Windows 7 Media player will not play back BluRay disc's

I have had issues for years trying to play blu-ray discs. This is with the most popular software intended to play these discs, Power DVD 11. I had so much trouble with stuttering sound and dropped frames that I gave up and just bought a blu-ray player and plugged it into my screen. No more problems. All blu-rays play perfectly. Maybe in ten years Microsoft will get around to doing this.

A codec is usually for a video file format. Blu-ray is more than a file format, it is a whole disc format, which also includes the interactive menus, extras, etc., so you need a full media player.

Actually, Window 7 Media Player already includes a partial codec for the Blu-ray movies: Just open the biggest .m2ts file in the BDM\STREAM folder. It may play mute or with a foreign audio track, but at least the video should be fine.

I just installed Windows 7 premium home,full retail 64 bit version. I was surprised to find media player does not support BluRay playback. I read the previous post in this forum and see, as far back as May, that Microsoft was aware of the codec issues with BluRay playback on Win. 7

What is Microsoft doing to solve this glaring issue. BluRay has been around for a long time and I'm sure thousands of Windows 7 customers are going to be in the same boat as me. There are NO codec available through a Google search ( 64 bit) and I would be very reluctant to use one off the internet anyway (Virus issues)

Definitely my top concerns for watching a movie are that I be able to watch it and hear it with satisfactory clarity.

Standard DVD clarity is satisfactory. If the clarity is beneath tolerable limits--that is, unsatisfactory--I will not watch it. But I will not refuse to watch a movie simply because I cannot watch it--or cannot afford to watch it--in Blu-ray or streamed HD. Blu-ray, or HD, is preferred, but it is not necessary. Therefore it is a secondary concern.

For me the most convenient and affordable way to watch both Blu-rays and standard DVDs is by having an account with Netflix that allows disks to be mailed to me (Blu-ray disks require a small additional monthly fee). Sometimes I have to stand in line to wait for a popular new release, but usually within a couple of months the disk is mailed. A stream-only account with Neflix (called Instant Play) is less expensive than having disks mailed, but the selection of available movies is too limited.

Streaming incurs additional expense, though on exceptional occasions I may resort to it. For example, I own nine seasons of Smallville, five in standard DVD, four in Blu-ray. After watching the last episode of Season 9, which was the first part of a two-part episode, I was too impatient to wait for part 2, which was the first episode of Season 10. So, from amazon, I paid for and streamed the first episode of Season 10. And I streamed it in HD.

I do not engage in illegal streaming.