Frys -- LG Blue Ray/HD-DVD combo drive -- $249.99

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: NamelessMC
Not to be a deal buster but-
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...oduct&id=1186003684236

NICE!

 

[sjwaste]

Is there any catch with this thing? Like, will there be features added to BR or HD-DVD that this won't support, but current players will?

 

[Onund]

Originally posted by: tdawg

Originally posted by: Chunkee
what kind of proc and mem and gcard do you need to play these kinds of movies? seems like you would need a hoss of a system.

JC

I'm not sure what exactly would be required for this drive in particular, but with my Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive plugged into the PC in my sig, I was able to watch the movie with no hitches whatsoever and I was transcoding a video at the same time. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what may work.

The HD-A1 was basically a PC with a 2.4GHz P4 with 1GB RAM so I would think a 2.4GHz P4 or greater would do the trick

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Is there any catch with this thing? Like, will there be features added to BR or HD-DVD that this won't support, but current players will?

Theoretically you should be able to upgrade software to meet all new BR profile specs. That would depend on someone providing software to run that stuff though.

You do realize the main catch with this drive is that it's only a drive? All it does it read the bits off the drive and feed them to the computer. You require software on the PC to turn those bits into moving pictures.

 

[Stas]

Onund
The HD-A1 was basically a PC with a 2.4GHz P4 with 1GB RAM so I would think a 2.4GHz P4 or greater would do the trick
Except for HD-A1 wasn't running Windows So kick it up to 2.8Ghz and you should be fine.

 

[hans007]

i think the a1 was actually a 2.5 ghz pentium M mobile.

i would doubt that it will matter that much windows or linux, if the only proces running on windows was the hd-dvd player software it would be plenty fast.

 

[yuppiejr]

Playing BR/HD discs does not require a particularly massive system, I'm able to smoothly play back Blu-Ray discs via Arcsoft Total Theater (which integrates better with Vista MCE than PowerDVD and, in my opinion, produces a much better looking picture) on the following rig:

Intel C2D e4300 @ 1.8 ghz
2 gigs (1 gig x 2) HP PC 5300 DDR 2 memory
Gigabyte p965-DS3 2.0 mainboard
onboard Realtek ALC888 audio output via coax (passes DTS + DD fine from the MCE player and Arcsoft)
ATI x2600XT passively cooled video card w/ 256 megs GDDR3
160 + 500 gig 7.2k SATA drives (system + storage)
Antec 380 watt Earthwatts 80Plus PSU
Hauppauge 1600 PCI ATSC/QAM dual video tuner + MPG2 video encoder
Vista MCE + Nvidia PureVideo decoder (video only, audio codec is Microsoft) + MyMovies + Arcsoft Total Theatre

... the key is the video card of course since it's offloading most of the video decode work from the CPU. I've tried the ATI and Nvidia offerings in my HTPC and preferred ATI but YMMV of course.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: IBUYCHEAP


This was just 269 on sale somewhere else a few days ago is this going to be replaced by a much cheaper version?

It was on sale at Best Buy for $240 AMR recently.