Hey dudes

I'm thinking of getting one of these, as theyre the only readers available (wtf ey - isnt anyone else gonna make em??).

Do these things work straight outta the box as expected? Coz I know that some DVD drives never came with DVD software which is kinda lame...

Any other things I should know?

Cheerz

$250 for the drive, $500 for the burner. Not much competition. What do you need it for?

...... to watch bluray discs on my new pc....?

... this is just for your own amusement? Well then possibly finding firmware should be all part of the fun in this hobby of yours.

Dude, the war is over. Why not wait a few more months and the $ of the burners will come down dramatically.

Dude, the war is over. Why not wait a few more months and the $ of the burners will come down dramatically

Sorry, why will this happen in 'a few more months', if the war is over then what incentive do sony have to speed up that process?? they'll drag it out aslong as they can to milk that thing dry... they've killed hd-dvd with a console and still relatively high priced players.. there is no immediate reason to push cheaper players into houses *ASAP*

I know the war is over. I just wanna watch Bluray movies! And soon!

there is no immediate reason to push cheaper players into houses *ASAP*

Actually, there is a big incentive to do just that. IF Sony have killed HD-DVD then they need to finish the job convincingly and put Toshiba down for good. They also need to start to recoup their massive R&D investment in blu-ray and start regaining some console share by leveraging the PS3 some more.

This all means market penetration. The only time a winner can be declared is when consumer sentiment swings to one forat or the other and take-up of HD players finally gains momentum. At the moment the pendulum is swinging to Sony, cheaper players would probably finish the job.

...... to watch bluray discs on my new pc....?

dont you need a compatible monitor too? and what software /hardware u using to play em? dont u need 64bit? im gutted vista dont support it.

Yeah you need HDCP everything (bluray drive, video card, monitor) apparently. I bought a PS3 and am watching planet earth at the moment. Pretty awesome stuff. I would have to buy a new video card and blu ray drive if I wanted to use blu ray on my HTPC so the PS3 was a pretty viable option for me.

dont you need a compatible monitor too? and what software /hardware u using to play em? dont u need 64bit? im gutted vista dont support it.

Yep. HDCP 22" LG monitor + 8800GTS + Vista x64.

You need Vista64 for Blu-ray?! Regular old Ultimate won't work?

f*** I wish HD-DVD would pull a Lazarus.

Well Microsoft said it will be up to the internation software vendors (ISVs) to determine support for the 32-bit version of Vista.

So I guess you'd be asking CyberLink etc that question.

PowerDVD 7.2 and upwards i think will do the trick

At the moment the pendulum is swinging to Sony, cheaper players would probably finish the job

that said, toshiba have hit back with price repositioning on their HD-DVD players. sony spend $400-500 million to buy an 8 month period of blu-ray only new releases from Warner (already released titles will still be produced and sold), so Toshiba go out and spend the same, but in reducing the price of players, to get higher market penetration

well I could get one of those expensive dual format drives... But I think I'll stick to bluray. Either way I see bluray as the better choice but at this stage its hard to tell exactly how it'll all go down.

Either way I see bluray as the better choice

yeah, because i love buying an expensive player, then 1 year later having to buy another one if i want to play the extra features that they've copied added, ie Blu-Ray profile 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0