Is your PC ready for High Definition DVD (Blu-ray/HD DVD) Playback?

[admin]

Want to find out if your PC is ready to play Blu-ray and HD DVD movies? Read this guide to find out:

http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/PC_Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Ready_page1.html

[NightTran]

Is your PC ready for High Definition DVD (Blu-ray/HD DVD) Playback? Question?

I down load both file the 720 and 1080, the VLC can only play the 720 and keep stop and pause on the 1080 file, but the media classic can play them both.

is my computer ready or not?

Thanks

[locoeng]

What did you download night?

[NightTran]

in this post

Is your PC ready for High Definition DVD (Blu-ray/HD DVD) Playback? by the ADM, he lock it so I could not reply, there are two version of pirates II trailers

this link

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=82239

[locoeng]

Nice....I'll give it a shot when I get home.

[admin]

You are referring to the old "Is your computer fast enough ..." guide (http://www.digital-digest.com/articl...est_page1.html), in reference to the Pirates trailer? If you can play the 1080p one without frame drops, then that's a good sign, but you will still need to read the new "Is your PC ready ..." guide to find out the other requirements (and run the Cyberlink BD / HD Advisor):

http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/PC_Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Ready_page1.html

[admin]

I've merged the threads and opened the original "stickied" one

[admin]

Another great way to test if your system is fast enough for Blu-ray/HD DVD playback is to download and play one of the WMV-HD 1080p clips here:

http://www.drfoster.f2s.com/trailers_hd-dvd.shtml

(don't bother with the 720p clips, because all high def DVDs are encoded in 1080p).

These trailers use Microsoft's VC-1 compression codec, which is used on most of the HD DVD movies released so far - some Blu-ray movies uses MPEG-2, which requires less CPU usage/acceleration. H.264 HD movies (rare on western Blu-ray/HD DVDs) will require even more processor usage.

[Digitalboy]

Just read the article its pretty weird how windows media player won't play Blu-ray disc.

I read on www.bdfile.com that blu-ray discs require a codec to play on windows media player and Microsoft isn't making an effort to include them. Think they are bitter about losing the format war.

[admin]

Maybe, but it's most likely that if they did include it, some companies will probably sue Microsoft for being anti-competitive. There are also lots of licensing issues involved though, and it could actually cost Microsoft quite a lot of money to include Blu-ray support.

[Digitalboy]

Yeah know doubt that it would cost them alot of money to include them, but it will save their customers going to other media players. Not so long ago a microsoft employee said that they won't include BD in the next generation xbox because they believe its a format that will be skipped because digital downloading will proceed it. Blatant nonsense if you ask me.

[admin]

The cheapest Blu-ray software player, that does everything (including 3D), will still set one back about $90, and a lot of that is licensing fees and whatnot. I would say adding Blu-ray support will probably cost Microsoft at least $20 more per Windows install, and it would really upset companies like Cyberlink and Corel who make Blu-ray software players.

But this is sort of normal with Microsoft, since they didn't add native DVD playback and burning support until Vista, some 7 or 8 years after PC DVD drives became first available. That they added native Blu-ray reading and burning to Windows 7 was already a step up from their usual practice.

Not including Blu-ray in the Xbox 360 helped the console launch a full year before the PS3 (or more precisely, Blu-ray delayed the PS3 release by a year), which was vital to keep Microsoft in the game, considering the PS2 had pretty much 90% of the market in the previous generation. And you can say that perhaps it's the right decision now, since the PS3's Blu-ray playback functionality, while value-adding, isn't the killer selling point that it once was, not when you can buy a standalone for $50 these days. Both Microsoft and Sony are now investing heavily into digital downloads and streaming on their consoles, so Microsoft was partially right.

Blu-ray would have sucked on the pre-Slim Xbox 360's anyway, due to how much noise the console made. It would have been good if the new Slim Xbox 360's had Blu-ray movie playback support though.

[Digitalboy]

Ok makes sense I guess I was just jumping to conclusions.

Didn't Sony already try the digital download thing and fail?

[admin]

I think lots of companies have tried it, and failed, but it's always due to bad pricing, DRM or just the fact that the video doesn't work on enough devices. But with the iPhone/iPad/smartphones, and now pretty much every home theater appliance being able to connect to the net, there's a much greater "connected" audience to tap into, which is why Netflix streaming is such a success (you can hardly fine a device these days that doesn't support Netflix).

Sony, being a movie studio, has the connections and experience, as well as a good library of titles, to get into the streaming business. They're behind the UltraViolet system, which aims to solve another problem with digital downloads - the fact that you have to buy multiple versions for different devices. Under UltraViolet, you buy the title in question, not the format it comes in, and you then get access to all formats (so no need to do your own conversions either). You can read more about it here:

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-62839-UltraViolet-A-new-DRM-or-a-new-way-to-buy-movies.html

The system would even one day allow you to stream Blu-ray movies over the net, bypassing the disc entirely, but that's technically difficult now of course due to bandwidth and download speed issues.

[Digitalboy]

We don't have Netflix here in the UK so I'm not sure much about it. But say you stream a movie, does it then get stored on your hard drive and you can watch it anytime (forever)? I would be scared to store all my favorite movies on a Hard drive as I have had a bad experience in the past with hard drives. I've read about ultra violet, I think it will be an unbreakable DRM because it will require the net to authorise your product maybe any kind of media product.