Blu-Ray Drives for PCs Bombing

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rooket

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bluray media is too expensive to justify buying a burner right now. hard drives are cheaper to store stuff on so of course bluray isn't going to win out. plus it is becoming better known that optical media doesn't last very long for archiving data.
 

Hanin33

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where are all of you getting your prices from? bluray burners for PC are less than 130 bux US and 25gb media is 5 bux a piece... 50gb media for 20bux... while these numbers aren't as low as DVDr.. they're not astronomical as many have put it and the burners run at 6x... not a huge speed hit that would make burning a 25gb disc intolerable... the prices of this tech is dropping faster than anyone here appears to notice... and for the PC user... this format of optical disc will be just as useful as the DVDr and CDr before it once prices bottom out like they have in the older tech. make no mistake... the price on this tech is coming around to a level deemed acceptable by the masses quicker than you think!
 

superblahman123

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Blu-rays will see a boost once the media finds other means to affect the market, such as blu-ray gaming. I think that 2013 prediction will be off by quite a bit once they find another breathrough or use with blu-rays.
 

Hanin33

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and no one seems to know that Verbatim has developed a process to make BD-R media just as cheap as DVD-r... so give it time...
 

griffed88

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[citation][nom]megamanx00[/nom]At this rate, Blu Ray will be replaced by the next thing before it ever becomes mainstream.[/citation]

lol, and thats why Sony always fails with their new "formats" lol. Remember sony's mini disc's? the UMD? lol
 

grieve

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""In fact, the company predicts that only 16.3-percent of the PCs shipped in 2013 will feature installed Blu-ray drives, only up 3.6-percent from this year.""

I am gunna throw my own prediction out there...
By 2013, 85% of all PC's will come standard with a blueray/DVD combo drive.

How can they possibly predict where the market will be in four years?!
 

eyemaster

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DVD burner, 30-40$. Blue Ray is 220$ +. I'm talking Canadian pricing. It's too expensive, we all know they'll be bellow 100$ soon enough, so we're waiting it out. Media is also too expensive.

Until it's cheap, I'll just keep burning (so rarely) on single / double layer dvd-r.
 

purplerat

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[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]I'm am not excited about blueray because my eyes do not notice any improvement with blueray.I am not excited about 1080p because my eyes do not notice any improvement over 720p.I am not excited about an HTPC because I already have a perfectly good dvd player.I am not excited about watching a movie on my pc monitor when I'm busy doing something else like answering questions at Tom's Hardware. I do not multi-task very well.I am not excited about watching a movie on my 22 inch pc monitor in the den when I have an excellent 48 inch plasma TV and home theater system in the living room which includes the previously mentioned dvd player.[/citation]

Sucks to be you. I find it very easy to see the difference. Blu-Ray vs DVD is relative to the difference between SD TV and HD TV. Of course there are also people who will tell you the only difference between SD and HD is aspect ratio.

That said I can understand why Blu-Ray is lagging in regular PCs. I have an HTPC but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have Blu-Ray in any of my PCs. But if they were a little cheaper, even for just a player, say like $50 I'd put them in all of my PCs standard. It's nice to know I can read any major format on my PC even if I don't frequently use them. It's really annoying when I come across an older machine that doesn't even have a DVD drive and want to install Linux (off a DVD). It will probably be the same with Blu-Ray in a couple of years.
 

zirbmonkey

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I bought a Blu-Ray drive for my computer, grabbed the transformers movie to watch, and then I tried playing my movie on my computer ...World of hurt!

Apparently there are only a handful of programs on the market that allow Blu-Ray discs to be watched on a PC-Theater system. Instead of paying $200 for a program I knew nothing about, I found a cracked version of Cyberlink DVD. Sure, the picture is in 1080p, but the frames skip every 30 seconds. I do not have a slow system, and had freshly installed windows twice to try to fix it. I only bothered with the Blu-Ray because I wanted a flawless picture... which doesn't exist on a PC. I was too annoyed by the constant frame skipping to enjoy the movie.

Fix DRM (which means get rid of it) and then people will buy Blu-rays. As long as PC drives require $200 software that doesn't work I don't see why people would bother to buy a drive in the first place.
 

Nick_C

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Until BD-R discs are more cost effective than HDDs (and I don't think that that will happen any time soon with the advent of 2TB and 2.5TB hard drives and ever decreasing costs per GB) I don't see the general population buying BD-Writers.

Me - I'll stick to large HDDs.
 

caskachan

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500 gb hdd = 49$
1000gb hdd = 130$

20 X 25gb blue ray disks = 200$ (@ 8bucks, most places have them at 10-13)
cheap ass burner = 100$ (Lite On iHES208-08 Blu-ray Burner)

how much Data do you need to "burn"(BACKUP)

yeah thats the reason
 

jecht

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I agree with Yang. There isn't a real reason to upgrade to Blu-ray yet since DVDs are still sufficient for most people. Blu-ray will only catch on once writable DVDs start filling up too fast. That's what happened to writable CDs, and previously to floppies. By the time people are ready to upgrade, Blu-ray will be much more affordable, so there's no need to worry.

However, if you just want to play back Blu-ray movies on your PC, it's already cheap. 70 USD will get you a basic BD-ROM drive from newegg.
 

purplerat

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[citation][nom]Zirbmonkey[/nom]I bought a Blu-Ray drive for my computer, grabbed the transformers movie to watch, and then I tried playing my movie on my computer ...World of hurt!Apparently there are only a handful of programs on the market that allow Blu-Ray discs to be watched on a PC-Theater system. Instead of paying $200 for a program I knew nothing about, I found a cracked version of Cyberlink DVD. Sure, the picture is in 1080p, but the frames skip every 30 seconds. I do not have a slow system, and had freshly installed windows twice to try to fix it. I only bothered with the Blu-Ray because I wanted a flawless picture... which doesn't exist on a PC. I was too annoyed by the constant frame skipping to enjoy the movie.Fix DRM (which means get rid of it) and then people will buy Blu-rays. As long as PC drives require $200 software that doesn't work I don't see why people would bother to buy a drive in the first place.[/citation]

If you buy a retail drive you'll get the software free. I also found out that even if you have fast enough hardware, it does have to be newer in order to fully support Blu-Ray playback. My 8800GTS couldn't handle some movies - but a newer IGP can without breaking a sweat. I have to check to make sure your GPU has the right decoders otherwise everything is going to be CPU which sucks.
 

jkflipflop98

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[citation][nom]Zirbmonkey[/nom]I bought a Blu-Ray drive for my computer, grabbed the transformers movie to watch, and then I tried playing my movie on my computer ...World of hurt!Apparently there are only a handful of programs on the market that allow Blu-Ray discs to be watched on a PC-Theater system. Instead of paying $200 for a program I knew nothing about, I found a cracked version of Cyberlink DVD. Sure, the picture is in 1080p, but the frames skip every 30 seconds. I do not have a slow system, and had freshly installed windows twice to try to fix it. I only bothered with the Blu-Ray because I wanted a flawless picture... which doesn't exist on a PC. I was too annoyed by the constant frame skipping to enjoy the movie.Fix DRM (which means get rid of it) and then people will buy Blu-rays. As long as PC drives require $200 software that doesn't work I don't see why people would bother to buy a drive in the first place.[/citation]


I'd say your issue was your "free" software phoning home back to the botnet.
 

cinergy

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[citation][nom]lowguppy[/nom]Its so much cheaper to add blue ray to a PC than to buy a stand alone player though... Its also not very expensive to rent Blu-ray through Netflix and the available library is growing steadily. I think people are just stuck thinking that they need a stand alone player because they always have for other media, and don't realize that their PC can do everything they would use most stand alone devices for.[/citation]

You don't realize that normal people (not geeks) don't want to boot their power hungry and noisy PC to get started with a film. Messing around with slowly booting PC rigs to complete a simple task is not efficient. And how many people have their PC:s in living room where they normally watch tv?
 

ravenware

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Once need for the extra storage space exists the medium will take off on its own. Watching movies on ones computer is just a perk it is not all that necessary and given the added cost for a little perk people aren't going to shell out $100+ for a player that may play movies at a higher quality.

If companies want the medium to take off faster they should target children and teens, they're the only ones that would get the use out of having a blu-ray player in their bedroom computers.
 

SSBrando

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Well of course Blu-ray drives aren't selling as well as Blu-ray players. I have a Blu-ray drive in my PC and I run an HDMI and AV cable in to my TV and amp stereo respectively. I think it looks way better then my parent's 52" LCD and their Sony Blu-ray player but that's because either a) they don't want to spend their money on a computer that can connect to the TV and try to figure out what connects to what and if everything is HDCP compliant or b)they simply don't know if it's possible and if so will it save them time and money? Or do they have to pay someone to figure it all out. I can personally help them but I'm talking about everyone in general. Not everyone is willing to research and put together or the money and headache of trying to find a way to make THAT Blu-ray Drive in THAT computer connect to THAT television and make it work. Plus the only other use of a Blu-ray drive is storage capacity. If for some strange reason you don't want to purchase an external or portable HDD it's because you already have a Blu-ray drive and a writable/rewritable disc.

Plus, who has more than 2 people who are willing to watch that new Blu-ray movie on your 23" LCD computer monitor from your bed in your room and expect to be blown away by the awesome video quality and booming surround sound. (Speaking from personal experience which is why I go to the living room.)
 

miribus

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As a collector of movies, as well as an avid movie viewer, an HTPC with a blu-ray drive makes sense to me.
I won't fool myself into saying that "I don't notice a difference..."
I do.
Even from 480p progressive DVD to 720p Blu-Ray there is a noticeable upgrade in appearance, particularly for newer movies, for older movies I've seen it's generally a waste of time as the reference material can only get you so far.
The audio upgrade for TrueHD is also substantial.

I definitely don't have one for my gaming and work PC because it's completely unnecessary.
As many have said there are much better ways of moving large amounts of data, and there's little point in making a Blu-Ray game because with the slow transfer rates who wants to deal with load times, that's what I have a PC for.

The BIGGEST problem I have with Blu-Ray drives for computers is the horrendous support of both the firmware providers and the software providers.

WINDVD or PowerDVD support is sketchy, to say the least.

Since Blu-Ray has gone through a few different revisions, presumably fixable by firmware, or software upgrades there are several Blu-Rays that dont work in WINDVD, for example, which is arguably the better of the two.

When it works, it's wonderful, when it doesn't it's infuriating and there's no real help available. It may be expensive to buy a separate BR dedicated player, but it's worth it for the aggravation if all you want to do is watch them.

WINDVD gives you a useless support run-around, and good luck getting firmware support beyond the latest FW from a Blu-Ray vendor. And, believe me one vendor will blame the other when they can.

In short, its hasn't been worth it for me, with the exception of being able to RIP Blu-Rays that has mitigated some of the compatibility issues.
If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have bothered buying the drive knowing then what I do now.

It's much easier to deal with a singular vendor of a dedicated player, ideally of one that's already network aware.

I have no problem paying a premium for the privilege of watching something better, that's why I have surround sound and a 50" screen. I know it costs money but damnit I love movies.
What I DO have a problem with, is when it simply doesn't work.
 

jamesedgeuk2000

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no software comes on blu-ray

I don't need the storage space of recordable bluray

I only have a 23" monitor so wouldn't see a visual difference between DVD anyway

NO SALE! :p
 
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