Trial version won't launch any Blu-ray discs

[MacEachaidh]

Well, not a great start.

I've just downloaded the free trial of Media Player 2.2.0.0 for Windows, and the first three discs I've tried on it (The Town, Gremlins, and Last Samurai) won't play. I get the progress bar in the middle of a black screen, looking as if the disc is lauching, but the bar just keeps running over and over again.

I've left all the settings as the defaults the app was installed with, and all the discs are coded for the same region I set the player to. Can anyone suggest anything I might need to change to get this running? Or why it might be doing this?

Thanks for any help.

[90312]

Have you ever trialed it before? After the 30 day trial the functionality to play discs goes away.

[joecrow]

I just downloaded the trial and also cannot play bluray discs, I have not run the trial previously either! According to this page see "Compare versions" section the trial version does not support disc playback! The previous post suggests disc playback is a available for 30 days which would seem reasonable for a trial of a media player. Can someone clarify/confirm. It does play bluray folders which does give me some idea of how it looks but so does VLC(freeware). I would be very reluctant to purchase this without being able to trial its disc playing feature!!!!!!

[90312]

I thought the trial did support disc playback? In any case and for whatever my say so is worth the paid version plays BR discs very nicely in both menu and simple mode.

[signals]

Hi joecrow

The trial version supports playback from disc, the Free version (as in free forever) does not. The table on the website compares the Free version and the registered version, not the trial, which should be full featured.

90312
I agree, I have had good luck with Player also. I dropped TMT due to Cinavia, to which Fab Player is immune.

[joecrow]

Hi joecrow

The trial version supports playback from disc, the Free version (as in free forever) does not. The table on the website compares the Free version and the registered version, not the trial, which should be full featured.

90312
I agree, I have had good luck with Player also. I dropped TMT due to Cinavia, to which Fab Player is immune.

Hi Signals
Thanks for the confirmation, I have tried again and though I'm not sure what changed, the trial is now playing both bluray and dvd discs. Looks real good too, just what I need on my laptop.
I would be happy to drop PowerDVD on my HTPC once the Fab player has bluray3D but are ther any plans for a Media Center interface?

[Toccatta]

In my case, the free version won't play ANY blu-ray information. Due to extreme delays in shipping the VidOnMe set top box, I was given a free year subscription to the media player. It ran out today, and now the media player completely refuses to play any blu-ray content. The table that Signals mentions indicates the free version won't play blu-ray disks, but WILL play blu-ray folders or blu-ray .iso files.

Mine won't. What do I need to do to get media player to go back to playing unencrypted blu-ray .iso files and blu-ray folders? For the past year, I never really used the ability to read actual disks, and now I only use the player periodically to check subtitles before using DVDFab, so buying another license isn't a solution for me.

It will, however, play DVD folders and DVD .iso files... just not Blu-rays.

edit: I should mention that I downloaded and installed the 2.2.4.0 version, which suffers the same problem.

[Toccatta]

Nevermind... Play mode was set to "menu mode" in settings. Changing it to "Simple mode" allows it to play folders and ISO files as advertised.

However, it would have been better if the program had notified me that it was in the wrong mode instead of telling me I had to buy a new license and refusing to run without any explanation why. Or better yet, it could have automatically switched to simple mode after the subscription expired and given me an error only if I tried to play a physical disk or switch it back to menu mode again.

[edit] Just another note: The blu-ray folders I was trying to play were created using "Main Movie" mode in DVDFab, so they didn't have any menus to run... and yet the media player still refused to play them. That seems like a problem to me. Yes, I had inadvertently left it in menu mode (a mistake I have since corrected), but if the folders or ISO being loaded has no actual menus, it should still have run instead of giving an error message even in menu mode.

I do appreciate the free functionality that Media Player offers... my intention is not to demand more free service or to criticize a program which I'm not paying for. Rather, it's to suggest a way to make the transition from paid to free (or trial to free) less confusing for the end user. It's within the ability of the program to automatically switch to a mode which the customer can use regardless of the status of the license, so it should do so, and only give an error message when the user tries to restore features that only the paid version provides.

[xubin]

Hi Toccatta,
Good advice, i will consider to improve it in high priority.