Windows 7 without Blu-ray movies support out of the box
According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will not include Blu-ray movies support out of the box and Blu-ray support will be provided by PC makers or BRD drive producers. Windows Media Center has ability to play BD movies but only with additional extensions from BD software. But Windows 7 will have support for reading and burning BD data disks.
So the story from XP (without DVD support out of the box) is continued. Blu-ray playback under Windows 7 will require the installation of third party media software. By refusing to licence the Blu-ray playback decoder for Windows 7, Microsoft is pushing the costs onto PC makers who will generally obtaining Blu-ray licenses bundled with Blu-ray drives.
There are expectations for a licence price drop by 40 % soon, so the fees for the new licenses will be US$9.50 for a Blu-ray player and US$14 for a Blu-ray recorder. Making Blu-ray Disc will cost 11 US cents for read-only, 12 US cents for recordable discs and 15 US cents for rewritable discs.
