EddScott

As part of my home server idea, I rebuilt my living room PC to incorporate bluray playback.

Not only has the process of getting sound and picture to my receiver been one of the most infuriating tasks I've ever come across with computers, the actual final result is quite a let down - compared to PS3 playback.

The sound itself is output as Dolby DTS and "I think" is a slight improvement but the picture initially looked quite bad. I played around with it and used a film I know well to judge detail and I think the PC finally looked OK - just OK.

Using HDMI in a PC has not been the plug and play I thought it was going to be. It is fussy over which machine is turned on first - PC, receiver, TV. The setup has to be just right or it won't work.

Its frankly very clumsy just to get a Bluray to play. I've decided to junk the idea of using the PC for bluray and am going to flog the bluray drive together with my PS3 and buy a stand alone player.

With these problems it makes me wonder whether its worth bothering with the server idea at all.

Dedrater

Are you aware of what HDCP is?

This might not be your problem, but a lot of people get caught out with this in such setups.