Blu-ray sensible minimum hardware requirement

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

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.

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.

Paul

"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.
>
> 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.
>
> Paul

Might be worth looking at:

alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati

From: "William" <nospam@pacifier.com>
Subject: New graphics cards coming from ATI this Christmas - HD3800 series
DX 10.1 compliant
Date: Monday, October 29, 2007 2:28 PM

Tom's Hardware has a new article up on ATI's new HD3800 series of graphics
cards. See at:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/...support_dx_10/

They are to be the first DX 10.1, 55nm and FourWay GPU supported cards out.

Highlights:

Full DX 10.1 compliant
Mid-range priced, between $150-250 units.
Two, three and four-way CrossFire under Vista
Hardware acceleration of HD DVD and BluRay movies
New Shader Model (SM)
128-bit texture format filtering
64-bit integer pixel blending
much more.

First card out the door that meets mandatory standards for 10.1
certification. (so far)

William


Luck;
Ken

"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