Intro

In Part One of this series , I looked at some of the basic ‘Blu-ray’ drives that can be added to a computer or used as external drives. These included the basic players – whose sole function is to play Blu-ray discs (and, possibly, to read data recorded onto a Blu-ray disc), and the so-called ‘Combo’ drives that, in addition to playing Blu-ray discs can also read and write to DVD and CD drives.

Being able to watch a Blu-ray movie on your high resolution desktop or notebook computer is nice to have. In most cases, you’re sitting closer to the screen than you would be if you were playing the same video on a high-def television, and the fine items on the screen look even better. (You may lose the surround sound that a good home theater system can deliver if you use your computer, although it’s also possible to take advantage of the surround sound processing on many computers and feed the sound to multiple speakers arranged for surround sound.)

It’s a good thing, if your computer is short of slots, or you’ve run out of USB ports Read the rest of this entry »