Blu-Ray/HD-DVD and Windows XP

[7.62]

Gday fella's! first time poster, long time reader... Excellent site.

Here is my system.
P4 3.2ghz
2gig Dual Chanel DDR400
X1950PRO AGP
Benq G2400WD 24" LCD

I have a few questions. Will this system be able to playback BluRay, and HD-DVD if I bought a new combo drive?
Im a bit confused with the HDMI thing, My monitor has a input for it, and I have a cable that runs from my X1950PRO as DVI, and then converts to HDMI. Can I turn the audio off? and use my SB LIVE! Digital I/O module?

The ATI site claims that my video card is HDCP ready, and so is my monitor, but if I am not using the HDMI cable..... I dont know.
Its all very confusing.

Thanks for any replies though, some help is better than none

[admin]

The first thing you should do is to download the Cyberlink BD Advisor, which will scan your system and show you if it is good enough for Blu-ray:

http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/bd-support/diagnosis.do

It will all depend on what kind of acceleration your X1950 Pro can provide. I think it might struggle a bit, and you might need an AGP Radeon HD card to get Blu-ray to full framerates (with your system and a Radeon HD 2400 Pro AGP, CPU usage will be around 50% for Blu-ray playback - without acceleration turned off, it will be unplayable).

[7.62]

Quote from ATI website

"AVIVO' HD Quality Video Playback Remarkable, high-quality HD video playback with HDCP ready.

I dont even know if I am using the acceleration as it is now? even with standard DVD...
Well the advisor says I have to upgrade my CPU as it doesnt have hardware acceleration, but my video card does. Ahh well time for a new system anyway.

[7.62]

It appears that this machine will run it!
Awesome. Now to another question. I use a SBlive sound card with a Digital I\O card, and I connect to my Logitech Z-680 speakers through SP/DIF.

These speakers are not DTS-HD certified, not have they ever heard of it, but my question is, will the soundtrack on the BD revert back to standard DTS? or will I get no sound at all?

Thanks for your patience....

[admin]

I think you should be able to get standard DTS, as DTS-HD tracks carry a "core" track that will work with legacy systems. Assuming the Logitech Z-680 can decode full bitrate DTS (1.5 Mbps), you should get "better than DVD" audio (DTS on DVD is at half bitrate, 768 kbps).

The best way to find out is to connect everything up and test it.

[7.62]

Ok. I think they can, as all the DVD movies I have encoded in DTS sound great, and the reciever clicks over to DTS.

Ill buy my BD drive, and test it out.

[admin]

One thing to make sure before you buy, and this is for older systems, is to make sure the drive you buy has the right interface. Most will be SATA, so make sure you have a free SATA slot on your motherboard.

[7.62]

Well there is another thing. I have SATA on my board, but all my other drives are PATA.
Can I run the others the way they are, and use my BD drive on SATA speratly?

[admin]

As long as you have a free SATA slot, the drive *should* be okay. You won't need to change anything in regards to your hard-drive setup on the PATA connection.

I would do a bit more research on your particular motherboard in relation to SATA optical drives (doesn't have to be Blu-ray), as you may need a BIOS update to make it all compatible (or at least change some BIOS settings). There weren't that many SATA optical drives back when your motherboard was probably produced, so that's why you should do a check.