Playing Bluray's on a PC

Hi all, my cousin rang me tonight and wants to build himself a cheap pc for browsing the web and checking emails..... or so i thought.

He went on to explain he wants to connect this system to his 50" living room TV and would like to be able to watch bluray's, even though he has both a PS3 and a standalone bluray player at the side of the TV! Hey, its his money not mine.

Anyway this is the system he is looking to purchase and i'll assemble it for him

Linky

added to this will be this bluray drive and this 500Gb HDD

My question is, as i've only ever played blurays through my PS3, will this system using the integrated vga be good enough to play blurays or is it gonna require an actual vga card?

Thanks

Mike

Probably you will need a graphics card with an HDMI output.

I'm not sure, but will Blu-Ray even work over VGA? I'd have thought it would need an HDMI-capable graphics card to handle all the HDCP nonsense. Worth checking.

Oops! Phantom's thread-ninja'ing skills are more 1337 than mine! :ninja:

Hi Scrappy - main problem with that board is that it's a VGA output. HDCP can't go over VGA.

John

I doubt he even be able to play x264's HD Video through onboard VGA.

He'll need at least a stand alone mid range graphics card I'd have thought.

HDCP will work over HDMI or a DVI output.

The other thing to consider is sound. If your going to hook the pc into a receiver your going to want an asus xonar sound card. The built-in audio stuff won't decode HD master audio or Dolby Digital.

As all saids here, you need other Video Board, with more "VPower".

Be sure about HDCP capability, not all video HDMI boards are HDCP's

Better if the board integrates HDMI & DVI outputs and 1GB or more VRAM.

I would suggest an i3 Intel Core with a motherboard such as a GA-H55M-UD2H - http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/prod...px?pid=3503#ov

It has onboard HDMI & the Audio is also patched through.
That will play Bluray without an external graphics card..

AriaPC have some great deals at the moment.....

TC :cool:

Hi guys, thanks for the replies. I thought as much, i believe he wants to spend around £200 and not much more so i guess i'm gonna have to tell him to get real and either forget about the bluray through the pc and use his one of his other machines or spend more cash lol

You can easily buy a machine to play blu-ray with £200 and have cash spare.

I always find overclockers have nice deals.

My machine:
Q6600 quad overclocked to 3.0ghz (this was second hand)
ATi HD5830 with hdmi out (new)
4gb ram (new)
blu-ray drive (new)
GA-G41M-ES2L (new)

You dont need a quad core, a cheaper dual core will do, HD5830 is very overkill just for blu-ray so again you can save £30 here. 4gb is also overkill for internet and blu-ray. 2gb will do with win 7. You can easily get a machine for what he wants for around £180.

Very quick look:

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/7838/capturerdk.png

Second hand CPU (is or was a dual core on here for £35 socket 775) from the other bay, or cut back on board and gpu and buy a new one. Very doable..

Cheers