Best way to direct play UHD HDR Blurays on wondows 11

[zerofoxjim]

Hello all, I went down the rabbit hole of playing UHD HDR disks on windows 11 and was wondering what the best application is to use. I purchased Makemkv as I discovered my blu ray drive was flashable and my MSI claw is hooked up to the living room TV that supports HDR10+. I currently use VLC, but was wondering if there is any software better to use for the best visual playback.

Cheers

[Toscaclarinet]

I have played around with various methods of playback and I would say that although you do get menus on VLC, I find playback to be a bit stuttery even on high spec PCs. MPC-HC is non-stuttery and you can get HDR through madVR, but no menus, so a faff to access special features and any localisation text. I have also tried PlayerFabUltra and they are alright playback wise with HDR but I can't get menus to work anymore and they don't work with Pioneer drives. So all of these have positives and minuses.

(I also did have a PC all set up with SGX enabled PowerDVD20 to play the "official" way. Then, not knowing that Intel had turned off the SGX servers in April this year, I upgraded my CPU to the 8700k and now that PC won't do official 4k anymore [facepalm]. )

Now that my "official" playback is no longer possible, the method I have had most success with is using combined MakeMKV + XReveal to remove protection and playing back using Cyberlink PowerDVD20. Menus, HDR, smooth playback, everything seems to work. I think you are limited to standard HDR, not Dolby Vision, but that doesn't bother me too much.

[-Jim-]

I have half an answer for you. Cyberlink PowerDVD 24 Ultra.

Why half an answer? Because I've only tried it on regular Blurays and not yet on UHD.

I've been using PowerDVd for well over two decades and I'm a fan. I think it originally came with a work Laptop ages ago. I have my main Box integrated into a 5.1 system via HDMI and like having the ability to easily use Menus, select Audio streams, etc. I'm pretty sure they have a demo version you can pull down to try.

https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powe ... en_US.html

I have ordered an Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray Burner which is due here on Monday. Once I Crossflash it (Thanks to MartyMcNuts), I'll give playing UHD Disks a try.

Good luck with your pursuit.

[Toscaclarinet]

I have half an answer for you. Cyberlink PowerDVD 24 Ultra.

Why half an answer? Because I've only tried it on regular Blurays and not yet on UHD.

I've been using PowerDVd for well over two decades and I'm a fan. I think it originally came with a work Laptop ages ago. I have my main Box integrated into a 5.1 system via HDMI and like having the ability to easily use Menus, select Audio streams, etc. I'm pretty sure they have a demo version you can pull down to try.

https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powe ... en_US.html

I have ordered an Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray Burner which is due here on Monday. Once I Crossflash it (Thanks to MartyMcNuts), I'll give playing UHD Disks a try.

Good luck with your pursuit.

PowerDVD won't integrate with MakeMKV for direct playback of UHDs, presumably because it is designed to play UHDs the "official" way (and that only works up to v22 or early v23). I have to use MakeMKV and XReveal together to be able to use it. When AnyDVD was still around you could use that instead of XReveal.

[-Jim-]

Sorry, I thought the question was something to play the UHD HDR Bluray Disks, and not the files from Makemkv.

[zerofoxjim]

Thanks all for the ideas everyone. Yes I am just wanting the best experience from playing back the UHD disk ideally with HDR10+. I have tried MPC-HC with Madvr, and playback is very dark compared to VLC. Dont have any stuttering issues though just trying to get the best visual playback possible. I bought this external drive: Asus BW-16D1X-U primarily for an extra backup for my files solution and came across MakeMKV for backups and playback, so went down the path of purchasing UHD disk content, as I was fortunate enough to buy a disk drive that could be flashed unintentionally lol

[Toscaclarinet]

I don't have brightness issues with MPC + madvr, but I did spend a long time fiddling around with settings at the start until I was happy. Presumably there is a brightness control somewhere within mpc that you can adjust?
Or possibly the HDR is not turning on correctly? Some software you have to toggle on windows hdr before starting, others do it automatically.