paleman Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Does any one know much about these. Has anyone used before and know if they are okay. There is a seller on ebay selling them only for around $170 average or so. LG BLU-RAY/HD DVD DRIVE,BLURAY SATA PLAYER,DVD BURNER .
Shik1503561304 Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 see existing thread http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=56021&hl= i'm also about to purchase one but think i'll get the model with bluray writer as well
Drizt Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Does any one know much about these.Has anyone used before and know if they are okay. There is a seller on ebay selling them only for around $170 average or so. LG BLU-RAY/HD DVD DRIVE,BLURAY SATA PLAYER,DVD BURNER . Just had one put in the olds new PC... works a treat. Very quick for skipping through parts of a BluRay movie which was particularly surprising. Just drag the bar across and it was very quick to catch up. I don't own any HD DVD's to test it out though.
PKK Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Saw a pile in a Sydney IT store for $186. Better price than any Bluray only drive. I use it for a few months and love it.
cooyarpjm Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Have one of these also $179 from MSY works a treat.
Guest TheBlackFlash Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 I have a friend who recently put one in his HTPC. I was over on Friday to take a look and watch a movie and I have to say I was impressed. Discs load quicky and there were no freezes in the picture and no dropouts in the sound. With anydvd running in the background, this is a good solution for a region free player if it's installed in a reasonably powerful PC.
Hydrology Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 With anydvd running in the background, this is a good solution for a region free player if it's installed in a reasonably powerful PC. To play HD content from BluRay or HD-DVD successfully thru a PC, what would be the minumum specs required guys?
Guest TheBlackFlash Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 That's a tough question to answer definitively. I guess it would depend to a certain extent on which player you use, for example, cyberlink recommends at least this with respect to processing power: Pentium 4 541 (3.2 GHz), Pentium D 840 (3.2 GHz), Pentium D 930 (3.0 GHz), 935 3.2GHz or 940 (3.2 GHz), Core Duo T2400 (1.83 GHz), Pentium M 755 (2.0 GHz), Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8 GHz or T5600 1.83 GHz, Athlon 64-FX, FX-60 (2.6 GHz) or FX-62 (2.8 GHz), Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2 GHz), 4400+ (2.2 GHz), 4600+ (2.4 GHz), 4800+ (2.4 GHz) or 5000+ (2.6 GHz), Turion 64 X2 TL-60 (2.0 GHz), this for RAM: XP: 512MB, Vista: 1GB. You'll also need quite a powerful graphics cards...something along the lines of a 8600GS or better, though they say less powerful cards can be used. I suspect a lower-specced PC could be used if you keep it "lean and mean", that is, nothing running in the background other than the media player but it would be less reliable. After seeing my friends setup working so well, I am seriously leaning in this direction but I will simply buy the most powerful PC that I can afford. I need a new one anyway.
IanD1503559705 Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 (edited) To play HD content from BluRay or HD-DVD successfully thru a PC, what would be the minumum specs required guys? I'm not sure the minimum specs quoted are enough, but I guess it depends what you want to do with the system (eg doing other things at the same time as playing HD). For example, running PowerDVD under XP on my 1GB setup uses a total of around 800MB RAM according to the performance dialogue. With only 512MB system RAM, there would probably be paging and micro interruptions to the playback. Running AnyDVD HD to strip DRM seems to lower system resource requirements a little. HD seems to be orientated around Vista and the DirectX10 GPUs. Although it will work under XP quite well with DirectX9, it's not optimised for it. I'm not sure why it isn't optimised for DX9 apart from the desire to flog Vista. I'm running a C2D 2.2GHz XP 8600GT setup with PowerDVD and AnyDVD HD. Most VC-1 playback with around 40% CPU utilisation, whilst H264 is somewhat less (when acceleration is working). Vista might give better results. I understand the latest GPUs accelerate VC-1 more under Vista. DRM laden HD is a con for playback though. I was able to playback VC-1 with an ATI X300 PowerDVD 6.5 C2D 2.4GHz in purely software decode mode, however all latest versions of PowerDVD force a minimum ATI X1600 and disable software decode. More expensive hardware is the price for reasonable playback experience with PowerDVD. If you are prepared to rip and process, I think better playback can be achieved with lower level hardware, but it totally eliminates the plug and play effect for movies. Unlike a standalone player, there are also constant tweaks required to overcome driver and player deficiencies. I'm not convinced that 24/48/72fps playback can be achieved with PowerDVD under XP (the default is 30p). If a movie is stripped, processed and played with alternate decoders, then it becomes much easier to achieve 1:1 fps playback. Sadly the commercial software players provide the end user little flexibility in playback performance and only tweaks help overcome some of the deficiencies. Consequently, it's difficult to know what minimum spec to suggest without knowing what you are prepared to accept for playback ease of use. Edited May 11, 2008 by IanD
pietro1503559499 Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 (edited) I think it's generally accepted that Nvidia GPUs are better for Blu-Ray/HDDVD at this stage, from 8600 up. ATI seem to have more problems. It is worth investigating Arcsoft Total Media Theatre (threads on this forum) as many people find it superior to PDVD. And the PDVD software bundle that come with the LG only allows 2 channels of sound. You need to buy the full Ultra version to get 5.1/7.1. IMHO you will get better results with TMT and the money is better spent. If you get the right configuration of your HTPC you will get fantastic results from this player. Another plus is that it starts playing the disc within about 10 sec. Edited May 11, 2008 by pietro
Dama Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 Does any one know much about these.Has anyone used before and know if they are okay. There is a seller on ebay selling them only for around $170 average or so. LG BLU-RAY/HD DVD DRIVE,BLURAY SATA PLAYER,DVD BURNER . I've been using one for about 3 weeks without any problems.
deandob Posted May 12, 2008 Posted May 12, 2008 I have one of these as my main system in the home theatre (HTPC). Its nice to be able to select either bluray or HD-DVD with one box and use the same interface (PDVD). Makes the format war rather unimportant.... It does work well and well recommended for HTPC users. I'm considering buying a second one and storing it, just in case my first one dies, so that I still have access to my 100+ HD-DVD collection in the future.
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