Minimum system to play blue ray

[Haopengyou]

I bought a blue ray player for my computer a few months ago, not realizing that it will not work well on a p4, if at all. I am saving my pennies to buy a quad core in a year or more from now. I would like to know what the minimum system config is to be able to play a blueray disk. I am not going to be authoring or editing with this computer. I will only be playing movies and music, and occassionally using it to do web conferencing with friends back at home - it has a 24" lcd monitor.

I do not have a preference for intel or amd although comparable amd chips usually are usually less expensive, and slower (cheaper) amd chips seem to come with more graphics stuff. Think: bargain

[Backpain]

AMD seem to have an overheating problem and failed for me several times. I prefer Intel Quad core with at least 4 gigs of ram, 64 bit OS. I use ASUS motherboards with great results. Have a real good video card with at least 1 gig DDR 3 and maybe a dual card if possible. Hard drive size and brand is your choice.

[redwudz]

I've put together quite a few AMD computers and never had a overheating problem, but either platform will work. AMD is likely cheaper, though.

I prefer Gigabyte motherboards. The newer Micro-ATX motherboards with HDMI outputs and on board video can handle Blu-ray and MKV compressed videos with no problems, and then you won't need to spend more on a PCI-E video card. I have two different newer Micro-ATX MBs and neither have any problems with Blu-ray playback. Each PC has a BD ROM and a regular DVD burner. You might consider a MB like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128439

With a 32bit OS, 4GB RAM is optimum. A 64bit OS can use more, but there are still a few video programs that have compatibility problems with 64bit OSs, so I stick to 32bit.

I would also suggest two hard drives minimum. The one used for the OS boot drive can be smaller. The second drive can be as large as you want. The boot drive is constantly accessed by the OS, so not as efficient as a separate drive for data handling. I don't use multiple partitions on any of my drives, even the 2TB ones. I use three HDDs on most of my PCs. If you want a faster boot, a WD 150GB Raptor 10K RPM drive is a good choice. SSD drives are still a bit expensive.

[hech54]

I would also suggest two hard drives minimum. The one used for the OS boot drive can be smaller. The second drive can be as large as you want.

Yep.

[Ozzyjim]

What about a video card that supports HARDWARE decoding of blu-ray movies??

[redwudz]

If you mean DXVA, both my Micro-ATX motherboards with on-board video do that. (Hardware acceleration)

[Haopengyou]

Is a pentium D going to do the trick to play blueray? not author or render.

[fritzi93]

Is a pentium D going to do the trick to play blueray? not author or render.

Yes; and you'll need a video card with DXVA too. Or perhaps onboard will be good enough, depending on chipset.

Look at my computer details, it's my HTPC built specifically to be just enough to play Blu-ray. You don't need an expensive gaming card either, mine cost less than $30 U.S.D. a few years ago.

I'd recommend Arcsoft TMT or TME for Blu-Ray playback. Far better than the alternatives.

[edDV]

What about a video card that supports HARDWARE decoding of blu-ray movies??

For Blu-Ray, the chipset of card needs to support DXVA ver2 at minimum. Easiest way to separate display cards is NVIDIA "Purevideo HD" or ATI "AVIVO HD" feature support. This includes hardware decode support for Blu-Ray HD MPeg2, h.264 and VC1.

[[_chef_]]

Is a pentium D going to do the trick to play blueray? not author or render.

Depending on the used gfx card with hardware accelleration decoding per GPU its possible.

BTW, I doubt you "bought a blue-ray player for your computer."