Are there any open source or free programs that can play Blu-Ray discs yet?
The short answer is no. Blu-ray’s are encrypted, and to decrypt them legally requires a license from the Blu-ray Association which cost £££ and goes against Open source principles. You can use Slysoft’s AnyDVD to decrypt them. I believe they then appear as an unencypted drive which any application can access. All the videos on the disc are stored as M2TS files and you can open them with WMP/ VLC/ MPC HC. It also gets round any region coding if present. If you copy the M2TS files off the discs, a few of this years TV’s can play them directly from USB External Harddisks or from DNLA servers over ethernet. No transcoding is required. If you hunt, you can actually download the entire decrypted disc. Obviously 25GB/ 50GB downloads take quite a while and consume a lot of space. I’ve no idea what Pansir is on about, but VLC doesn’t even use Windows codecs . It’s one of the main points VLC. VC-1 is just a video codec and VLC has played back VC-1 files for years, as does MPC HC. Also if blu-ray
