Is iso bluray playing a viable option yet?

[yoda313]

I have a liteon bluray rom drive and a amd 64 single core 2.4ghz pc running vista premium.

So far most of my bluary movies seem to be playing smoothly. I have xmen3, stargate and final fantasy. They seem to play without hesitation. I rented Ratatouille the other week and played flawlessly. However I rented Phantom of the Opera (the Andrew Lloyd Webber version that came out a few years ago) and it had significant stuttering issues. Though the odd thing was the audio never stopped. The video would hesitate like on a layer break change. This was the same sympton I had when I would play hddvds on my xbox hddvd drive over usb on my pc rather than the xbox. There was stuttering just like this.

I have 2gigs of ram and a nvidia 8400 using a dvi-hdmi cable to send my dvi output to my hdmi input on the tv (I get 1366x768 res this way).

I have read that apparently some types of BD+ movies have playback issues even after successul ripping. My trial with ANYDVD HD just expired and I'm debating about buying the full version. I have a 500gb harddrive I use for extra media, I could use this for my ownedbluray rips.

Would it be possible that my pc isn't fast enough for SOME High Def movies over the drive? What about harddrive playback? Would that be a fast enough playback rate for high def? Also I am considering simpler upgrades that don't involve a cpu replacement. Would 3gigs of ram versus 2gigs of ram improve performance? What about a nvidia 8600? I guess what I'm looking for a simple upgrade that would produce fluid high def playback on my current pc.

I'm not sure which codecs work better on the bluray. Like I said I have Xment 3, Stargate, and Final Fantasy. I'm not sure which codecs each of these use but they are play smoothly. Phantom of the Opera was the first to have stuttering on my pc. NOTE it was a Blockbuster rental. It seemed clean but could it have been scratched already? Is that possible? I have already returned it so I don't know for sure. Maybe that is what my issue it.....



EDIT - i just went to bestbuy's geeksquad website and they said they can install cpu's from online vendors - the installation fee is 40.00 plus tax. I've never done a cpu install and I think that would be tense as hell thinking I could fry the pc. If I could still find a compatible amd x2 dual core chip for under a 100.00 at newegg or tigerdirect I may just do that. That should give enough horsepower.

[jman98]

I have read that apparently some types of BD+ movies have playback issues even after successul ripping. My trial with ANYDVD HD just expired and I'm debating about buying the full version. I have a 500gb harddrive I use for extra media, I could use this for my ownedbluray rips.

This is quite correct and you can go to the forums at http://www.doom9.net if you want a more in depth discussion of this. As far as I know, nobody is exactly sure what the problem is. It appears to be copy protection related though.

Would it be possible that my pc isn't fast enough for SOME High Def movies over the drive? What about harddrive playback? Would that be a fast enough playback rate for high def? Also I am considering simpler upgrades that don't involve a cpu replacement. Would 3gigs of ram versus 2gigs of ram improve performance? What about a nvidia 8600? I guess what I'm looking for a simple upgrade that would produce fluid high def playback on my current pc.

I'm not sure which codecs work better on the bluray. Like I said I have Xment 3, Stargate, and Final Fantasy. I'm not sure which codecs each of these use but they are play smoothly. Phantom of the Opera was the first to have stuttering on my pc. NOTE it was a Blockbuster rental. It seemed clean but could it have been scratched already? Is that possible? I have already returned it so I don't know for sure. Maybe that is what my issue it.....



EDIT - i just went to bestbuy's geeksquad website and they said they can install cpu's from online vendors - the installation fee is 40.00 plus tax. I've never done a cpu install and I think that would be tense as hell thinking I could fry the pc. If I could still find a compatible amd x2 dual core chip for under a 100.00 at newegg or tigerdirect I may just do that. That should give enough horsepower.

I don't think any single core CPU system meets BluRay playback specs and I'm not sure that you can upgrade your box to a dual core CPU. I'm too lazy to look it up as you can do that yourself, but I think that single and dual core AMD CPUs don't use the same sockets. Note that your video card is unfortunately probably not helping as it appears that the ability to offload BluRay decoding from the CPU to the video card may not work. This is not a video card issue per se but a failure of various software playback programs to properly utilize video cards for decoding work. Saving your BluRays as ISOs won't fix your problem. It's all a decoding issue and currently the advanced codecs used in BluRay need a lot of CPU horsepower to decode them.

[yoda313]

Thanks Jman 98.

Actually I just purchased a new amd x2 which is a socket am2 that my pc uses. I got it for 48.00 at newegg. I also bought some thermal grease for it and I think I am going to install it myself. I just read through a demo at the hp website (mines a hp pavillion). It seems straightforward enough. I intend to reuse my fan. This is a 128x128 l1 cache at 2ghz. My current single core is 64x64 l1 althouhg its 2.4ghz. This should go a long way to producing better playback results.

I should also finally be able to play BIOSHOCK smoothly

[videopoo]

So...there is no option right now to Playback a BD image?....only from disc right?

[yoda313]

So...there is no option right now to Playback a BD image?....only from disc right?

I was able to copy part of a disc with anydvd hd. However my trial is now over and I did not do a full test. Others can probably give you more detail, that was what I was checking on also..