feasible BluRay option for Mac Pros?

[jimmypopjr]

So I bought a BD drive for my mac pro. With 8 cores and 8GB of RAM I figured I could virtualize Vista 64 in coherence mode and play BluRays that way.

Has anyone tried this? I'm in the process of installing Vista, and will grab PowerDVD as well, but was hoping someone might shed some light on this? Am I wasting my time?

Thanks a bunch. If no one has any experience I'll update this thread with how things work out.

 

[frimple]

PowerDVD doesn't work in VMWare AFAIK.

 

[Nermal]

PowerDVD 7 (not the latest, but it's the one that came with my drive) definitely does not work in VMware. It does work in XP using Boot Camp on my MBP, but not in Vista.

 

[jimmypopjr]

Hmmm... well I'll be using PowerDVD 9 (the trial at first so I don't pay for software that won't work). The version 7 software that came with the drive doesn't work in vista, which sucks.

I've also got Parallels 4, which I hear has fixed a lot of 'doesn't work in VM' issues.

Here's hoping (still updating Vista)

 

[TheStrudel]

Not that anybody asked, but in case it's relevant, PowerDVD does not work in the latest version of Crossover either. There has to be decent free software for viewing BDs in Windows...anybody know of some?

 

[jimmypopjr]

Hey guys.

Vista is all updated and virtualized (4 cores, 4GB ram, 256 VRAM).

The one problem I'm running into is getting parallels to let my BD drive merge over to windows. It'll do my superdrive, no problem.

I can get PowerDVD open and to stay open, but I can't get the BD drive to mount and let me try the disk.

I'll update when I have more

 

[gugucom]

I have PowerDVD7 with the appropriate updates running on Vista Business 64-Bit. I believe it will not run with Home if I remember right. But I run Vista from Bootcamp. I see no point in complicating the matter by virtualization.

 

[frimple]

I would be surprised if you can get this to work. The whole point of HDCP is to ensure that the content can't be ripped in a digital format from the output of the source (i.e. taking a movie of your VM playing "The Dark Knight" on blu-ray). I would imagine that the DVD vendors have to implement some handicap on output in VM's for just this reason, or rather I would bet that the VM video driver cannot gain HDCP compliance. Good luck and let us know!

 

[Tallest Skil]

I would be surprised if you can get this to work. The whole point of HDCP is to ensure that the content can't be ripped in a digital format from the output of the source (i.e. taking a movie of your VM playing "The Dark Knight" on blu-ray). I would imagine that the DVD vendors have to implement some handicap on output in VM's for just this reason, or rather I would bet that the VM video driver cannot gain HDCP compliance. Good luck and let us know!

AnyDVD HD renders all HDCP arguments moot.