[rms]

For some reason Media Player 11 has gone South on my PC - it hiccups when trying to play DVD's. Not sure what I did to cause that but uninstall / reinstall and rollbacks have been no help. So I decided to try Zoom Player 7 which, according to the reviews I read, has the best audio playback amongst most of the current software. However, it just doesn't sound great to me, though the video is very crisp. And since I can't get WMP 11 to function I have no way to compare.

What software are you guys using for DVD and Blu-Ray playback on your Windows based systems?

[rms]

Well, I guess everybody that has read this so far is either on a Mac or uses WMP 11 so I'll give a little follow up. Zoom Player 7 is a tweakers dream...at least for the video functions. And because of that I was able to replicate in it what WMP is doing on my system. In Zoom Player you can manually select the video decoder you want to use, and when I select FFD show video decoder I get the same hiccups in the audio playback as with WMP. When I switch to Nvidea NVDVD v3+ playback is smooth, and the sound is actually pretty darn good.

I don't claim to understand what most of this stuff is or does. I'm just really glad I got it working because I recently got my copy of the Porcupine Tree Anesthetize DVD/BluRay and it's great. I also just got the Johnny Griffin/Richie Cole Jazz legends from The Village Vanguard DVD and that is also phenomenal.

So if anybody is using a software player other then WMP that features excellent sound quality and good stability please let me know. Thanks

[Vincent Kars]

You might have a look at J River Media center
http://www.jriver.com/

[mobayrasta]

I am using full version of J River and absolutely love it.  Totally woth the price. I was very hesitant to buy it until I tried it. There is a great set up guide on Computer Audiophile http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Windows-7-Audio-J-River-Media-Center-14-Configuration says setup for windows 7 but options are almost identical on Vista. Give the demo a try I don't think you will regret it. If you would like some help setting it up send me a PM or post in this thread.

Not only is it great for audio/video quality but it has some really great library features such as cover art lookup. I also love the way it has unobtrusive links to Wikipedia, IMDB, Amazon, and such. If you are listening to a song you can click Wikipedia and it will bring up the wiki right in J. River. Some really neat features.

It also gives you options of what video decoder you would like to use and lots of great features. I have really fallen in love with it. A great, great program!

Video playback looks great and it is really fast for having SO many options!!! I know I said great features 1000 times in a row, but it truly does have tons and tons of great features!

[Lyndon]

Do they ever have the full version on sale?
I tried the demo a few years ago, and I didn't like its intrusive nature of slapping its icons on every bit of my media, even after I had removed the demo.