cpu requirements for blueray?

[Haopengyou]

I have this blue ray player:
LITE-ON Black 4X BD-ROM 8X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Internal 4X Blu-ray Disc Reader Model iHOS104-08

I found one web site that said the cpu requirements to play this is a p4, but in the box it says that it requires dual core. Is it likely the software the requires dual core?

[cal_tony]

Depends.
To play BRs on computer without stops and starts will probably need duel core. To copy Brs to hard disk on computer P4 should be fine. At least it works for me. I can, with a p4 copy my BRs to my computer convert them to MKV and recopy them to an external HD for use with my Media players. However, playing them on my computer is iffy

Tony.

[greymalkin]

hmm..if your computer specs are up to date that Celeron isn't going to cut it. but there are many factors to determine if your computer can play it..CPU is just one...what kind of software you are using to play the bluray..if you have a video card with hardware video acceleration (and if the software you are using can take advantage of it)..if your operating system is loaded with all sorts of other software running in the background, etc.

[Haopengyou]

I have updated my specs - 3.06 ghz p4 with 1 gb of ram

[wulf109]

If your planning to compress a ripped BR to a smaller disk size you need nothing less than a quad-core,unless your willing to wait 12-24 hours to compress a disk. AMD has quads for $100 that serve well.

[Haopengyou]

I am not sure what compressing a ripped br is...i just want to play dvd's and blue ray disks.

[redwudz]

If you wanted to convert the blu-ray to another format (Usually compressing it), that takes more CPU power if you wanted to do it quickly. A quad core CPU is usually recommended for this also. A slower CPU will do it, but it might take a very long time.

For just playback, a dual core is probably a good choice, along with a video card that has DXVA hardware decoding. You will also need a software BD player like TMT3 or similar.

You can also play .m2ts files from a decrypted BD with VLC or MPC-HC, both freeware. You would need a decryption program like AnyDVD HD or similar.

You can try the trialware version of ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre and if it can playback a BD disc smoothly, then you are set. If not, then you need some hardware upgrades.

[Haopengyou]

Thanks! Is there a particular OS, i.e. xp, win 7 or linux that is more likely to make my present hardware do the trick? adding more memory?

[redwudz]

You could add another 1GB RAM, though I'm not sure that would help. I prefer 2GB RAM with XP. Vista and W7 run better with 4GB RAM. HD playback is usually dependent on CPU speed, but multiple CPU cores seem to help. I don't think the OS used would have much bearing on HD playback, though a OS that uses less resources may help. XP or Linux should be fairly low resource users.

Easy way to check resource usage, just open Task Manager and check CPU and RAM usage. When I play back a BD, it runs about 2% - 10%. But I have a DXVA capable video card (GPU) and a six core CPU that runs at 3.5Ghz. If your CPU usage is up above 50% for BD playback, you may have some video stuttering. You can also try a HD MKV playback with MPC-HC or VLC as they have CPU/GPU loads similar to BDs.

If you can't get smooth playback, I would probably upgrade your video card first to a DXVA capable one. If that doesn't do it, then a CPU upgrade to a multiple core would be the next step. If your motherboard isn't capable of that, then a new MB, RAM and CPU.