Blu-ray Player

So after contacting Amazon again to query about my disc not arriving, they have actually sent me them now. I have the two Blu-ray discs sitting on my desk now!

In the meantime I contacted Scan about return my BD-ROM drive, which unfortunately turns out that I am unable to for a refund. Since it arrived damaged, I could return it on that basis, but unfortunately, they only give 48hrs for you to contact them. The only thing I can do now is to return it under my Scansure insurance, which will replace the superficially damaged drive and not for a refund.

I still have to decide whether it is worth returning, as the damage is superficial and the drive works with the fascia off inside the HTPC case. The only problem is that the eject button does not work, as the external case button can not touch the internal ROM drive button. I will have to pay postage for the return to Scan for a replacement - effectively paying £5 for a new fascia...

I've been having problems with playing Blu-ray disc on the HTPC, but I when I've got it to play, I wasn't very 'overwhelmed' by the PQ of Blu-ray. Admittedly the Amadeus transfer to Blu-ray is not the best but I had expected it to be of better quality than broadcast HD pictures on Freesat.

So thinking maybe it was my GPU/HTPC and PowerDVD that could pump out the PQ of the Blu-ray movie, I went and spent £100 on an end of line Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player. I watched Amadeus from start to finish on this device (had not done this on the HTPC) and noticed that certain scenes were good, I concluded that the PQ was as good as the HTPC, but was still not overwhelmed by the PQ over broadcast HD.

Admittedly, the Samsung BDP isn't the top of the range device, and that the Amadeus movie PQ is top notch, I will try out Bladerunner and 2001 on both the player and the HTPC and then tell you whether it is worth getting Blu-ray or not...

EDIT: I have found a Blu-ray plug-in for MediaPortal: ArcSoft Player