Threw a Blu-Ray disc into my old Sony BDP-S580 player (8 or 9 years old) and was reminded about what I hated about Blu-Ray - it takes forever for the disc to be ready to play. Are newer Blu-Ray players any faster or is there some underlying limit from the drive?
My first BD player was a 2nd or 3rd generation Sony - maybe a 2006 or 2007 model. and it was wicked slow to load. I finally got a new 2013 player (Samsung BD-F7500) which loads MUCH faster than the old Sony. I still have and use this one.
So depending on how old your player is, a new one may be much faster to load and play.
I had a Sony one too and yes it takes forever and a day.
My WAG Sony is very into DRM, I would not put it past them to have their player check everything to make sure it’s legit before playing, while others do more of. basic check.
I picked up a brand-new Blu-Ray at Best Buy the other day, and watched “Saving Private Ryan” in forty-five minutes.
Kinda took away a little of the gravitas, hearing Tom Hanks saying “Earn this” like a representative of the Lollipop Guild…
Mine is maybe 5 years old and, yes, it’s very slow. Even after it loads the disk, which takes a while, it forces you to watch annoying startup video before you can get to the menu and actually play the movie.
I tend to just rip my blurays and store them on a media server.
No reason they should be as the drive runs at 1X speed. Add checking the sofware and firmware updates from the last time it was used and it will always be slow.
This is why, like iamthewalrus_3, I always immediately rip my discs and play them from the hard drive. Since I use MakeMKV, I never get the menus, which really don’t care for anyway. Straight to the movie in seconds.
BTW, I’ve never owned a Blu-Ray player and haven’t had a DVD player in years.