Blu Ray or not

[gio]

Ok thanks to this forum and the help of such helpful people like StaffsMike my pcis great for me. However i recently discovered that my motherboard does crossfire instead of SLI

sooo instead of buying a second 8800GT i have decided to get other extras to increase my performance.

At the moment i have a single 250gb drive
20X DVDRW
8800GT 512MB
Q6600 @ 3.0 GHZ
19" widescreen Acer P193W crystalbrite screen which uses vga so i connect using the adapter from my card
2gb ddr2 pc6400 800mhz ram

I wanna get another 2gb and another 250gb hard drive and go raid. ANy tips on what i should do and maybe any direction would be helpful but the blu ray is my main concern

But i also wana get a blu ray drive. However im not sure if my set up ( mainly my screen ) will allow me to get any benefits of this. BTW i wil be using the drive to watch films on it?

Any help is appreciated

[staffsMike]

Do you have specific reasons to upgrade or do you just feel like it lol

That PC should be doing everything I can think of pretty well.

Raid is simple enough to do, I assume you want to stripe (raid 0) them. Just plug the new on in, set to RAID in bios and then set it up on boot. You'll need to format the drives though.

4GB or RAM is great but are you using 64bit windows and or RAM intensive programs?

Blu ray holds no benefits on that screen and it's a bit pricey. You could output to a HDTV via the 8800GT but to be honest I'd want a more silent PC solution to do that sort of job and hook it up to the TV

[gio]

Im gonna get vista i think maybe 64 or 86 version not sure and ok damn yeah i did just feel like it since blu ray drives are only £99 on ebuyer which sounds quite good figuring the quality but i wasn't sure what was required. I understand on standalone uionts and Tvs that u need a HDTV but i wasn't sure with monitors

[staffsMike]

I'm still a bit behind the times with all this HDTV stuff but blu ray I assume is 1080p (1920 x 1080) so obviously your monitor being 1440 x 900 is some way off that.
I don't think you would see major improvements over DVD's, I certainly wouldn't get one for myself unless you have bigger plans for TV's etc..

Someone might know better though.

If you are going to 64bit then 4GB is a nice upgrade as you get to use all of it. If you just want to add to your original ram (rather than go 2x2GB modules) then that should only cost you ~£30. That plus the Hard drive will be around £70 - £75 so not too bad.

[gio]

ok thanks guess i just gotta find sumthing else cool 2 do 2 ma pc now and i just figured out how 2 thank ppl on this forum yeah i shoulda thanked u a lot more times by now staffsMike lol

[staffsMike]

I think it only becomes available at 25 posts, so you actually found it very quickly

[Hicks12]

Originally Posted by staffsMike

I'm still a bit behind the times with all this HDTV stuff but blu ray I assume is 1080p (1920 x 1080) so obviously your monitor being 1440 x 900 is some way off that.
I don't think you would see major improvements over DVD's, I certainly wouldn't get one for myself unless you have bigger plans for TV's etc..

Someone might know better though.

If you are going to 64bit then 4GB is a nice upgrade as you get to use all of it. If you just want to add to your original ram (rather than go 2x2GB modules) then that should only cost you ~£30. That plus the Hard drive will be around £70 - £75 so not too bad.

As far as i know(please dont quote me on this) is that blu ray and hd-dvd can show upto 1080p, a monitor is just the same as a tv although it tends to have less connections and no speakers, thats the only difference i know. I would say wait a bit till getting blu ray drive, although £100 isnt much id say wait and the price could fall even more, 19" you really shouldnt notice much. I have a 22" lg hd tv(as i used 360 when i got it ) but as long as its say, **** by 720 or higher then you can benefit from hd signals, please note that to actually play blu ray etc you need a hdcp compliant gfx card and tv/monitor, i would think so as i remember reading about this when i was getting my new tv.


Any other questions?

[gio]

nope my gfx is hdcp but i dont think my monitor is lol

erm ne thing dat u could recommend 4 ma next upgrade 2 make ma pc more enjoyable? lol

[Hicks12]

everythings fine but if you need something to upgrade, get a bigger monitor/tv 21-24" seems to be the standard now, i would like a bigger one but i dont wanan sell my nice lg tv xD

[Biscuit]

I study HDTV on my course at uni and yeah u have pretty much all the info u need above. Monitor and GPU need to be HDCP complient but if you want to experience full 1080 in all its glory you need a seriously big monitor, im talking above 28" other than that the difference between 720 and 1080 is not amazingly noticable. To be honest i wouldnt bother buying into it all at the moment, the HD wars has JUST ended so there will still be a slight premium on Blu-Ray drives anddecent 1080 monitors are still pretty expensive but do seem to be dropping. Wait until you can get a decent 1080 monitor @ about 24" for around 200 quid then the price of the drives will have dropped considerably.

This is what our lecturer advised all of us to do anyway

[gio]

Ok Kwllll ill c den guess ill just be looking 4 nice accessories and peripherals den lol

[hellojerry]

Originally Posted by staffsMike

Do you have specific reasons to upgrade or do you just feel like it lol

That PC should be doing everything I can think of pretty well.

Raid is simple enough to do, I assume you want to stripe (raid 0) them. Just plug the new on in, set to RAID in bios and then set it up on boot. You'll need to format the drives though.

4GB or RAM is great but are you using 64bit windows and or RAM intensive programs?

Blu ray holds no benefits on that screen and it's a bit pricey. You could output to a HDTV via the 8800GT but to be honest I'd want a more silent PC solution to do that sort of job and hook it up to the TV

Completely agreed! Even my 22' mon can not handle the 1080i. It means you need at least a 24' mon to run HD programmes natively. So please forget about the blue-ray, OP! By the way, if you have any chance to upgrade your mon, please choose ATI 3800 series GFX cards instead for HDTV playback. They have much better signal and graphic output quality than nVidia's as well as the functionalities.

[Biscuit]

Originally Posted by hellojerry

Completely agreed! Even my 22' mon can not handle the 1080i. It means you need at least a 24' mon to run HD programmes natively. So please forget about the blue-ray, OP! By the way, if you have any chance to upgrade your mon, please choose ATI 3800 series GFX cards instead for HDTV playback. They have much better signal and graphic output quality than nVidia's as well as the functionalities.

He already has an 8800GT mate they are still capable, just not quite as focussed

[SSK]

Originally Posted by Biscuit

He already has an 8800GT mate they are still capable, just not quite as focussed

Il love to see how good the ati's are...i got an 8800gt with a lg hd/blu ray combo and all the films iv seen look top notch

Back to the question...i would say hold out with your purchase of a hd set atm...like said previously the format has only just finished and it would be better for you to see how blu ray goes with there new products...you might be able to get a much better hd set later on.

Overall, i have not regretted getting my set tbh...numerous people are having issues, mostly due to the poor software - powerdvd. But since i installed the drive and powerdvd i have as of yet had a single issue with it. All the films play...not a single glitch - both old and new films.

Also, regarding the PQ difference from dvd to hd...on my LG HDTV i saw a huge difference. I was stunned when i saw my 1st hd film.

Hope this helps...if you need any more info im more than happy to help.

[Blackmage]

Ok, Their are ways around HD-DVD and Blueray HDCP. You can watch bluray on your pc without HDCP compliant graphics/Monitor via a program called AnyDVD HD.

[Salazaar]

No films actually use HDCP yet anyway and it doesn't seem too likely that it'll come in to play any time soon.

The main issue seems to be the size of the monitor, it will play HD (720p) but do you really want to invest £100 just to play (expensive) movies on a 19" screen? Personally I'd leave it until I had a larger monitor or an HDTV rigged up.