Simple cheap blu-ray player

Question

I've been searching for a simple Blu-Ray player. I've notice a lot of Blu-ray players are in the $60+ range, but also come with Wi-Fi/LAN capabilities, able play music, Netflix, all that stuff. I don't really want any of that. I just want to watch a Blu-ray movie and that's it for a reasonable price.

Some things that would be ideal for me,

• Cheap

• USB (So I can connect to my laptop) (External Blu-Ray player)

• I don't need it to write blu-rays, only read to watch movies (Hopefully drop the price)

If a USB one for a lower price is not an option, a standard one the connects to a TV through HDMI will be fine.

I was hoping for the $20-30 range if those even exist.

I was thinking a USB one would be cheaper, but the only ones I could find were ones that also wrote to Blu-Rays. Which I'm guessing made them significantly more expensive. (I also don't know much about Blu-ray players and if they can even be decoded through USB)

In a nutshell, I just want to watch Blu-Ray movies for $20-30.

UPDATE

So I've been searching a little more and giving this a little more thought.

If I decide to bite the bullet and buy a $70+ Blu-ray player with all the bells and whistles, how easy is it to stream a Blu-ray movie over a network?

I was thinking this would actually be a convenient solution for me. I would be able to connect the Blu-ray player to a TV and also be able to access it elsewhere in the house through the network.

So, to make what I want a little more clear,

-Blu-Ray player (Preferably less than $120 after looking at many prices)

-Blu-Ray player able to be hard wired and have Wifi capabilities

-Capable of streaming over a network to a PC running Windows 10

-Software for PC (Free?)(If needed)

To add a little more detail, both the PC and the Blu-Ray player will be wired into the same router, as I'm assuming streaming a Blu-ray over wifi could be pretty rough.

If someone already has a set-up similar to mine, I would be grateful to know what you have/are using to do this already. I didn't want to get jumpy and buy a Blu-ray player and find some software just to find out nothing is compatible and I wasted my money!

Answer 1

Wi-Fi/LAN capabilities, able play music, Netflix, all that stuff. I don't really want any of that.

The bluray specification requires that the player firmware is easily updated over time (mostly for copy protection features) and that bluray players include minimum functionality for internet coupled movie features. This is a simplification, you may be able to find older first generation players without networking, but I expect you'll also find they have a hard time playing some of today's newer movies and you may not be able to get updates for them.

As such you won't find cheap bluray players that don't include networking features.

Your best bet is to search ebay and craiglist for older used bluray players in your price range. Try to find something only a few years old, again, the much older players will probably have problems playing newer discs without some effort on your part.

If I decide to bite the bullet and buy a $70+ Blu-ray player with all the bells and whistles, how easy is it to stream a Blu-ray movie over a network?

The bluray specification does not permit streaming over the network. You will not be able to find a bluray player that does this for you. If you need something like this, you will need to set up a computer and use it to read the discs, handle the decryption, and stream the movie.