"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message news:fg59ol$5ko$1@aioe.org...
> Brian Cryer wrote:
>> Background: I have a shuttle pc at home, few years old, I forget the
>> speed but it supports hyperthreading so probably about 3.0GHz. It has an
>> IDE interface and does not support SATA. Since I currently use this to
>> record tv, it would be convenient to fit a blu-ray player into it. I've
>> ruled out the possibility of replacing the dvd player because of the cost
>> (SATA blu-ray drives are affordable but IDE ones aren't). I recently saw
>> a USB blu-ray player (on ebay) which I could afford - but ...
>>
>> In order to be able to sensibly watch blu-ray films, what processor or
>> graphics requirements would I need to meet? Is my old shuttle likely to
>> be up to the job or would I be better off waiting a year for prices to
>> drop and either buying a dedicated blu-ray player or replacing my shuttle
>> with a better box?
>>
>> Also, is a usb blu-ray player really only adequate for reading blu-ray
>> recorded data disks or is it suitable as a movie player?
>>
>> TIA.
>
> There is an article here, that compares acceleration capability of
> the midrange cards from both camps. Perhaps with the right ATI
> video card in the machine, it'll work.
>
> http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3047
>
> If your machine has an AGP slot, you might have a wait on your hands.
> I don't know if those cards will see an AGP version or not. While it is
> pretty easy to slap a bridge chip on the video card, it is the driver
> side of things that ups the cost for the primary developer.

Thanks Paul. Unfortunatly the box does have an AGP card ... so unless I
replace the M/B and graphics card (and this that and the other), it looks
like my current box isn't up to the job.

> You can get some bitrate numbers from the Anandtech article, and compare
> that to the 30MB/sec that might easily be achieve across USB2. While USB2
> is supposed to theoretically approach 57MB/sec, external enclosures
> typically
> don't do that. The implication is there are overheads that limit
> performance
> to some lower number. Using 30MB/sec is probably safe for estimation
> purposes (i.e. as a limit at the USB level itself).
>
> I guess you need to find a review, where they use a USB2 Blueray player.
> Perhaps a product review for the product you have your eye on, is in
> order.

I've been trying to find the specs of the item I'm looking at - a USB
external Matshita / Panasonic UJ-110 - but with no success. In any event I
think you've convinced me that it might be fine for reading blu-ray "data"
disks, but not for watching blu-ray films at least not on my box.

--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian