BR/HD DVD Combo drive

[toecheese]

It is finally out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136133

It's a DVD drive for PCs that does Bluray and HD DVD. $299. It has been in and out of stock all day.

It comes with PowerDVD to be able to play back either title type, so if you've already got an HTPC and are sitting on the fence on the BR/HD war- this is an easy escape.

Couple of caveats: if you projector is digital only and doesn't have HDCP, it won't display.

If you don't have digital inputs, no problem (explain that one), as the software will output via VGA or component.

Ideally, you would have an HDCP 'chain' and be done with it, but HDCP cards are still not mainstream yet.

For me, my PJ is analog, and this may be what is needed to get my HTPC revived.

[trainCatcher]

The LG drive does look pretty sweet. I wonder how long it will be before production will keep up with demand. If they fall under $200 around x-mas time I might go crazy and pull the trigger. With or without a high-def TV

[santora]

Looks great. I'm actually starting the prep work for my new PC and This drive would be great for it. And at $299, that's an amazing price.

Now to just put the money together...

=-)

[eugovector]

Yep, we're finally getting there. $300 is still a pretty bitter pill to swallow for a single optical drive, but I remember thinking the same thing about DVD-Burners and people still bought them. Unfortunately, I don't think this price is going to drop as fast as the stand alone units. I don't see the demand being there.

For me, this drive would have to hit $100, the price I paid for my A2, before it went in the HTPC.

One more thought, another thing that would speed the sale of these, and the MPAA doesn't want to hear it, somebody cracking the copy protection for good on both formats, and coming up with a piece of software, like DVDShrink, that would save a high quality compressed copy to their movie server. Something like a 10GB H.264 file. Then you see the sale of these things pick up.

[toecheese]

That software is already there; read up on Bob's post on it.

[eugovector]

toecheese wrote:

That software is already there; read up on Bob's post on it.

I breezed through the topic titles, but must have missed it. Can you give me a link to the thread, or drop the name of the software?

Thanks,

Marshall

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

eugovector wrote:

, and coming up with a piece of software, like DVDShrink, that would save a high quality compressed copy to their movie server. Something like a 10GB H.264 file. Then you see the sale of these things pick up.

I wont claim to know computer lingo or talk, but this would seem to be counter productive, no? When I read compressed it makes me think you'll lose quality. If that is true, then why bother with HDM if you would be stripping quality from it?
I may be way off though, and if so I apologize for my ignorance.

[eugovector]

It will still be better than DVD quality, in higher rez for sure, and should even have less compression artifacts as h.264 is a very efficient codec, and you should be able to keep the Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.

You could of course keep the HD movie in full 20GB glory, but for those of us with movie jukeboxes, being able to store twice as many movies would be worth the slight quality hit.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

Ahh, yeah to me nothing is worth taking PQ away. That's why I spent so much for HD, the PQ and the AQ.
To each their own.

[toecheese]

I wouldn't use it to compress it, rather, I just want them on a media server.

Bob's link about Slysoft.

[eugovector]

toecheese wrote:

I wouldn't use it to compress it, rather, I just want them on a media server.

Bob's link about Slysoft.

Ah, Slysoft I'm very familiar with. But, what I was refering to with DVD Shrink was the ability to strip away the extras leaving just the movie, and recompress. It only took about a year for the gloss to wear off DVD extras for me. I'll watch a segment here and there, but most of the time, when I see "over 4 hours of extras" on DVD packaging, I think to myself, I'd rather just watch two other movies.

[uxmal]

anyone have any info if you can use the dolbyHD from a computer or only you get regular dolby5.1??compare to a stand alone HD/BR player

[bobgpsr]

uxmal wrote:

anyone have any info if you can use the dolbyHD from a computer or only you get regular dolby5.1??compare to a stand alone HD/BR player

Not sure of what you are asking. Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra will decode and play back a lossless Dolby TrueHD track or a lossless DVD-Audio MLP track. But all that I know for sure is that the 5.1 decoded audio can be losslessly sent out of the PC using the sound card's (or onboard sound) 5.1 analog outputs. This may only use 48kHz/16bit to the PC's DACs.

Sending the decoded audio out via lossless 5.1 channel linear PCM on HDMI is very tricky and very limited at this moment. Just a few have done it using just certain PC motherboards and a special HDMI add on PCI card.

It could be that the Toshiba X205 Notebook PC does it right for 5.1 LPCM audio with its HDMI output. Notebook PC's are easier to secure the audio (for the satisfaction of the content providers and the AACS).

[uxmal]

i was afraid of no 24bit audio even using xfi elitepro on analog, so for the best audio i will need a standalone player and more money but for $300 is not to bad

[bobgpsr]

The very very best most expensive DACs are really only accurate to 20 bits or so. If the source track was properly dithered, then 16 bits is normally as good as any normal good quality home sound system can use. Requires a very very quiet room and a lot of max SPL capability to take advantage of 20 bits.

24bit depth is great for editing/processing.

[eridiorya]

I purchased the LG combo drive just before the holidays for my HTPC. It plays HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray movies wonderfully with Cyberlink Ultra. However, getting TrueHd via analog connections didn't work for me. Thru analog Cyberlink gave me an error message that one item wasn't HDCP compliant, but thru Toslink it played fine. My soundcard (HT Omega Claro) does support 24-bit 192khz, but if Cyberlink won't allow analog playback then it's good for nothing. Go with a stand alone player for hi-def movies.

[uxmal]

Dont worry Auzentech is coming with hdmi for the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude is great here is the press realase http://www.auzentech.com/site/company/press.php

[eridiorya]

Thanks, uxmal for the heads up. This seems like a good work around for getting HD audio from a HTPC, but hdmi 1.3? How can it say that it's hdmi 1.3 compatible if it can't do video. Shouldn't graphics cards be 1.3 and do audio in the future? Just wondering...

[uxmal]

as far. i got is only audio and that is great leave the video for the videocards. unless you need video only and not 3dgaming