How to Get Blue Ray Support In Windows 7

GGarza | Oct 13, 2009 | Comments

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What is Blue Ray?

The DVD storage format has been around since the 90’s. Blue Ray, designed by Sony, is an optical disc storage medium which is designed to replace the DVD format. These have a higher density than DVD, and use a different wave length compared to a standard CD or DVD. A Standard DVD uses a 650 nanometer red laser, whereas Blu-ray uses a shorter 405 nm wavelength blue-violet laser. This permits almost six times more data storage than a DVD.

How is Blue Ray supported today?

Blue ray uses codec’s, which are program algorithms to compress data onto a disk. There are two main codecs:

H.264 otherwise known as MPEG-4 Part 10.
VC-1 a video codec that has was implemented by Microsoft in Windows Media Video 9 (WMV)

These codecs are largely available to other software, but are not part of the Windows 7 media player.

Windows 7 support codecs:

Nevertheless, there are other codecs that can be used that will allow media and audio to be played on the Windows media center. They allow movies, tv recordings, and audio to be played from a blue-ray disk. Here are three such options.

1. Windows Media Player Plugins. There are three that can be used.

Plugins which are utilities add or extend the built-in functionality of Windows Media Player.
Skins which are Small programs that change the appearance of Windows Media Player.
Visualizations allow you to view Windows Media Player in different way, but allowing you to listen to music and so on.

2. Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray. This Codec will allow you to use Blu-ray, HD DVD and standard DVDs.

Corel Win DVD 9

3. Cyberlink Powerdvd 9.

This codec will play a variety of HD video formats like AVCHD, AVCREC, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), MPEG-2 HD and WMV-HD.

Cyber Link

If you want to add the codecs, how can you tell what codecs are running on Windows 7 Media player? You can get this information from the sechnical support information window.

Start with the following: Open the Windows 7 Media Icon

Windows Media Center

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player-View

About Windows Media Player

Technical Support Information

Codecs-Binaries

Support:

Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/plugins.aspx

Skins: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/skins.aspx

Visualizations: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/visualizations.aspx

Plug-ins: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/plugins.aspx

Corel:

http://store.corel.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?partNumber=OL_WD09PLBD&srcid=&pculicenseid=&promocode=0&trkid=CJ&countryCode=US&storeId=10302&catalogId=10103&langId=-1

Cyberlink:

http://www.cyberlink.com/

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