Blu Ray Graphics Card?

[AaronG85]

Hey everyone i heard you have to have a special type of Graphics card if you wish to watch Blue Ray dvds (I have since brought a Blu Ray DVD Burner and wish to watch them on my Pure HD television). Can anyone shed any light on this?

[bigdonk]

Originally Posted by AaronG85

Hey everyone i heard you have to have a special type of Graphics card if you wish to watch Blue Ray dvds (I have since brought a Blu Ray DVD Burner and wish to watch them on my Pure HD television). Can anyone shed any light on this?

nothing special, it just needs to support HDCP to future proof when Hollywood enable ICT. Otherwise the video resolution will be down converted to 960x540 sub HD content.

Your player and display will also need to support HDCP.

Other factors that you might want to take into consideration;

1. mpeg2, H.264 and VC-1 decoding offloaded to CPU or GPU, or both ?

2. Output resolution of gfx, it makes a lot of sense to output at 1920x1080, the current native resolution of blu-ray and HD DVD content. Make sure your display can also support this resolution.

3. Output refresh rate of gfx, best if it supports both 50Hz and 60Hz, giving you flexibility should you run into micro stutter issues.

4. Output gfx interface, some prefer analog VGA or component ( both do not support HDCP so be careful ), others prefer digital DVI or HDMI ( both capable of HDCP, check with device manufacturers for HDCP implementation and support ).

5. Display supports 1:1 pixel mapping on what types of interfaces ? See here for more information.

6. Silent ( passively cooled ) for HTPC application.

[warren13]

Could not have put it better myself. Reps awarded

[The Brad]

I haven't tested them yet but it would seem the 8600GT cards around for reasonable prices have better hardware acceleration than previous cards like my 7950GT, PLUS they support hardware decoding under Vista, so pending some testing (which should be a formality), I would say the 8600GT would get my vote for awesome value and reduced reliance on CPU power than 7000 series cars, which already worked great on C2D processors...

[pietro99]

I just installed a Pioneer BDCS02 and it works perfectly for Bluray with the supplied Cyberlink software and the 8600GTS card.

[The Brad]

Originally Posted by pietro99

I just installed a Pioneer BDCS02 and it works perfectly for Bluray with the supplied Cyberlink software and the 8600GTS card.

SWEET! And you have the same CPU, RAM and motherboard as I have as well. I've got 2 x 8600GTS on order now, plus a new Shuttle case plus all the rest of the bits so I can have a bit more portable Blu-ray system.

By all means if you have any comments, positive or negative, I'd love to hear them (as would many of the other forum members). Out of a few hundred of these things we've sold so far, we haven't taken any calls at the call centre yet, which is kinda strange. I mean I did test it pretty thoroughly but this compatibility stuff is a minefield. Perhaps the buyers of these drives really do their homework before buying.

Thank you for your support!

[pietro99]

So far there have only been a couple of negatives. At one point in "The Last Samurai" the picture froze and I had to close VMC to restart. And there was a bit of stutter occcasionally. However I do get occasional stutter with recorded TV playback and I suspect it's the either the Nvidia or the Realtek HD drivers.

I wonder if the picture froze at the point of layer change (assuming there is a layer change in that disc) Some investigation to do.

But generally, so far, I am very happy with the Pioneer, and having the player in the HTPC is very convenient. And the price is right......$400 delivered from auspcmarket.

[The Brad]

Thanks for the feedback. There's not many dual layer titles, the only one I know of is Kingdom of Heaven.

If you do come across anything reproducable I am all ears. CyberLink are super responsive to bug reports. I've had new software builds same day!

EDIT: Sorry another question, have you got the recent reliability/stability patches for Vista installed? They are not on Windows Update yet but they claim to improve Blu-ray and HD DVD playback among other things. I've got them running on my system and no negatives so far.

Also could I ask what type of display you're using?

[pietro99]

Yes, I have installed those.

I am using a Sony 70" SXRD via HDMI.

One other thing I forgot to mention: in VMC Decoder utility I now have 7 more decoder options. I don't think I'll bother experimenting with any of them as I find the PQ of the MS decoder to be first rate.

Edit: according the High-Def digest The Last Samurai is dual-layer. I wonder how I'd find the time for this. Can't see it on the box.

[merovingian]

Originally Posted by pietro99

I just installed a Pioneer BDCS02 and it works perfectly for Bluray with the supplied Cyberlink software and the 8600GTS card.

Hey Pietro, what about the Media Center plug-in that came with the drive? Are you playing through VMC or just through Cyberlink and the Windows desktop?