Blu-Ray drives on PCs, worth while?

see317

I was curious about your thoughts on this.
Personally, I think it seems likely that they'll never really come into their own in the same way as CD or DVD drives with more and more software moving to a digital download distribution model.
On the other hand, with PCs becoming more central to the entertainment center it seems a logical extension to just have the desktop replace the blu-ray player altogether.

Bolthorn

If I didn't have a PS3, I would have put one in the HTPC that I recently built. I think if you're going to have a PC hooked up to a HDTV that you watch on a regular basis, why not go ahead and get a blu-ray drive for it? A burner might not be required with how expensive the media is, but a standard drive sounds like a good idea to me if you have a setup that can utilize the features of blu-ray.

martyllian

Yes.

Blu ray drive + video card capable of playing blu ray+software is about 200 dollars cheaper than a Playstation3.

Djeet

If you watch blu-rays on your computer or use an HTPC yes, otherwise not so much. I suppose you could make an argument to use BD-R's for archival purposes, but I'd rather use hard drives, tape or offsite storage. You can score a standalone blu-ray player for under $100 if you just want to watch blu-rays on your tv but don't want to deal with a PC.

RandomEngy

Playing a Blu-ray directly on your PC is agony. Here's my experience:

* Install PowerDVD and some firmware update thing off a DVD
* The firmware updater asks to have its permissions elevated every time I log in to windows
* It turns off the hardware accelerated desktop when it's running, switching to "Basic" mode
* It cranks up the volume of everything on the PC while running
* It can crash during playback
* Even if you go into windows settings and tell PowerDVD not to run after inserting the BD, it will friggin' run anyway because that's how it rolls. There is no option to disable this.

A PS3 is less hassle by miles if you just want to stick in a disc and watch something.

But a BD drive on a PC does let you rip movies, which can give you the best results of all. Rip with x264, constant quality 18-20 and you can get gorgeous 1080p .mkv files. Stick that on a network share and you'll be watching that HD movie in seconds. Even on the PS3 you can have really obnoxious Blu-ray boot times.

bigwah

Well you installed PowerDVD and expected results. TMT5 is much nicer (plus still plays HD-DVDs for the few out there).

- Never have it ask me for elevated privledges (except when a patch is out, not very often, and you do it when you want to)
- Doesnt have to turn off Aero (but I leave Aero off, since mine is on an HTPC with shit maximised 99% of the time
- Doesnt touch my volume
- Skips the bullshit because I ripped out the ads

- PS3 is still easier if you dont mind the loading and some ads.

Ego

I have it on my laptop (which also has hdmi out,) and do find it handy once in a while to have a portable blue ray player on hand.

I don't have one in my PC, but frankly that's because with the one in the laptop I can still rip any bluray discs I buy, which is handy for my since my PC is also my home entertainment centre/server. So, for those uses, I'd say they're handy.

Nappuccino

martyllian wrote: »

Yes.

Blu ray drive + video card capable of playing blu ray+software is about 200 dollars cheaper than a Playstation3.

There's no way a Bluray Drive and video card costs 100 dollars.

And even if you can find a drive that cheap, it probably either comes with awful bluray player software or no bluray player software at all.

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Daedalus

Frankly I think that we're getting to the point where you can probably build a computer without any optical drive at all and get by pretty much fine. In ten years we'll be thinking of this question the way we used to talk about floppy disks.

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Nakatomi2010

Daedalus wrote: »

Frankly I think that we're getting to the point where you can probably build a computer without any optical drive at all and get by pretty much fine. In ten years we'll be thinking of this question the way we used to talk about floppy disks.

You sir bring up a very valid point. In fact, it's tempting me to build my second server without an optical drive and just use that bay for more storage. I can isntall Windows from a thumb drive...


I ran an HTPC with a BluRay/HDDVD drive. I used it for at least a year or two before phasing it out for a real BluRay player, on both TVs. they both stream NetFlix and Hulu, and for a total of 300$ between them.

As for a BluRay player in a computer. Depends on whether or not you need you. Are you planning on watching a BluRay on your computer? If yes, then do it. If no, then don't worry about it. I don't think PC Games will be released on BluRays for awhile, if at all.

Also bare in mind the PC itself has to be pretty good to start with. I was unable to watch BluRays till I'd gotten a quad core with at least 2GB of RAM, and a proper HD video card of some kind. And I ran into several problems over time with my HTPC, mostly just "Oh hey, you can't watch this movie until you update your PowerDVD version", and so on and so forth. Very annoying over all. sometimes the update wasn't always readily available either, had to wait a week or so. And the updates were important too, was the different between audio skipping at a certain sport, or the movie working at all.

Stormwatcher

Honest simple answer:

- If your PC is connected to a TV or it's a media server/HTPC: yes.
- If it's a gaming/work/internet PC that's far from a TV, don't bother.

And, Azarazar (are you Brazilian? what's up with your nick?), one regular external HDD can hold 1TB, and that's a lot faster and easier to use than 43 bd-roms. I don't buy a new HDD every time I move files, i use the same one over and over.