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

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

I owned a Pioneer BDXL BD-ROM drive in 2015 and it would not read 4K Blu-ray discs.

Pioneer reportedly had a bad habit of labeling players as supporting BDXL and then gimping the firmware such that they didn't read BDXL discs after all. You can read an old BD spec for yourself and see that UHD discs are essentially BDXL discs, which is why real BDXL drives can read them just fine.

A few years later I had to buy a Pioneer BD-ROM drive with the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo in order for the drive to read 4K Blu-ray files that the Windows operating system could see.

You could've bought plenty of other drives and read the discs. Official playback wouldn't have been allowed but that's a different ball of wax.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

I owned a Pioneer BDXL BD-ROM drive in 2015 and it would not read 4K Blu-ray discs. A few years later I had to buy a Pioneer BD-ROM drive with the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo in order for the drive to read 4K Blu-ray files that the Windows operating system could see. But then since my year 2015 X99 motherboard lacked SGX technolgoy I could not playback the 4K Blu-ray discs on a Windows PC.

Ultra HD Blu-ray was not even a thing in 2015. It came out in 2016.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

Ultra HD Blu-ray was not even a thing in 2015. It came out in 2016.

Yes that is true 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray players launched in 2016. I was just stating a fact that there are many BDXL drives from 2015-2022 that will not read 4K Bu-ray discs. Pioneer appears to have went 100% BDXL computer drives around November of 2022, and only four of those 2022 models work with 4K Blu-ray discs, many of the modern-day Pioneer BDXL drives made in 2022 according to the specs do not read 4K Blu-ray discs. But all this is a non-issue since in November 2023 no company offers software anymore to playback 4K Blu-ray discs on a Windows PC.

This thread in theory will die and the remaining PowerDVD 17 through 22 Ultra owners will just go out and buy a standalone 4K Blu-ray player or switch to 4K Ultra HD streaming from Netflix, Amazon or another provider.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Sadly, your post came true. The playback of both 4K Blu-ray discs and Blu-ray 3D discs is now officially dead to the over 1.4 billion Windows 10 and Windows 11 owners. Cyberlink was the only Windows software that supported 4K Blu-ray discs and as of November 2023 the company basically is telling everyone that they no longer support 4K Blu-ray playback on a Windows PC. The main problem is that no one is making new computers with the SGX security technology built into the CPU and motherboard BIOS. SGX is the only approved hardware based security technogy that is approved by the BDA.

Most likely everyone making 4K BD-ROM computer drives will now cease production, since no need to make a 4K BD-ROM drive if there is no longer any official software to playback the media. Cyberlink is recommending consumer go buy a standalone 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. But who knows for some companies 2023 might be the last year that standalone 4K Blu-ray players remain in production including possible 2K Blu-ray players. This is another negative blow to the 4K Blu-ray format with no computer operating system supporting the disc format. But at least for the standard 2K Blu-ray format over 1.4 billion Windows PC’s are supported, including the old Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system.

Quote

“This is a tough decision, but we have decided to cease the UHD BD playback features and the corresponding online authentication in the latest version of PowerDVD 22 and PowerDVD 365 after October, 2023. As a result, UHD BDs will become unplayable in PowerDVD.”

https://www.cyberlink.com/support-ce...ntent?id=28347

Would it still work in PowerDVD 21 and earlier on the machines that had SGX? Pioneer still includes PowerDVD 14 with its drives.

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

Would it still work in PowerDVD 21 and earlier on the machines that had SGX? Pioneer still includes PowerDVD 14 with its drives.

Up to a certain point, it should. The software has to go online in order to support new AACS versions. If you have an older disc, you should be fine, unless Cyberlink is monkeying with the software in other, unnecessary ways. Newer AACS versions? That's a roll of the dice.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by apollo828

Up to a certain point, it should. The software has to go online in order to support new AACS versions. If you have an older disc, you should be fine, unless Cyberlink is monkeying with the software in other, unnecessary ways. Newer AACS versions? That's a roll of the dice.

If newer discs use newer AACS versions, then how come people with the OPPO machines (released in 2017) are still able to play the latest discs? The final update was back in 2019. In the early days of the format, they were talking about discs that would require online authentication the first time they were played on a given machine, but as far as I can tell, no such disc was ever released.

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

If newer discs use newer AACS versions, then how come people with the OPPO machines (released in 2017) are still able to play the latest discs? The final update was back in 2019. In the early days of the format, they were talking about discs that would require online authentication the first time they were played on a given machine, but as far as I can tell, no such disc was ever released.

It depends on if the player keys have been revoked. That has happened to PowerDVD in the past, and it's possible they'll be revoked again in the future, either because they've been compromised or as a preventative measure in case they're currently being used but nobody has noticed.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Sadly, your post came true. The playback of both 4K Blu-ray discs and Blu-ray 3D discs is now officially dead to the over 1.4 billion Windows 10 and Windows 11 owners. Cyberlink was the only Windows software that supported 4K Blu-ray discs and as of November 2023 the company basically is telling everyone that they no longer support 4K Blu-ray playback on a Windows PC. The main problem is that no one is making new computers with the SGX security technology built into the CPU and motherboard BIOS. SGX is the only approved hardware based security technogy that is approved by the BDA.

Most likely everyone making 4K BD-ROM computer drives will now cease production, since no need to make a 4K BD-ROM drive if there is no longer any official software to playback the media. Cyberlink is recommending consumer go buy a standalone 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. But who knows for some companies 2023 might be the last year that standalone 4K Blu-ray players remain in production including possible 2K Blu-ray players. This is another negative blow to the 4K Blu-ray format with no computer operating system supporting the disc format. But at least for the standard 2K Blu-ray format over 1.4 billion Windows PC’s are supported, including the old Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system.

Quote

“This is a tough decision, but we have decided to cease the UHD BD playback features and the corresponding online authentication in the latest version of PowerDVD 22 and PowerDVD 365 after October, 2023. As a result, UHD BDs will become unplayable in PowerDVD.”

https://www.cyberlink.com/support-ce...ntent?id=28347

What is most sad, is that by and large most people simply don't care. It certainly was a convenient option that was taken away.

Originally Posted by BijouMan

Would it still work in PowerDVD 21 and earlier on the machines that had SGX? Pioneer still includes PowerDVD 14 with its drives.

In order to legally playback a 4K UHD disc on PC, the requirements list now is almost insurmountable:
* Need to be a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th generation Intel CPU *with* onboard GPU (not all Intel models, such as those that end with KF, have this)
* Motherboard needs to have an onboard video output, and you have to use this output when playing back discs (instead of your graphics card, for instance)
* Motherboard needs to support SGX and have a BIOS version where it is able to be enabled (not all do, even in above gens)
* Need to use a version of Windows that is old, out-of-date, and vulnerable to security exploits, that supports SGX and automatic updates disabled
* Need to use a monitor that supports exactly 3840x2160 resolution
* Both monitor input and motherboard video output need to support HDCP 2.2
* Need to use old version of PowerDVD that supports 4K UHD discs
* Need a BDROM drive that supports 4K UHD discs

As you can see, you might as well just forget about it because the laundry list is so long its not even worth it.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by Ruined

What is most sad, is that by and large most people simply don't care. It certainly was a convenient option that was taken away.



In order to legally playback a 4K UHD disc on PC, the requirements list now is almost insurmountable:
* Need to be a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th generation Intel CPU *with* onboard GPU (not all Intel models, such as those that end with KF, have this)
* Motherboard needs to have an onboard video output, and you have to use this output when playing back discs (instead of your graphics card, for instance)
* Motherboard needs to support SGX and have a BIOS version where it is able to be enabled (not all do, even in above gens)
* Need to use a version of Windows that is old, out-of-date, and vulnerable to security exploits, that supports SGX and automatic updates disabled
* Need to use a monitor that supports exactly 3840x2160 resolution
* Both monitor input and motherboard video output need to support HDCP 2.2
* Need to use old version of PowerDVD that supports 4K UHD discs
* Need a BDROM drive that supports 4K UHD discs

As you can see, you might as well just forget about it because the laundry list is so long its not even worth it.

I would assume that the vast majority of non-Apple machines sold from 2016 to 2020 had the required computing hardware, such as the onboard GPU. All you would have needed was a UHD Blu-ray-capable disc drive. The only time you wouldn't have had an onboard GPU was if you either chose AMD instead of Intel or used or built a machine with a server-based CPU which not many people needed or wanted.

There was a video on YouTube of someone unboxing one of these disc drives and using it to play the UHD Blu-ray of Predator on a pretty typical higher-end laptop of the time, but it appears to have been taken down.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

I would assume that the vast majority of non-Apple machines sold from 2016 to 2020 had the required computing hardware, such as the onboard GPU. All you would have needed was a UHD Blu-ray-capable disc drive. The only time you wouldn't have had an onboard GPU was if you either chose AMD instead of Intel or used or built a machine with a server-based CPU which not many people needed or wanted.

There was a video on YouTube of someone unboxing one of these disc drives and using it to play the UHD Blu-ray of Predator on a pretty typical higher-end laptop of the time, but it appears to have been taken down.

Problem is even if you technically had the right hardware AFAIK there was never any official 4K UHD disc software made for Mac. For the playback to work it requires the entire chain of both hardware and software I specified in my previous post.

I am of course speaking of 100% legal methods and not ones that involve using grey market decryption software

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

I would assume that the vast majority of non-Apple machines sold from 2016 to 2020 had the required computing hardware, such as the onboard GPU. All you would have needed was a UHD Blu-ray-capable disc drive. The only time you wouldn't have had an onboard GPU was if you either chose AMD instead of Intel or used or built a machine with a server-based CPU which not many people needed or wanted.

*sigh* We went over this a million times when you were upset that your MBP couldn't (legally) play 4K Blus. If the spec isn't met, it won't happen. If nobody's willing to pay for the work required to getting a new method licensed, it won't get done. If orgs like NVidia and Apple refuse to play ball and help out, especially when it potentially involved getting deep into security features that may not be documented publicly, it's not gonna happen. The BDA refuses to license solutions that put the keys in "open" memory. Until that changes, legal playback is now officially dead on PCs.

There was a video on YouTube of someone unboxing one of these disc drives and using it to play the UHD Blu-ray of Predator on a pretty typical higher-end laptop of the time, but it appears to have been taken down.

They played a rip or a normal Blu, the latter possibly using DVDGo or whatever that one licensed Mac player is called. That's it.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

Would it still work in PowerDVD 21 and earlier on the machines that had SGX? Pioneer still includes PowerDVD 14 with its drives.

As long as you have working SGX setup and do not uninstall PowerDVD Ultra 17 through 22 it should work fine in theory for 4K Blu-ray discs. But if new AACS security keys are issued for a new release then most likely you will not be able to play that 4K Blu-ray disc since the company said they are no longer supporting PowerDVD Ultra 22 (and prior versions) with updates for 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D playback. Starting with PowerDVD 17 Ultra in the year 2017 was the first time 4K Blu-ray discs was supported on Windows PC’s.

If PowerDVD 23 Ultra is released next year then the software will not support 4K Blu-ray discs, but only 2K Blu-ray, DVD, and audio CD’s. If the day every comes when Cyberlink stops supporting 2K Blu-ray discs (standard Blu-ray’s) then I am going to stop buying the software. There is also a possibility that PowerDVD 22 Ultra might be the last physical optical media player for a Windows PC. Will just have to wait and see what happens.

[apollo828]

Okay? PowerDVD plays rips (although I'm not 100% sure about 4K, which may be forced through the SGX decryption abomination), and it plays regular Blus too. Weren't you the one who posted some video of some guy who swore up & down that DVDGo was playing a 4K disc, only to have it turn out that it was a normal Blu? If so, your track record in this regard isn't exactly stellar. I'll take the word of countless people who know how this stuff works, and even random people on forums who try everything under the sun when trying to play their discs, over one video that has, conveniently enough, disappeared.

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by apollo828

Okay? PowerDVD plays rips (although I'm not 100% sure about 4K, which may be forced through the SGX decryption abomination), and it plays regular Blus too. Weren't you the one who posted some video of some guy who swore up & down that DVDGo was playing a 4K disc, only to have it turn out that it was a normal Blu? If so, your track record in this regard isn't exactly stellar. I'll take the word of countless people who know how this stuff works, and even random people on forums who try everything under the sun when trying to play their discs, over one video that has, conveniently enough, disappeared.

That was someone else who made that video. He was trying to find out what would happen if he hooked up one of these disc drives to a non-disc drive PlayStation 5. He "tested" the drive with his MacBook Pro (in Macgo) before taking it to the PS5. I eventually noticed it was the Blu-ray because the UHD of the film used (Black Panther) has more languages to choose from. That video is still up.

But the video I am talking about in this post was an unboxing of one of the UHD-capable Pioneer drives. He hooked up the drive to his laptop, which was not an Apple machine, and used PowerDVD to play the UHD of Predator. I cannot find that video anymore.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by apollo828

Okay? PowerDVD plays rips (although I'm not 100% sure about 4K, which may be forced through the SGX decryption abomination), and it plays regular Blus too. Weren't you the one who posted some video of some guy who swore up & down that DVDGo was playing a 4K disc, only to have it turn out that it was a normal Blu? If so, your track record in this regard isn't exactly stellar. I'll take the word of countless people who know how this stuff works, and even random people on forums who try everything under the sun when trying to play their discs, over one video that has, conveniently enough, disappeared.

PowerDVD 22 Ultra plays back both 8K and 4K videos from a consumer camcorder. I know a family member with a old year 2017 Sony 4K camcorder that records to a SDXC card, and that camera footage will playback on PowerDVD 22 Ultra at 3840 x 2160P quality using the MPEG-4/AVC codec with studio master LPCM 2.0 stereo sound. However, I have not personally tried a 8K camcorder but the specs say it is supported in PowerDVD 22 ultra. The 4K Blu-ray format only supports MPEG-4/AVC up to 1080P quality, and when native 4K is used the better quality HEVC codec is needed.

So any unencrypted video file from 480i to 8K is supported with PowerDVD 22 Ultra. The nightmare occurs when one tries to playback 4K Blu-ray discs since the security requirements are so unacceptable that the SGX hardware providers and software providers dropped 4K Blu-ray playback from a Windows PC.

[HDTV1080P]

A few years ago, it use to be that no standard BD-ROM drive would read BD-66 and BD-100 4K Blu-ray discs. One had to buy a BD-ROM drive with the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo in order to be able to read 4K Blu-ray discs. However, since all new motherboards and CPU’s (only Intel was supported for 4K Blu-ray playback), stopped offering the required SGX hardware-based security technology in 2020, and also since less then 1% of PC’s made between 2015 to 2020 offered SGX technology, it is my understanding that the 4K BD-ROM drive companies were getting a lot of complaints from customers since they could not play 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. Therefore, companies like Pioneer in the last year for the new November 2022 models removed the “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo from all their BD-ROM drives and stopped marketing the feature, that less then 1% of consumers had the hardware to playback the discs. However, on the higher end Pioneer BD-ROM drives that lack the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo, if one looks in the specs some of the higher end Pioneer BD-ROM drives list in the specs that the drive is “Ultra HD Blu-ray compatible”. LG most likely is doing the same removing the “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo from their drives, but more research would be needed on the LG drives. But anyways there is a strong possibility that Pioneer and other BD-ROM drive manufactories might remove the “Ultra HD Blu-ray” feature from future models (I am hoping that they do not), since if there is no way to playback 4K Blu-ray discs on a desktop or Laptop/Notebook computer now, having a feature that adds around $56+ to the cost of the drive does not make sense. If all the BD-ROM drives were made to be “Ultra HD Blu-ray compatible” then it might only add $25 to the cost of the drive instead of an additional $56+, but unless someone steps in and creates a hardware/software method to playback 4K Blu-ray discs on a PC, there is no reason why the new coming BD-ROM models would offer that legacy feature that cannot be used. Also the BDA may decide not to license any future BD-ROM drive that offers the legacy “Ultra HD Blu-ray compatible” feature.

The best internal Pioneer BD-ROM drive for desktop computers that still supports 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc reading is the Pioneer BDR-S13U-X for $290.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P...ves/BDR-S13U-X

The second best internal Pioneer BD-ROM drive for desktop computers that still supports 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc reading is the BDR-S13UBK for $175.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P...ves/BDR-S13UBK

The best external USB 3.2 Generation 1 BD-ROM drive for any Windows computers that still supports 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc is $230.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P...ves/BDR-X13U-S

The smallest and cheapest external USB 3.2 generation 1 BD-ROM drive for any Windows computers that still supports 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc is $140.

https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/P.../BDR-XD08UMB-S

But again, the above drives might be out of production or soon going out of production and replaced with cheaper models for $50 less that do not support the reading of 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. That is a decision Pioneer, and the Blu-ray Disc Association needs to make if they will allow a computer drive to be licensed with the legacy 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray feature (especially now since there is no legal software on any computer to playback the discs).

[apollo828]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

A few years ago, it use to be that no standard BD-ROM drive would read BD-66 and BD-100 4K Blu-ray discs. One had to buy a BD-ROM drive with the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo in order to be able to read 4K Blu-ray discs.

As another poster said elsewhere, please stop. You really must have some sort of brain issue that prevents you from realizing that you're completely and utterly wrong on so many things. (As if the non-stop babbling about the same talking points ad infinitum wasn't a huge clue....) I can read UHD discs perfectly fine on multiple drives that support BDXL but aren't Ultra HD-compliant (i.e., they don't have the extra firmware capabilities required by AACS 2.0). If you can't read those discs, you own lousy hardware. That's on you. Plenty of us can read our discs just fine.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by apollo828

As another poster said elsewhere, please stop. You really must have some sort of brain issue that prevents you from realizing that you're completely and utterly wrong on so many things. (As if the non-stop babbling about the same talking points ad infinitum wasn't a huge clue....) I can read UHD discs perfectly fine on multiple drives that support BDXL but aren't Ultra HD-compliant (i.e., they don't have the extra firmware capabilities required by AACS 2.0). If you can't read those discs, you own lousy hardware. That's on you. Plenty of us can read our discs just fine.

Once again, all the Pioneer BDXL drives in 2015 and even in 2016 would not read 4K Blu-ray discs. It was not until Pioneer released a BDXL drive with the official “Ultra HD Blu-ray” logo was one able to read 4K Blu-ray discs. I have owned almost every generation of Pioneer BD-ROM drives and have first-hand experience, including using the latest Pioneer BD-ROM drive firmware updates. Maybe the LG BDXL drives were different. But in this last post I never mentioned “BDXL” and only mentioned “standard BD-ROM”. There is no standard BD-ROM drive that plays 4K Blu-ray discs.

[ronboster]

Bot on Bot action is so unsexy.

[halohalo]

Pioneer released BDR-X13J-X, but the bundled PowerDVD 14 no longer supports UHD Blu-ray playback.