Blu-ray Drives Not Finding Their Way On Factory PC's

[fast eddie]

x

 

[mike_r]

I'd say it simply price that keeps them out.

A DVD burner costs 1/5 of the DVD burner + BD reader. Most off-the shelf PC purchasers look at the price, the size of the disk and the amount of memory. Similarly the GFX card needed to use an BD costs more, and need a bigger (more expensive) PSU to power the GFX.

The buyer would be put off a model costing 499 euros when the same spec cost 399 without the BD.





.

 

[Adbear]

I'd have to disagree on the comment about the graphics card, you can pick up graphics cards for under £40 that will offload for Blu-ray playback, that need no extra power and no big expensive PSU

 

[Webslinger]

As stand-alone Blu-ray players are finding their way into more living rooms, and shipments are forecast to rise by an average of almost 50% a year through 2013, the adoption of Blu-ray disc drives inside personal computers is expected to pale in comparison.

It's becoming a product differentiator, and the acceptance levels are growing, but the average person is still more likely to pick up a Blu-ray disc player than a computer that can play Blu-ray discs.

Technology researcher iSuppli estimates that Blu-ray drives will be found in only 3.6% of PCs shipped worldwide in 2009, rising to 16.3% in 2013. ISuppli also estimates that the number of stand-alone Blu-ray players will rise from 9.1 million units this year to 42.1 million by the end of 2013.

Reasons why Blu-ray technology has been slow to gain ground in the PC market stem from some basic factors of economics to the amount of content that is available in the format.

If you're going to quote material that you haven't written, provide a link to the source:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bl...ief&dist=dist_smartbrief&dist=dist_smartbrief

 

[andy o]

Well one important consideration is also that when an average consumer buys say a laptop with a bluray drive, there's usually no easy way to play the blurays. They'll get something like an already old OEM build of PowerDVD or WinDVD. I have a friend that did just that, and AFAIK still hasn't been able to play bluray.

 

[fast eddie]

Good example andy o, and thats one of the reasons I gave up on software players years ago, all of my Blu-ray back-ups go to any size blank disks, and most of the time with no compression, and get played on a hardware standalone Blu-ray player, and standard definition on a upscale player at 1080P.

It is just so much more convient to have the movie portable, to take to a friends house for viewing.
:agree:

 

[Belvedere]

Playing Blu-ray Movies

Good point fe. I went to a computer store here in MA for the machine and there were like 4 that came with a Blu-Ray player and 1 with a burner; desktops.
I just got home with a new PIoneer 8x Blu-ray burner ($249US) but I got to thinking about my video for playback. I'm just finishing a new quad core machine and I want to build it nicely. Did the power supply from 300w to 750w, nice and quiet. 2) 1 tb mirrored drives. I'm thinking of going back and upgrading my graphics card. Would you know what resolution to equal 1080p quality? I haven't bought the display yet but I looked at a nice Viewsonic 24" HD this past weekend. One last question and I apologize if it's been asked a 100 times but what blank b-r media are you having the best success with?

 

[andy o]

I don't think there is a need for powerful power supplies for HTPCs. Even for gaming, if you're not using more than one video card you'll be fine, especially with modern hardware, it is remarkably efficient. My HTPC with 2 desktop HDDs, 2 laptop ones and one SSD, and an Ati 4670 (which actually is more efficient than my 4550) does like 80-90W normally, and when it's getting a workout maybe goes up to 140-150 tops.

 

[mike_r]

I bought an AGP ATI 3850 which I had to 'prise' into my Shuttle HTTP (way too big), it was totally unacceptable with the fan noise, but the killer for me was the 200W PSU got overloaded playing BD content and reset the machine after 10 seconds. Thankfully they took it back at the shop and laughed at me when I said I tried to build it into a Shuttle.




.

 

[andy o]

Are you sure it wasn't overheating instead, or did you measure it with a Kill-a-Watt or something like that? In any case, 200W PSU does seem like too little, I use a 300W one for my HTPC and a 400W one for my quad core machine. Another advantage is that those can come fanless. Right now on my HTPC I only have a very low RPM 90mm fan for the CPU (Penryn 3.0 GHz) and one huge 20 cm fan on top of my case sucking air, also at low RPM. The 4670 is fanless and keeps very cool.

Also, the Ati 4000 series are very energy efficient, I don't know maybe the 3000 series was much less, that's why I said new hardware, because the Nehalem-based systems are even more efficient than Penryn, which are also efficient to begin with.

 

[Stevo]

No I'm sure his 3850 was the cause they are pigs for power. I have a 3750 X2 and it really kicks out the heat which requires power to produce. A 200w supply in the small shuttle case would definately be a problem. If they had a 140w CPU then they are really pushing it. And the 200 watts might not be sustained and definately isn't available totally to the 12v bus. Larger PS's are needed more then ever unless you are just surfing the web with your eMachine from Wally World.

Those are interesting stats and my guess would be that most of the BD players/burners would be in notebooks which is what I've seen when looking. I think the biggest issue for desktops is that;

a) The blank media is still expensive unless you really search around.
b) Most people don't watch movies on their PC that's why thay buy a stand alone. Granted there are those that love MC and have setup a slick operation on the whole that is still a small percentage of the people.