Thank you for your effort AxsunJaxun. Unfortunately, no result. :(
Just in case I did something wrong:
a) since Media Smart DVD was uninstalled already, there appeared nothing else related to Media Smart DVD. However, at least three other products from the MediaSmart family were still there (smartmenu, music/photo/video, movie themes). I did not uninstall those. Should I have had done so?
b) I followed your orders to the hilt concerning the recovery manager. On the prompt I got from the recovery manager though, even though Media Smart DVD was proposed, no version number was mentioned. If I did something wrong or should have somehow acted upon it, please tell me to retry.
c) The recovery manager appeared to do its job. It appeared to work on reinstalling Media Smart DVD, finished it, and prompted me to restart the PC, which I did. Unfortunately, Media Smart DVD is nowhere to be seen. It is not installed, it does not appear on any programme list, and the bluray player still does not play blurays.
Looking forward for your instructions in order to resolve this.