kcmurphy88 @ May 20th 2009 1:49PM
HDCP complaint hardware indeed.
andy vt @ May 20th 2009 2:47PM
There is a mac/linux port planned - http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=182414&postcount=45
reallynotnick @ May 20th 2009 4:02PM
Holyshit! A free Mac/Linux BD player app that blows away other apps like PowerDVD that costs money!!! I'm all on board the BD train now!
Anyone know how long this will take?
xemumanic @ May 20th 2009 6:30PM
I bought into AnyDVD HD before they started doing yearly pricing, but now I sorta kinda regret that. A lot of the money they get likely goes to buying Blu Rays for testing so they can crack new revisions of BD+. And now, where getting something like this for free.
Kumar @ May 21st 2009 2:12PM
You'll still need the AnyDvd hd running in the background to crack the encryption. This is just a player to sit on top of that.
So you can still be glad, like I am, that you dropped ca$h before they started subscriptions. I gave up after trying a few times on my hp hdx 16 to get discs to play. It sucks that you technically have to break the law just to get all blu discs to play on your personal player.
Robert @ May 20th 2009 7:58PM
Slysoft has really great software products. I'm looking forward to SlyPlayer. Hope to toss out the other players. I'm cautious though, since no one has ever gotten a player right. As good as Slysoft is, I fully expect some bonehead issues.
Charles @ May 20th 2009 8:58PM
Let's all pray they do get it out by the end of the year.
Mike @ May 21st 2009 8:10AM
The best $80 I spent last Christmas...for AnyDVD HD before the subscription model pricing kicked in. Looking forward to this player and of course free is good.
twisted4 @ May 21st 2009 8:35AM
Agreed! my htpc plays any discs I throw in thanks to AnyDVD HD
twisted4 @ May 21st 2009 8:23AM
Hopefully will also play HD-DVD's, yeah I knowm I know... but I still have some
nossy @ May 21st 2009 9:32AM
What's so difficult to bitstream audio through HDMI anyway? Do you even need to get a license from Dolby or DTS to bitstream? Even a $200 player can do that. As long as you have the hardware for it (HDMI v1.2 or above?) and a AVR capable of it. I don't think I should pay for decoder license twice, once on the player and once on the AVR.
demon @ May 21st 2009 3:15PM
The problem is that for BD licensing, you have to have a protected audio path to transfer audio at maximum fidelity - otherwise, you're limited to 16 bit 48 KHz audio. Most hardware doesn't do that, and Vista doesn't do it by itself - they did a protected *video* path, but audio wasn't included at the time.
Carlton Bale @ May 21st 2009 12:50PM
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about this free player, but price aside, it doesn't offer anything my current combination of AnyDVD HD + TotalMedia Theatre does.
AnyDVD HD already allows you to disable BDJ and skip directly to the main Blu-ray menu. It removes Prohibited User Options so you can skip warning messages. TotalMedia Theatre already allows PCM output over cheap soundcards (the integrated audio in nVidia and Intel motherboards, among others.) If Slyplayer were to offer bitstreaming for these soundcards, then that would be something new, but bistreaming doesn't offer much advantage over PCM.
Mac support is something a lot of people have been wanting. Hopefully a Mac version of AnyDVD HD is on the way, because it appears Slyplayer basically incorporates all of the AnyDVD HD features internally or will require you to purchase AnyDVD HD.
By the way, I won't consider Slysoft to be a "user-friendly" company until they make AnyDVD automatically update itself, instead of requiring users to remote desktop into all of their HTPCs and install updates twice a week. Users are requesting it, but Slysoft isn't listening: http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=30286
nathan @ May 21st 2009 5:20PM
I think the user intervention for updates is nice. I don't want my machine phoning home without my intervention. Ever.
And if they get a functional player that works, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg (which would differentiate it from my experience with the current offerings), that's great.