Problems playing Blu-ray with PowerDVD 8

[electrontau]

First the hardware: Phenom X4 CPU, Win7 64-bit, 4GB RAM, Plextor PX-B320SA drive, nvidia GTX 275.
All drivers are up-to-date (windows, graphics, sound, mobo). Blu-ray drive firmware is also up-to-date.
Bundled software: PowerDVD 8.

So, I was able to watch blu-ray movies with my computer. And out of sudden PowerDVD stopped playing the blu-ray discs. Regular DVD and CD plays fine. Just does not recognize Blu-ray discs. So I did the most obvious thing. I uninstalled PowerDVD and reinstalled it again. Downloaded the lastest update as well. Still does not recognize Blu-ray discs. Windows sees the Blu-ray discs and the contents. I was able to rip the movie to the HDD. So nothing wrong with the drive itself. Problem is just with PowerDVD. I think they disabled the AACS key to force me to buy the latest version because PowerDVD 10 works (trial version). I don't want to pay for another software. Ripping all my movies is not an option. I have 20+ blu-ray movies.

Any ideas?
Thanks.

[fritzi93]

Did you run a registry cleaner after uninstalling and before re-installing?

I have that same bundled version of PowerDVD, and yeah it stinks, although it never just up and quit on me. I've also tried regular trialware versions and can't tell any meaningful differences. I no longer have PDVD installed, and am using the Digital Theater in TME instead, which is far, far better. Same thing essentially as TMT3. Since you don't want to pay for anything, that's out.

So, here's a couple of ideas:

1) Get DVDFabPasskey (free while it's beta) and copy the movie to your hard drive. Re-encode to AVCHD using BDRB. Then play the (much smaller) AVCHD from hard drive or burn to DVDR and play from disc in your DVD drive whenever you want. You may be surprised just how good an AVCHD backup can look. Maybe PDVD will kindly condescend to play AVCHD backups for you.

2) Play the discs using MPCHC or Splash, with DVDFabPasskey running in the background. For the former, you need to select the biggest *.m2ts file in the STREAM folder. Been a while since I tried Splash, but at the time, the same went for it as well. MPCHC can make use of hardware acceleration, don't remember if Splash can.

Good luck.

[bqw371]

So, I was able to watch blu-ray movies with my computer. And out of sudden PowerDVD stopped playing the blu-ray discs. Regular DVD and CD plays fine. Just does not recognize Blu-ray discs.

I was having the EXACT same issue and registered to inform the internet of my solution. CyberLink Advisor and PowerDVD were not detecting my Blu Ray drive though Blu Ray discs were recognized within windows explorer.

Daemon Tools Lite had been used on my PC to mount an ISO since last watching a blu ray. Once the ISO was unmounted with Daemon Tools, CyberLink Advisor recognized the BD drive and Blu Ray discs work again with PowerDVD DX!

I've since put a write-up on my blog outlining the solution:
http://www.1fixpc.com/2011/02/blu-ray-playback-error-in-powerdvd-dx/