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Bluray 3D playback from disc to pc directly working!

neocaleric
Protege
Hello everyone, not sure if this topic is covered in other post somewhere but still i wanted to share. Since day 1 i've been looking for a way to watch my bluray 3d movies on the RIft but the answer was convoluted and many places straight up said it couldn't be done because of the legal stuff embedded in every bluray disc, HDCP stuff, etc. Yesterday i was finally able to make it work thanks to an amazing guide i found online. It is a little bit complicated and you need to install a couple things (all free software) but it works. Watched my 3d Zootopia bluray with Virtual Desktop straight from the disc with no compression, converting, ripping or anything.

This is the guide

https://www.tchapin.com/how-to-watch-3d-blu-ray-movies-on-the-htc-vive-or-oculus-rift-without-having...

Im not sure if there is an even better and easier way to do it but i couldn't find any.  Also you are watching your own original discs so it shouldn't be any problems with that area.
PSVR is able to do 3D bluray playback since it's last update directly as well so there shouldn't be any reason why us PC users cannot enjoy this bonus perk of our headsets. It kinda feels like having your own personal IMAX theater. 🙂

BTW, of course you need to have a 3d compatible bluray drive on your pc to be able to do this, they are fairly cheap (around $60 on Amazon) I was holding out on getting one since i hadn't found any confirmation it was possible to watch the movies but i got one the moment i read that guide.

Also 3D televisions are dead and VR headsets might be the only way to watch 3D films at home in the near future.
20 REPLIES 20

Bloodlet
Rising Star
I just followed this guide and it works perfectly in Big Screen. (although I did change it to SBS instead of OU..just worked better for me).
No more need to spend time ripping Blu rays to file. Just direct play in full 3D!!

....and it's all free 😮

I haven't tried this but I would just comment that as far as PC bluray drives are concerned, there isn't a 3D drive as such, all bluray drives read 3D discs, it's just the files on the discs happen to be 3D, so whatever program you're using needs to be 3D capable.

Bloodlet
Rising Star
Not as simple as that. Most programmes will detect what 3d device you have for viewing and playback accordingly. The rift doesn't get detected (even on PowerDVD 17 Ultra that boasts VR support). and it won't normally play direct from drive. This is where the usual need to convert to file first occurs.

Even a 2d blu ray will appear as just a blackscreen when trying to view it on a vr viewer like Big Screen. Though it looks fine on the monitor.
The programs on this guide and the set up between them all works perfectly to play direct from 3D Blu ray disc.
I did still needed to run DVDFab Passkey Lite. (also free) as the media player still wouldn't render the file without it.

There's probably other ways to get this working but in nearly 2 years of trying this is the only success I've had.

Yeah, I was just commenting on the hardware side as mentioned in the OP

cybereality
Grand Champion
Actually, some of the really early BD drives for PC couldn't handle 3D Blu-Ray. I can't remember completely, but I think they needed to be 2X speed or something like that. This was back in like 2010. Any drive you buy today will likely work no problem.
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LZoltowski
Champion


Actually, some of the really early BD drives for PC couldn't handle 3D Blu-Ray. I can't remember completely, but I think they needed to be 2X speed or something like that. This was back in like 2010. Any drive you buy today will likely work no problem.


Whats a CD/DVD drive? Is that like a VHS? 🙂
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Be kind to one another 🙂

Yeah, 2x is necessary, although an old 1x would work if you could put up with an horrendous amount of stutter! Speaking of old drives, I've only just gotten over my sentimental attachment to my floppy (drive that is), and consigned it to the box of pre-loved parts, found my zip drive in there too.

I think the zip disc was the first of my discs to contain pornography, a happy coming together of Internet availability and disc size capability.

neocaleric
Protege
After using the free trials for both the DVDFav Passkey Lite and another one that i can't remember right now... i think it was AnyDVD or something like that, i stopped trying to watch my 3D bluray movies on the Rift. While everything worked with this guide and software combination, after the trial those software become a bit expensive. And i always kept hoping we would get some sort of dedicated disc player app directly on the Home... or as a part of Oculus Video. It sucks that the hardware is capable of displaying everything directly from the original disc on the VR headset, but some licensing issue prevents us from doing it without 3rd party softwares.

I agree, in some ways I'm surprised that a licencing deal was never worked out with Microsoft to incorporate Bluray playback into Windows but then I guess it's just the result of how people have moved away from physical media to watch movies.


I bought into Bluray from the start and still invest in the discs, the quality is still visibly and audibly better than any on-line movie provider, but I think the difference isn't big enough for most people and the movement to on-line is just going to continue. I think Bluray is the last of the physical movie formats, I've always gone for best possible quality but I haven't been tempted by 4K Bluray at all.


I do rate DVDFab very highly though. As you say it's not cheap but I have a lot of films and TV boxsets converted to mkv and they play off my NAS to the TVs and Tablet in the house. I bought the lifetime licence so it's become very good value imho