blu-ray player for pc

[Rofflay]

Pioneer BDC-202BK seen this little beauty on ocuk and im wondering should i go for it?

i was going to go for the 360 hd-dvd addon but well i still think blu-ray is a superior technology with the ability to store a better picture with losless audio.

i realy cant decide which to back tho i guess to me i always judge by my casual mates and what they buy and it seems most use a ps3 but dont buy blu-ray. going by the ps3 user base i think overall it might just win.

anyways help guide me i know this internal player can handle dual layer BD discs(50GB) any reason not to get it?

edit* i have a dell 2007wfp as well im also considering maybe just maybe a ps3 instead of the blu-ray burner if i decide to opt that format. im just wondering does the ps3 playback blu-ray -r/+rw formats i think its called BD-R/RE i know that pioneer does.

also would the ps3 add 1080p/24fps to the above feature list?

 

[Tesla]

Sometimes it's better to go with what your friends have so you can lend eachother movies and such?

Neither technology is "winning" at the moment.

The VHS/Betamax war was ended when the Porn industry adopted VHS. I don't know what they are thinking this time around?

 

[Rofflay]

well no not lend they wouldnt get thier dirty paws on my shiny hd discs but hopefully i might get a lend of thiers

and not that i want this to be a format war at all im just in favour of the best quality.

also hasnt porn backed hd-dvd now? its a shame they have to fight it out but lets stay away from this topic shall we dont want no flame wars just help on which purchase i would find best.

ps i also plan to backup my own hd movies in full picture quality if possible once the burners come down in price which is why i wanted the BD+R/ support

 

[Corasik]

Sometimes it's better to go with what your friends have so you can lend eachother movies and such?

Neither technology is "winning" at the moment.

The VHS/Betamax war was ended when the Porn industry adopted VHS. I don't know what they are thinking this time around?

Pretty sure the porn thing was just an urban myth. Pretty sure the Beta/VHS issue was due to sony charging a license fee to the movie studios when they made tapes for rental.
So there were more rental VHS titles than Beta. The average joe would go into a video rental shop and there were walls covered in VHS, and a small selection of Beta in the corner.

Regarding the porn industry, far more porn is distributed online these days, so the disk formats are less of an issue. If they wish to make disks, they can use either format. But Disney have demanded that no factories that make disney disks are allowed to make porn on the same production line. So its a little harder to get mass produced blu-ray porn made.

Blu-Ray has the biggest support in the movie industry at the moment, although microsoft (apparently) dumped a stack of cash to get some hd-dvd exclusives. Personally I've yet to commit to either format, and am still buying DVD's. I prefer the Blu-Ray format, as it has higher disk space, and its got a slightly higher standard for mandatory formats. Infact I was pretty much ready to buy my first blu-ray player... right up until the point that several of the movies I wanted became HD-DVD exclusives. Now Im back in the waiting game, sticking with DVD, as I am not prepared to commit to either system during a dirty war, and I am certainly not going to buy two players, or a comprimise twin format player.

Surprised that the movie industry hasnt noticed that the SACD/DVD-A 'high definition' audio disks have totally failed to replace CD.. Because there is no clear format winner. That format war's been dragging on for quite some time. Not to mention the copy protection pretty much limits you to analog connections between players and amps. If a high resolution CD system which used 96khz 24bit PCM format, and output the datastream via a standard SP/DIF then Im pretty sure it could replace CD much faster. Make it dual later with a standard CD later, and a High bitrate layer, and there's the winner. But just like the movie industry the Recording studios are so paranoid about copying they wont allow an unencrpyted version of the high bitrate formats. Pitty really, as many high end dacs already take 96/24 PCM over SPDIF I suppose the fact that a lot of SACD, and DVD-A's have some lame 'simulated' 5.1 channel surround' instead of a pure high quality 2 channel output doesnt help either.

 

[Rofflay]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=10346405#post10346405

have a little look im a newb in distress

 

[hp7909]

Surprised that the movie industry hasnt noticed that the SACD/DVD-A 'high definition' audio disks have totally failed to replace CD.

Think that might have been MP3s fault. I believe also, the HD-DVD & Blu-Ray war will be first to provide affordable writing/burning drive & discs (& to some extent which format will be easily hacked).

TBH when I first heard of the capacities, all I could think of is how much stuff I could fit there i.e. data, video, etc. I like that they've brought about better quality BUT it has meant upgrading of equipment something you're average Joe is not prepared to do.

 

[frosty03]

Think that might have been MP3s fault. I believe also, the HD-DVD & Blu-Ray war will be first to provide affordable writing/burning drive & discs (& to some extent which format will be easily hacked).

TBH when I first heard of the capacities, all I could think of is how much stuff I could fit there i.e. data, video, etc. I like that they've brought about better quality BUT it has meant upgrading of equipment something you're average Joe is not prepared to do.

No, it isnt "mp3s fault". Rather the mass market consumer has chosen convenience and portability over quality and control over where you could play it etc. Give the customer what he wants, not what you want to sell. It is their own fault for making it difficult to buy into SACD that pushed people away.

 

[oxygene]

I am still well behind blu-ray because I want the higher capacity to win, and yes better quality. Hell yuo can get a blu-ray rom for £120ish and a hd-dvd rom for £110ish, buy em both until the writers come down. I think another reason the blu-ray w3ill win is... has anyone actually seen hd-dvd writers? All the shops I use have only blu-ray writers and hd roms.

 

[janesssssy]

True, ive just got a Blu-Ray rom for my PC, I can find no HD-DVD anywhere. plus there are more film distributors supporting Blu-ray.

 

[alexakasloth]

It's still early days but if you look in HMV and Virgin they both have a larger selection of blu-ray than HD-DVD (at least the ones in Brighton do).

 

[oxygene]

janesssssy: try Competitor.com (dont think its a competitor) they sell all of blu ray and hds releases and deliver free!

 

[V1N]

janesssssy: try Competitor.com (dont think its a competitor) they sell all of blu ray and hds releases and deliver free!

and they also charge about 2x more than if you shop around a bit

Seriously though, I was reading some bluray movie reviews the other day, and was stunned to find out how much of the disks are already being used, ie. all of it!

Bluray has 50gb of course (100gb soon) and HD-DVD 30gb

The review for the new Fantastic 4 movie said that it had a few foreign language soundtracks on there, but only standard 5.1, so I guess that's a few GB. They said the special features on there were only SD, as they'd run out of room! I guess the special features were a few GB too.

The size of data on the disk was 46gb.

Now, if you removed the specials and languages, that would still be approx 40gb? The review said it was lovely quality, with a lovely high bitrate.

What gets me, is that if it was to be released on HD-DVD, it would have to be compressed to fit! Like when people would compress their dual layer DVDs down to single layer, reducing the quality, and removing the features.

Surely this fact in itself, should be enough to ensure that bluray should win?

Sure, wasn't it agreed that Beta was better than VHS, but it lost.
Maybe the same could happen with HD-DVD, but I hope not.

The simple fact that more storage can allow for a higher bitrate, which means better quality, which surely is the whole point of HD, can only be a good thing. Plus of course, the possibility to include PCM 7.1 sound!
(Not heard that myself yet, but hoping to upgrade my amp early next year)

I recently got the Spiderman Trilogy Bluray Boxset. Looked stunning to me. I was surprised then, that the movies were pretty much alone on the disk, with the special features on a seperate disk. Does this mean the movies already took up most of the 50gb?

I do hope the bluray wins out, just because of the simple fact, that it's better. I don't know why people would back an inferior product?
Sure, it's cheaper, at the moment, but as with all new tech, the price is dropping, and will continue to do so at a faster rate.... and anyway, the fact you can get a PS3, even in "rip-off Britain" for, is it £280 now, and be able to play games on it too, is pretty good in my opinion for so early in blurays lifecycle.

That whole Transformers HD-DVD only bribe annoyed the hell out of me, because IMO, it showed that HD-DVD was really loosing, and that Transformers sales could really have been the final nail in the coffin. Now it's all dragged out again.

I went out with a non-techy mate the other day, to one of these Tesco's superstores. She saw the bluray and HD-DVD selection (about 50-50 in numbers I'd say) and asked what the difference was. I tried to explain, she asked which one her "HDMI DVD Player" could play. I said none. She lost interest, and walked off. She'd have had more time for it, if I hadn't stood there explaining that HD-DVD and Bluray are two competing formats, and you can only get certain titles on each format, so to watch all films in HD, she'd need two players. For the "average Joe" on the street, it is all a bit much, and preventing widespread adoption of HD, even though when mates come here and see mine, they go "wow" and when they realise it's not cut'n'dry to get a player, they decide to leave it.

Oops, sorry, turned into a bit of a rant there!

As per the op, I'd like a bluray drive for my PC too, preferably a burner.
When I last looked, they were waaaaay too pricey, so if it's mainly to watch bluray movies on, why not just get a cheaper PS3, enjoy movies on that, and maybe the odd game, and look into PC bluray next year, when hopefully we'll have some nice price drops?

V1N.

EDIT: and yes the PS3 can output 1080p/24, so long as your TV can display it.

 

[hp7909]

What gets me, is that if it was to be released on HD-DVD, it would have to be compressed to fit! Like when people would compress their dual layer DVDs down to single layer, reducing the quality, and removing the features

Sorry but you have some facts wrong. Blu-Ray movies take up more space because most (if not all) use MPEG-2 video codec...

The initial version of Sony's Blu-ray Disc-authoring software shipped with support for only 1 video-codec: MPEG-2. Consequently, all launch titles were encoded in MPEG-2 video. A subsequent update allowed the content producers to author titles in any of the 3 supported codecs: MPEG-2, VC-1, or H.264. The choice of codecs affects the producer's licensing/royalty costs, as well as the title's maximum runtime (due to differences in compression efficiency). Discs encoded in MPEG-2 video typically limit content producers to around two hours of high-definition content on a single-layer (25 GB) BD-ROM. The more advanced video codecs (VC-1 and H.264) typically achieve a video runtime twice that of MPEG-2, with comparable quality.

Whilst...

Virtually every HD DVD released uses an advanced codec (VC-1 or H.264) for video compression, reducing the required space for equivalent quality video.

& Fantastic 4 (Blu-Ray) is encoded in MPEG-2, see here

 

[V1N]

Sorry but you have some facts wrong. Blu-Ray movies take up more space because most (if not all) use MPEG-2 video codec...
Whilst...
& Fantastic 4 (Blu-Ray) is encoded in MPEG-2, see here

That's amazing, I only have 15 bluray movies so far, and I think of all, I remember seeing one use MPEG2, and all the rest AVC.

V1N.

EDIT: and here is the Fantastic Four (Silver Surfer) disk I was talking about, 46.4gb in size, and uses AVC, so it would indeed need to be compressed to fit on a HD-DVD.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=376&show=review

EDIT2: And just out of interest, I just opened my Superman II bluray for the first time, to see which codec that uses, and even that uses VC-1... and now I think about it, I think all 15 of my films use VC-1 as the video codec, but MPEG2 for the extras, so I don't think that most (and obviously not all) blurays use MPEG2, just maybe a handful of early ones?

 

[Secret_Window]

I have both players, and tbh I can't tell the apart in terms of sound and picture quality. The only realy difference that may sway buyers is the exclusives - but those tend to be fought back from the other side with its own exclusives. So this battle isn't gonna end soon!

 

[hp7909]

That's amazing, I only have 15 bluray movies so far, and I think of all, I remember seeing one use MPEG2, and all the rest AVC

Yup just realised quite a number are MPEG-4, they must be mix 'n' matching But still, the quality on both formats is superior so can't really say Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD because one 'utilizes' more space?

 

[james.miller]

Sorry but you have some facts wrong. Blu-Ray movies take up more space because most (if not all) use MPEG-2 video codec...

initial releases were MPEG-2. virtually all of them are now using the advanced codecs, the very same codecs that are used on hd-dvd's. these days, very few use MPEG-2.

Yup just realised quite a number are MPEG-4, they must be mix 'n' matching But still, the quality on both formats is superior so can't really say Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD because one 'utilizes' more space?

they dont, generally. unless they make exclusive use of an uncompressed pcm soundtrack on the bluray disc only, otherwise you can say both formats are neck and neck