That's unfortunately Cyberlink's business model. You need to pay for each major update to continue to watch the latest bluray. Its one of the reasons why blurays aren't overly popular.

But it's funny how they have this business model, and then they also have version 9.6, an OEM version, that's been supported for 5 consecutive PowerDVD releases until they've finally gone and said "that's it, we're not giving you any more AACS updates for it". Apparently support for version 9.6 has actually outlived several versions of the retail version.

Shame really - there are only three software packages in the world that officially support Blu-ray playback for PCs and those are PowerDVD, WinDVD and TotalMedia Theatre, so hopefully they don't all have this type of business model otherwise it basically makes the whole concept of playing Blu-rays on a computer pointless.

You don't have to change your Blu-ray player every few years for this reason, so why do PowerDVD users have to change their PowerDVD?

From what I've heard, Arcsoft have stopped developing TotalMedia Theatre, so that actually only leaves two pieces of software that officially supports it now. I'm guessing the users of that are going to run into some AACS difficulty some time later on.

Perhaps now is a good time to switch over to WinDVD? I don't know what their business model is like as I've only ever used their free WinDVD when it was owned by Intervideo, but perhaps it is better than Cyberlink's expensive "solution".

VLC has included Blu-ray playback "support" for years, but you need to manually update its AACS key library in order for it to function, and sadly it seems the latest keys keep updating faster than volunteers can release them for it, so they gave up. The Blu-ray playing function on VLC is there, but the lack of AACS keys for it means it's broken and doesn't work.

And thus begins my hiatus from buying blurays...

the below link will not  load

this is horrible...  I have version 9.5 and   just   bought a $1200 dell xps system.

I can not play the blueray  I need to do a review on  and jusding by the lack of satisfaction here

there is not much  help from DEL.

It appears  I will also do an article on how nasty  Del support and follow though  is.

DELL-Sujatha K  I was  support  post this review this  evening to our newpapers  website.

Del needs to really  get the  act  together  seems this  9.5  is mega old

DELL-Sujatha K  contact me ASAP

Thanks 

unfortunately  this link  does not  work. I found the update on the  site but  did not  fix the problem. seems weird when you by dells' upper model they give you come prehistoric out  of date   player.

Now you know why Apple doesn't offer Blu-ray: constantly-evolving DRM that requires regular updates.

As an alternative to PowerDVD OEM, you can buy the retail version of TotalMedia Theater Platinum with a coupon for $65-ish.

The link to the patch was the link I posted previously, but Cyberlink seem to have removed the executable file from their server, so you can't download it anymore.

LUCKILY I do still have the file saved to my hard drive if you want it, I can upload it somewhere. Not sure how effective it is now though, it was downloaded in July 2013.

Hi all

Had the same issue with a Dell XPS and found this link on the Cyberlink website today. I clicked on the 'Download free update' link in the 'Exclusively for Dell users' section at the top and ran the 'Patch.exe' file that it downloads, after which PowerDVD 9.6 was able to play Zero Dark Thirty for the first time without that cyclical error message ...It did give the message once, but it downloaded what it needed to and then all was fine. To get to the page above (assuming the link will work for everyone) click here

The update no longer works.  Can't play Dunkirk or Blade Runner 2049 blu-rays.  It's back to the endless update AACS loop that never updates.