Solution to get integrated playback of blu-ray movies in Windows 7 Media Center

It’s great to see that I do not need to install any third party codec in Windows 7, all movies regardless of which type it is has played without problems. However it’s sad to see that Microsoft hasn’t integrated blu-ray playback support in Media Center in Windows 7, something I am really missing. I had to go the extra mile to get blu-ray support in Media Center and the solution I am running with now is something I am very happy with. You will soon learn why.

To get blu-ray support I evaluated both the software PowerDVD and WinDVD but the really stupid thing is that one is not allowed to use the blu-ray feature in either of those in the demo versions. This ended up with me purchasing the PowerDVD version, a choice I am very pleased with.

As it turns out PowerDVD integrates totally with Media Center in Windows 7 and whenever I play a blu-ray disc from within Media Center the PowerDVD playback software is loaded in the background. Visually it appears as though I remain in the Media Center interface and the fact that I can continue to use the MCE remote control to control the blu-ray movie is really nice. Overall this is extremely smooth and provides a great end user experience!