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

@The Sad Truth - In my post I only asked to include Blu-ray into the media editions such as Ultimate, or as an option, for the people who want to pay extra for it, just like Vista Ultimate included SD DVD playback. I of course agree "millions of people" don't have to pay for it if they don't need it.

BD sales progressed 74% last quarter, please acknowledge there are also "millions of people" who need better Blu-ray support today even if you don't. They won't be able to find all the goodies such as bonus, languages and subtitles on a highly compressed digital download, or store these downloads into their media library for keeps. My District 9 BD takes 44GB, for instance, and, like many BDs, also includes a digital copy that I don't have to download.

I agree that the $4.50 license fee is not the whole picture, you apparently also need to fork out $9.50 for a separate BD license fee from One-Blue, 2 others for AACS and MPEG-2 and what nots, all from different licensing companies. :(  Still, many editors or manufacturers manage it just fine.

But I think you're wrong about flash, a 64GB SDXC card costs well over $100 wholesale, $200 retail, compared to less than a dollar or 2 for pressing a BD. The companies you don't mention (Apple with its iTunes?) are probably using the lame excuse of online movies, not flash.

Like you, I don't see much future for Blu-ray, at least until they fix their licensing mess and until Sony who currently presses 95% of all worldwide BDs opens up the market to competitors. But they still sell or rent by the millions every day, Avatar alone sold 3 millions BDs in just 5 days!

Actually the last time I priced out the codecs for BD playback/burning on a PC it was in the $24 range (in added charges - about 2 years ago). You have to remember that this isn't a single codec and it's not to a single company. MPEG-LA gets their piece, the audio guys get their piece, the disc format guys get a piece.  I know that sounds insane but just look at the current license for something old and busted like MP3. Under a standard license as is publicly available on the Thomson web site it's $0.75 for playback rights (per application on a PC) to playback MP3 (it's not a PC-wide license, it is literally per application) and Thomson wants $2.50 per application for the right to rip something into MP3. Now some people get by this by using the COM interface to WMP so that the license Microsoft paid covers it, but if they just called the APIs directly - they owe a license...

So next question is would any OEM want to pay Microsoft and extra $20+ per copy of Home Premium if BD wasn't being used across the board?

I don't think people would appreciate every PC going up $50 (that $20 license fee would then be subjected to the OEM and Best Buy's margin markup) for questionable value to everyone that didn't get a BD drive. When you think about HP or Acer's volume, $20/unit is serious money so no one is just going to include it out of the goodness of their heart. 

If they include a BD drive, an OEM should include the software to use it. If you added a BD drive on your own - you're on your own. That's just the model. Whether you like it our not, that's how your PC got configured, priced and sold.

Agree with skymanGTW. If your OEM (your PC manufacturer) included a Blu-ray disc drive, then they would definitely include the software for Blu-ray playback (PowerDVD / Arcsoft TotalMedia, etc.). No need to blame Microsoft over this. Besides currently you don't see Blu-ray playback support as a native feature on any other OS either. You will just have to wait till it does one day.

<:)

ENOUGH with the blame game.

I agree that a Blu-ray codec would cost money. I agree that some third party software vendors have Blu-ray playback applications that work in Windows 7. I acknowledge that some people rip Blu-ray disks, jump through hoops, and end up with a way to view the original movie.

I'm not interested in any of that.

I have Windows Media Center hooked up to my HD TV. The PC (Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit) has a Blu-ray drive. I can play DVDs, but I can't play Blu-ray movies.

My question is this:

What do I need to do? What do I need to do to get Blu-ray support   _in_Media_Center_   (ie: don't launch another app - do it within media center).

I'll (reluctantly) paly the money. Microsoft - what should I buy?