DVDFab Media Player worth a try for Blu-ray fans

It's hardly a universal player, and it suffers some obvious version 1.0 oddities, but DVDFab Media Player plays Blu-ray movies perfectly.

Few Blu-ray movie players are on the market because of the royalties for the technologies involved, but there are some. DVDFab has joined the PowerDVDs and WinDVDs of the world with its own player, aptly titled DVDFab Media Player ($50, 30-day free trial with feature limitations).

It's hardly a universal player, and it suffers some obvious version 1.0 oddities, but DVDFab Media Player plays Blu-ray movies perfectly. You must take care of the HDCP encryption DTS and Dolby. I played several titles with nary a glitch. There's a lack of support for most straight audio files, as well as Ogg Theora, but it plays most other video types. There's also no drag and drop, you must open files via a dialog, but Blu-ray discs are automatically listed when you start the program.

DVDFab Media Player's interface is clean as a whistle. Personally, I don't see the need for the progress dialogs when files or discs are loaded. Something less obvious might be in order, but minimalism is my cup of tea.

Possibly the best feature of DVDFab Media Player is the "Quick & Simple" navigation, which allows you to bypass all the junk you normally have to view when you play a DVD or Blu-ray disc. Just load the disc, hit play, and the movie begins. Bravo.

DVDFab Media Player is free to try, though you have to sit through a 5-second nag each time you launch the program. It's free for playing titles on your hard diskincluding Blu-ray structuresbut to play discs after the 30-day trial period, you'll need to purchase a license for $50. Even at this early stage, it's worth a look.

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