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

... The costs for these license is recovered by the company when they sell you the player/software. Microsoft could, of course, also by the rights to include native BluRay movie support, but they would then have to pass on the cost to you. In your case, this would probably be fine, but think about all the people that don't watch BluRay movies on their PCs... 

Then why can't Microsoft offer an addon for a small amount of money? 3rd party? :

• You buy the OS (God forbid it's 64 bit too - x64 is just soooo new!)
• You get home and see it doesn't do what you want... (whether Bluray/Mpeg-2/x264/ and/or various container formats)
• Using logic (ha), MS should offer an 'addon' to OS so as not to pass cost to ppl who would never use it (if this is a worry to them). They never have done this-nor ever done this in the past - (AFAIK they never did this with regular DVDs/MPEG2, either.) So I agree with you, and voted you up.But MS has no excuse for pushing you to 3rd party apps. NONE. Not anymore... if they ever did.

Even though they choose to back HD-DVD, enough time has passed. There is *absolutely* no reason they cannot *offer* the licensing codec(s) required to play protected BluRays for a nominal fee. They just do not want to be bothered supporting any problems it creates. Cost/Benefit analysis and all that - I'm sure. They create enough problems for themselves by virtue of their new Operating Systems.

Again - no excuse MS. Get it together. Audio/Video/Media is everything nowadays - haven't you heard?

Rocky, is it on a DVD or did you have to download and unlock it?

What is the file extension of the movie (".avi"?), can you watch other movies with this extension?

You need to detail exactly all the steps and information if you want help.

i'm trying to watch the digital copy of my blueray and cannot

Also, total sales of physical media actually apparently dropped.

DVD sales are dropping, which is normal because of the increase of Blu-ray and streaming;Blu-raysales increased 75% this year: ipcarrier.blogspot.com/2010/12/blu-ray-movie-sales-up-75.html

The whole point of Windows Home Server, Windows Media Center and Home Theater PCs is to play a library of ripped music and movies from a server to a TV, that's how they work best.

The problem is bandwidth. ... Ask yourself though, ..., if you could download movies for half the cost, ..., wouldn't it be more worthwhile?

Bandwidth is improving, so it won't be a problem for long, but there are many other problems that I mentioned, such as the lack of audio and subtitle tracks, and the limited choice of movies or TV series available.

As for downloads, or rather streaming since there is virtually no movie download offer anywhere, I have been an avid Netflix user for 7 years, switched to Blu-ray over a year ago and do a lot of streaming, but even Netflix is not so appealing to me now, they don't add many new watchable titles available for streaming even on a monthly basis, and it's still anextremely limited choice compared to their DVD or BD mail offer. For me, streaming is more a way to discover if movies are worth buying the disc than an enjoyable movie experience.

I assume you are using HDMI fully then? Once again, most monitors these days only include a DVI cable, which doesn't support HDCP. In fact, many 3D computer monitors being sold don't even support HDMI 1.4 for 3D (and only recent video cards support 3D over HDMI). The only person I know who uses Blu-Ray on their computer, has troubles because of the protection.

I use DVI for my monitor, HDMI for the computer-receiver-TV connection. I couldn't care less about 3D which is not a stable industry standard yet. As for copy protection, it's not a problem for playback, only if you want to rip BDs, but it's not specific to Blu-ray, it's the same as for DVDs and some CDs (you rightly mentioned Sony rootkit.) I have been using AnyDVD to rip hundreds of DVDs and recently some BDs, never had any problem. Except that I am breaking the U.S. law each time because it somehow does not recognize fair personal use.

Go visit the hardocp, wegotserved or other media forums, or even the Windows Home Server forum on this site, and you'll meet hundreds of people passionate about HD movies stored, not necessarily watched, on computers.

It's that as a multi-billion dollar company, you CAN'T sell a product with a kill switch controlled by a competitor, otherwise, you risk mass-lawsuits, looking incompetent

That's what user license agreements are for, Microsoft would naturally limit its liability to what it controls if it were to support Blu-ray playback. Their huge legal team will be way ahead of you there, don't worry about them. I worked for 13 years at MS, I can assure you they take no risk!