Blu-Ray Player Options?

Hello everyone,

I have an antique HP505B based desktop (4 cores @3.1ghz and 8 Gb DDR3 ram with a NVidia GT 640) that is my daily driver running Linux Mint Cinnamon and Pop!_OS. It’s quite adequate for what I do.

I thought the drive on my computer was Blu-Ray, but it is not. I backed Ashens’ latest movie and chose Blu-Rays as the medium for my physical copies of the films and special. I don’t have a means to play the disks: I don’t have a Blu-Ray player of any kind. I already have digital copies of the films but the special, I think, isn’t available as a download. And, it is silly not to have a way to play Blu-Rays.

I looked a bit to see what the state of Blu-Ray support is on Linux and it seems it is spotty due to the DRM schemes. I don’t believe the Ashens disks are DRM protected, but if I get a drive I will, obviously, get more movies and have to deal with the DRM.

So, my questions:

  1. How bad is the situation with playing Blu-Rays on Linux?
  2. What hardware/software is good enough?
  3. Or, should I get a Blu-Ray player and attach that to one of my monitors or to my computer using a capture card? (Is using a capture card even doable with DRM nonsense?)

Thank you for taking the time to read my question and I am very grateful for any thoughts, observations or guidance.