Topic: PS3 vs. PC for playing Blu-rays...

[teemto]

Hey guys, i wanted to throw this question out to the forums... before i pulled the trigger and bought my hdtv.

I know that by and large, PS3 is the widely accepted BEST solution for playing blu-ray movies. But it's also 15-25k, depending on the version you get.

A PC blu-ray drive, on the other hand, can cost only 6k-10k. But there's sparse information about it playing blu-ray movies on pcs online, and generally a lot of possible conflicts that may crop up. I don't know if it'll give me as optimal a movie experience as the PS3.
- but my pc is fully outfitted with a 2.2 ghz Core 2 Duo, 4gb RAM, and 8800GT 512MB video card, so i'm confident it can take whatever blu-ray will throw at it.

What i'm asking is, has anyone tried or compared PC blu-ray playback to ps3? Which one do you think is better?

[pchin]

Interesting question. Getting a PC Blu-ray drive will certainly be much cheaper but if you can output it via HDMI to your HDMI receiver > HDTV then you're good to go plus all the saving.

I'm not familiar with PC BD. Can it play profile 1.1 or 2.0 disc? Does it decode the HD audio internally or send the bitstream to the AV receiver for decoding? If you have a regular AV receiver then you might want to consider a standalone BD player that offer 7.1 analog. 

[teemto]

The way i understand it, if you're using WinDVD 9 or PowerDVD for Blu-Ray, they've been configured to play most of the latest blu-rays. I think this includes the latest specs and bd-live components. There are some title exceptions, but with every software update they fix the conflicts.

As for the audio, i think the PC can either output via the optical/SPDIF out of the Creative sound card, or through analog if you've connected your speakers to your sound card for front/rear 5.1 output. The software decodes it for you. At the moment i don't think there's a solution that offers uncompressed output or DTS-MA output to an amplifier from a PC. But that's kinda moot for me at this point bec all i have is on of those big Logitech 5.1 systems w/ subwoofer.
--- so in that case i would either being using front/back analog connections directly from sound card to speakers, or spdif/optical from Ps3 or pc to speakers.

Anybody else have any info/experience on the PC-BD system and how it compares to a PS3?

[sleepygeepy]

Hi teemto

I really don't have experience with PS3 or Blu-ray drives, but I believe the PS3 is now capable of outputting Full HD audio over HDMI or SPDIF (not sure on this).  One of the problems that HTPC builders face is that Full HD audio is not supported in PowerDVD (last I heard) and that many motherboards or videocards with HDMI outputs do not support transmitting the full HD audio signal.  The alternative for a PC would be to get a dedicated soundcard like the Asus Xonar or the Auzen X-Fi to output full HD audio over analog outputs.  In the coming months though, there will be soundcards that would have full HD audio over HDMI

If you don't plan to take advantage of full HD audio for a dedicated home theater setup, then going with a PC Blu-ray drive is ok.  Just make sure your PC has a HDMI out for the video, or buy a DVI to HDMI adapter for your 8800GT