I'm looking for a good blu-ray player for Windows. Are there any favorites out there that people might recommend?

I'm using Encore CS6 to author a blu-ray disc with some fancy menus and I want to be able to test it out without having to burn a disc every time (yes, Encore can do previews, but they aren't good enough for what I'm doing). I figure I'll create an ISO or a directory with the blu-ray files in it and use a player to give it a try. I've tried Easy DVD Player, which doesn't want to do the menus, Power DVD 12, which seems to want a real disc instead of an ISO or directory, and Total Media Theatre 5, which has color issues.

Are they any other blu-ray players out there that people like?

- Rick

Have you tried VLC player? Google it, it's a free open source download.

Howard -

There are some hacks to get VLC to work, but I tried them and it was no go - I just got a big blank green screen. It seems they are working on blu-ray support. I may just have to wait for a while.

- Rick

The other way is to burn them on BD-RW rewrite disk and test it there. It's more accurate that way.

Yes Mac Blu-Ray Player make a Blu-Ray Player for both Windows and Mac Computers :
The First and Best Mac Blu-ray Player Software, Apple video/DVD/media playback Software (http://www.macblurayplayer.com/)

Thanks for the suggestions.

Taky, I will be burning them onto disks and testing them, but I wanted a way to test the menus before I started using up disks (which are on the pricey side).

Daniel, I checked out Mac Blu-Ray Player (which seems to be another version of Easy DVD Player) but it wouldn't play the menus. Strange.

So far, my best luck has been with TotalMedia Theatre 5. I used Encore to build the Blu-ray files to an ISO file, used VirtualCloneDrive to make the ISO into a virtual drive, pointed TotalMedia Theatre to the virtual drive, and then played it. It played the menus and the videos nicely.

All the others I tried: VLC, Easy DVD Player (and Mac Blu-Ray Player), and CyberLink PowerDVD 12 either don't play the menus or don't work at all. I may be doing something wrong, of course, but I think at least one of them, PowerDVD, seems to want a real Blu-ray disk instead of files in a folder.

- Rick

As said upthread, buy a couple of rewritable BD discs and test with those. You can reuse them many times.