Do I need to upgrade to watch Blu-ray movies?

[JeffK91]

I've decided that (for now at least) I want to use my computer strictly for media and not gaming. I want to be able to watch Blu-ray movies on my new HD 1080P monitor, so I've been looking at this drive: Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray DVD-ROM 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Internal 4X Blu-ray DVD ROM Model DH-4O1S-08 - Blu-Ray Drives

My question is, do I need a more powerful system than I have now to be able to watch Blu-ray movies at my monitor's native 1920x1080 resolution?

Specs are in my sig. Thanks.

 

[baron5]

no your system should be fine paired with that drive.

 

[gurusan]

I know the 7series nvidia cards support purevideo, but I'm not entirely sure how good it is. I'm pretty sure it will be fine, but if you experience problems you can always sell off your two graphics cards for a replacement. The newer nvidia and ati cards are quite good at HD decoding.

 

[JeffK91]

After doing some research, I keep hearing that you need an HDCP-compatible card and that it only starts with the 8 series. Is this true?

 

[Peter.Cort]

i would suggest a new card as the old 7-series (lol@calling the 7 series old..) was before blu-ray I believe so your cpu will do all the work instead of the gpu on all ATI cards. The newer ATI cards (3k + 4k series) will do all the encoding work rather than having your cpu do it along with other tasks in the background so it will be less choppy especially with your cpu. I think you should be able to play blu-ray's though. it just might be choppy at times.

 

[gurusan]

You might look at the 9600GSO

 

[Peter.Cort]

or even a 3650/3450 if you don't want to do ANY gaming.

 

[Apokalipse]

After doing some research, I keep hearing that you need an HDCP-compatible card and that it only starts with the 8 series. Is this true?

Not if you use a later version of AnyDVD
It's a driver that decrypts DVD's and blu-ray discs, so that to whatever program you use to play them, they appear unencrypted

 

[saltynay]

You don't need a 8 series or later card you can software decode hd videos its just cpu intensive having said that the atom (1.6ghz) netbooks can play back 1080p bluray pretty smooth not quite perfect but close enough. Your rig should be fine.

 

[Apokalipse]

You don't need a 8 series or later card you can software decode hd videos its just cpu intensive having said that the atom (1.6ghz) netbooks can play back 1080p bluray pretty smooth not quite perfect but close enough. Your rig should be fine.

With what software/codecs?