Blu Ray Player for new R500???

[cad3]

Okay,

So, I consider myself a fairly tech savvy guy (what with being a software developer as my day job). But wtf? No basic blu-ray player software w/ the R500?

I've searched the black-hole of a website that is lenovo dot com but that yielded no assistence. Any more informed users able to help this lowly geek out? This forum has been most excellent in the past, and I welcome any and all recommendations.
For the record, I was unable to get VLC to play the 32 GB .m2ts file

And since we all love specs (who doesn't?):
R500
P8600 @2.4Ghz
2GB Ra
MS XP Pro SP 2

Thanks!

[basketb]

If your R500 came with a blu-ray drive, then the software should be installed on your system. If you bought the blu-ray drive as an option from Lenovo, then there should be a CD/DVD included that contains the player software.

[cad3]

Agreed.

Laptop bought as a complete package. Have had the computer for less than 2 weeks. First blu ray movie arrived today.

So, today is really the first day trying to make any of this work. Not going well so far. Any idea on the blu ray software that would be installed by default?

InterVideo WinDVD doesn't do BRs. Media Player doesn't do BRs.

Access Help was not overly helpful. It only provides a list of formats. What I need is clearly software, which I'd expected to be a crap-tastic basic version (which would be fine). I'm just looking to play the darn thing!

[cad3]

update:

Intervideo WinDVD version is 5.

Apparently, WinDVD 9 Plus can play BR's but their free trial offer doesn't extend that courtesy. After you buy their software it'll work (so they say).

On the quest to find free BR viewing software.

Oh, and BDNA Lenovo Edition, Ulead Blu Ray burning software was installed by default. So you can't watch a BR movie, but you can burn a BR disc.

yippie <-- sarcasm.

[basketb]

According to the user guide here ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/op ... 224eng.pdf, you should have Win DVD 8 installed on your machine and that should be able to play blu-rays. If that's not there, I'd definitely give Lenovo a call.

[cad3]

It's not.

Will do!

Thank you so much!

-C

[cad3]

Annoying really.

They said that of course it was WinDVD 5; and that they included a DVD of 8 in the box. The blu-ray makes it a "customized" laptop (well... duh, aren't they all customized to the needs of the end customer? Add more ram, lower the hard drive?, wtf?), so they don't do a re-install of the software. Okay, wait. Why was the blu-ray burning software installed. That doesn't make any sense.

End result.
They are contacting someone in a different department (who I'm apparently not allowed to speak to), to send out a disc of the software that should have been installed on the computer.

Winning points:

• Got the laptop in 5 days after ordering.

Losing points:

• Missing blu-ray movie watching software.
  Blu-ray drive took over 10 hrs to burn 25 GB. Actually, it took just over 2hrs to burn 25 gb. More than 8 hrs for the verification process.
  Customer service was suppose to call back yesterday and didn't. I had to call again today.
  Customer service can't verify "when" the missing WinDVD 8 cd will be mailed out.

It's sad, but I'm having reservations about purchasing that W700ds now.