Big PC Geek Tech Blog

I recently purchased the Lite-On Blu-Ray player/ DVD burner, model number DH-4OIS for $150 and have been very happy with it. I purchased this drive to watch Blu-Ray movies in my computer. Having a Netflix account, I am able to watch as many Blu-Ray movies as I want and have had a few that caused a slight inconvenience.

I have a super Rig, Core 2 Duo 7750, Vista x64 Ultimate, 6 GB of Ram etc and was surprised to hear what might be the drive buffering on some Blu-Ray discs. Blu-Ray discs have super encrypted copy protection that does require a lot of horse power in a computer but I am just not sure what the issue is. I doubt it is my computer but it may be… But it also may be the drive itself. Possibly the buffer in the Blu-Ray drive is not big enough!

Rest assured, this only happened in 2 of 10 Blu-Ray discs and I was able to hit pause, then wait, and then press play to resume my movies but I don’t want to have to do this when I am watching a movie. If anyone has had similar issues, please let everyone know your experience. If you are thinking of buying this drive, do some research before you buy.

I recently purchased a Blu-Ray Player not for my home theater system but for my computer and there are some things people should know before they try to tackle adding Blu-Ray to players to their computer. Luckily, I had been planning this so I was not as unprepared as some might be.

First HDCP which stands for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection and it is the new wave of copy protection added to Blu-Ray movie discs. The key to remember is that all devices in your computer that a Blu-Ray movie’s data will transfer through needs to be HDCP compliant or the movie won’t play. This means the Blu-Ray drive need to have HDCP but that should be included in all Blu-Ray players, your video card must be HDCP compliant, and finally your monitor must be HDCP compliant. If you have a computer with none of this, it can be very costly to add a Blu-Ray player and it might be cheaper to get a dedicated player for your TV. One last part you will need is software to play it on like Power DVD Blu-Ray edition which may be included with your Rom drive.

Seriously, this copyright junk really makes life miserable for honest people but it is necessary given all the people who steal movies and music over the Internet. HDCP is no joke, I have an nvidia 8800 GTS which is a high end HDCP compliant. To test HDCP, I connected my 8800 to two monitors, one HDCP compliant, and one not. I decided to move a playing Blu-Ray movie between the HDCP compliant monitor over to the non-compliant and as soon as I moved the window, it stopped playing and threw an error message at me. No exceptions, HDCP needs the Blu-Ray player, special video card, special monitor, and Blu-Ray player software. There is a possibility that there is some other HDCP compliant hardware that may be necessary which I have and have not heard of. This was tested on Windows Vista, I have no clue if XP will support Blu-Ray even with compliant hardware.

Everything I say goes for Windows computers only, all of you Mac people have to wait till Apple decides to add the functionality.

I was out yesterday with my girlfriend at Sephora, a place we go to get her makeup just about every week when something caught my eye. What did I see? "blu_ray High Definition Makeup!" I wonder if Sony knows about this. I would expect Sony would know and allow it since this is an obvious rip off of the Sony Blu-Ray High Definition brand but if not, this company Cargo is really asking for it. I see a Trade Mark logo so I ask the question: Who coined Blu-Ray first? And does Blu-Ray vs. blu_ray make a difference for trademark purposes? I’m not trying to trash the company Cargo but I would like some explanation because I don’t get it.

With Steve Jobs’ Key note only a few hours away, here are my predictions for the 2008 for it. I have no knowledge of anything. These predictions are all guesses (or what I would like to see).

Macbook Pro gets:

• Solid State Drive option,
• Upgraded Core 2 Duo Processors
• BlueRay Burner or reader (I really hope for this)
• Bigger standard Hard Drives

Mac Book gets:

• Bigger standard Hard Drives

iPhone gets:

• Updated iPhone to get High speed AT&T High speed that is. (wont be ready for a while)
• Update current iPhone memory to 16 GB standard
• Some sort Starbucks iPhone relationship will be announced.
• The new version 1.1.3 will be realeased.
• There will be great focus on the iPhone.
• The iPhone will be compatible with 64 bit Windows systems. (I demand this!!! I need this!!!)

Mac Mini:

• The mini gets a redesign.
• The hardware is upgraded.

Others Predictions:

• Something regarding integrated wireless technology will be announced.
• Possibly a new ultra mobile touch screen Macbook!
• At least one new hardware product will be announced.
• A new service for movies is announced.
• iTunes adds a service, probably the one above.