Most people are used to standard DVD playback, and we don’t blame them for it — DVD has been the undisputed movie format champion for the past few years. But for those HD fanatics and early Blu-Ray jumpers, here are some Blu-ray playback requirements for your desktop and laptop PCs.
As the resident tech guy for my family and friends, I always get this: “So I bought that Blu-Ray drive I saw on the Internet. I can read Blu-Ray discs, but I still can’t play them expensive Blu-Ray movies. What’s the deal?”
As a general rule, one shouldn’t necessarily assume that just because you have a Blu-Ray drive, you will be able to play back Blu-Ray movies.
Here are the Blu-Ray playback requirements for DESKTOP PCs:
- A Blu-Ray drive
- Multi-core processors are recommended. HD video playback demands a lot of processor resources.
- A graphics card/video card that supports High-Definition playback. 256 MB of Video Card RAM or more.
- Windows XP SP2 and higher.
- 512MB minimum system RAM, 1GB RAM is recommended.
- HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) compliant display (DVI, HDMI connections) for digital output. For people who want to output to TVs, make sure that your TVs are HD capable.
- Blu-Ray decoder software. Most of the OS-based media players will not be able to play Blu-Ray, so you will have to install 3rd party software.
Blu-Ray playback requirements for laptop PCs are pretty similar. If your laptop comes with a Blu-Ray drive, you can pretty much assume that the manufacturers have designed your system for Blu-Ray playback. If your laptop did not come with a Blu-Ray drive, this would probably mean that you are plugging in an external blu-ray drive to your system. Check for the processor, video card, system RAM, and OS requirements above. If your display can handle resolutions 1080i and above, then you’re pretty much in the clear. You will need an HDMI connection to output HD video playback from your laptop to an HD-capable display.
One thing to note about Blu-Ray playback in laptops, most of them will require you to be plugged in to a power source during playback because of the power requirements of Blu-Ray. If you are not plugged in, you will experience very bad viewing conditions, we assure you of that.
We published a “how to” article for Blu-Ray playback on Macs here.
If you’re planning to purchase a blu-ray drive for your desktop PC or and external Blu-Ray drive for your laptop, be sure to check out these requirements so that you don’t get frustrated in your initial jump to Blu-Ray.
