The idea of being reliant on physical media such as tapes and discs to store music, videos and computer
software is fast evaporating, as more and more people turn to the
internet as a way to (legally or otherwise) download the latest tunes,
movies and programs.
Even so, the Blu-ray disc format is finding a fair few fans. Intended
to usurp the ever-present DVD format, Blu-ray discs can store the vast
quantities of data demanded by high-definition (HD) movies and games.
But is the Blu-ray format useful to PC owners? Read on to find out.
Blu-ray for PCs
Although home Blu-ray players for
HD movies are the most popular use of the format, Blu-ray disc drives
are also available for PCs. Both internal and external drives are
available, with BD-Rom (read-only) models costing around £50 and BD-RE
(recordable) around £65.
Internal drives are no more difficult to install than DVD or hard
disk drives but older PCs may lack the necessary Sata connection used by
newer drives and will instead require a model with an IDE port.
External drives obviously require no installation at all. A similar
proviso applies though, since some external drives are available with
faster USB3 ports – something that’s still far from standard on new PCs.
A USB3 drive will still work when connected to a USB2 or USB1 port, but just won’t be as quick at transferring data.
It’s also worth noting that a BD drive will still read (and write, if
it’s BD-RE) CDs and DVDs, so it can replace an existing disc drive.
The speed of the connection makes little difference to a BD-Rom drive
that’s only used for reading discs (which usually means playing movies)
but it can be an issue for burning them
.
As with CDs and DVDs, BD burning is rated at different speeds and a
single-speed drive writes data at 36Mbit/sec. In lay terms, that means a
single-layer 25GB Blu-ray disc will take around 90 minutes to fill,
while a double-speed drive would do the same job in 45 minutes – and so
on.
What do I need?
Windows 7 and Vista (with Service
Pack 2 installed) include the necessary driver for reading and writing
Blu-ray data discs with a BD drive, but both require the appropriate
codec to be installed before they can play BD movies. This will usually
be supplied with a BD drive as part of the accompanying disc-burning
software and allows you to watch movies using Windows Media Player.
Windows XP, on the other hand, has no built-in knowledge of Blu-ray;
though again, the BD driver and codec will be supplied with a new drive,
so XP computers can make use of Blu-ray.
Any computer with a Pentium 4 processor – the chip that acts as the
brain of the PC – or better should be powerful enough to play Blu-ray
movies, but desktop PCs must have a graphics card that supports
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection if they’re connected
to a monitor via a DVI cable.
Otherwise, a HDMI connection between the desktop graphics card and
the display is required, or a low-quality VGA connection be used. These
issues shouldn’t concern laptop owners, unless they wish to output the
content of a Blu-ray to an external monitor or TV.
Burning computer data to Blu-ray discs is straightforward but making
your own Blu-ray movies is a processor-intensive task that could take a
long time, even with a modern computer – and beyond our scope here.
Stay cost-effective
When it comes to PCs, the
Blu-ray format is still best considered as a way to play movie discs, as
blank media is still comparatively expensive (even bought in bulk,
single-layer 25GB discs cost upwards of £2 each, compared to just a few
pence for blank DVDs).
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