4K UHD Blu-ray Playback on PC Desktop is officially dead in 2021?

[mande2013]

I was just wondering. Would having PowerDVD 20 and an external UHD drive nullify the need for a set-top box UHD player if I could just connect my laptop to a 4K television and watch discs that way? Besides, PowerDVD is de facto region free since one can reset the number of allowed region code changes for 'regular' blu-ray very easily. I'd need to spend about 350 bucks for a set-top box UHD player that allows region free 1080p blu-ray playback whereas an external UHD drive along with PowerDVD 20 would altogether cost about 250. For the record, I currently have a mid-2015, 15 inch MacBook Pro retina and would be using PowerDVD 20 via Windows. It doesn't have a native 4K display but is compatible with external 4K displays as far as I'm aware.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by mande2013

I was just wondering. Would having PowerDVD 20 and an external UHD drive nullify the need for a set-top box UHD player if I could just connect my laptop to a 4K television and watch discs that way? Besides, PowerDVD is de facto region free since one can reset the number of allowed region code changes for 'regular' blu-ray very easily. I'd need to spend about 350 bucks for a set-top box UHD player that allows region free 1080p blu-ray playback whereas an external UHD drive along with PowerDVD 20 would altogether cost about 250. For the record, I currently have a mid-2015, 15 inch MacBook Pro retina and would be using PowerDVD 20 via Windows. It doesn't have a native 4K display but is compatible with external 4K displays as far as I'm aware.

Ultra HD Blu-ray requires a 7th generation or later Intel Core i5/i7/i9 processor and currently requires SGX. Apple's hardware doesn't support SGX so you can't even watch Ultra HD Blu-rays on a 2020 Mac until the Blu-ray Disc Association and the player software companies figure out a solution. Besides, I doubt that it would output HDR10+ or Dolby Vision, or even output at 24Hz. Oh, and Apple is transitioning to their own ARM-based Apple Silicon, so the companies will have to figure out a way to make it work on an ARM machine (maybe using the Apple Secure Enclave?)

[HDTV1080P]

Yes so far Apple and AMD CPU’s are not supported for 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray playback since no SGX security technology. One has to own a certain brand and model of motherboard that supports SGX in the BIOS and a compatible INTEL CPU with SGX security technology. Then one also needs to use Windows 10 with PowerDVD Ultra version 17, 18, 19, or 20. However at this time only HDR10 is supported with PowerDVD Ultra. Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+ is not supported.

Until the BDA comes out with a software solution for SGX, less then 1% of the population that owns a Windows 10 PC can playback native 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. Buying a standalone Sony or Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player is the best way to watch 4K Ultra HD optical discs.