Is blu-ray in a laptop worth it

silvine

I've been reading articles hear and there about Blu-ray and a lot of people seem to think that Blu-ray in laptop is a waste as

a) Most laptops don't have a resolution offering full HD anyway
b) At a 15" or even a 17" screen size, the benefit is negligible
c) If you have a HD TV, instead of paying extra for laptop with Blu-ray and using it as your player, you could just get a PS3 and a cheaper laptop.

What's the consensus here?

thebman

I have a 17" Sony laptop with a Bluray drive. I've played both DVD and Bluray on it and I can tell the difference. Its not a massively, OMG difference but it is noticable and given the option, I'd obviously choose the better format

My laptop also has a HDMI out so I can output Bluray directly onto my HDTV so it worked out as a cheap Bluray player considering I was getting a new laptop anyway.

Creamy Goodness

blu-ray isn't all about watching movies though, there's the capacity of them as well.

imagine games with 50gig's on disk, no need to compress textures or anything

AlmightyCushion

Right now I think it's a waste. When the cost comes down and more films, games etc start to be released on it then it will be worth it. If blank blu-ray disks ever become affordable then I would probably invest in a blu-ray burner. It would be handy to be able to store 50GBs data on a single disc. Saying that, hard drive space is getting rediculously cheap so my position on this may change.

AlmightyCushion

Cremo wrote: »

blu-ray isn't all about watching movies though, there's the capacity of them as well.

imagine games with 50gig's on disk, no need to compress textures or anything

What advantage would uncompressed textures on the blu-ray disc offer to pc gamers? Well apart from maybe decreasing install times.

silvine

How soon before costs come down? I read a while back Blu-ray players have gone up in price since HD-DVD died!

Also it will surely take at least a year or two before we start seeing lots of games on Blu-ray and by that time the laptop will probably struggle with new games anyway.

It's be handy to be able back up movies and music libraries onto one disc though.

Voodu Child

silvine wrote: »

I've been reading articles hear and there about Blu-ray and a lot of people seem to think that Blu-ray in laptop is a waste as

a) Most laptops don't have a resolution offering full HD anyway
b) At a 15" or even a 17" screen size, the benefit is negligible
c) If you have a HD TV, instead of paying extra for laptop with Blu-ray and using it as your player, you could just get a PS3 and a cheaper laptop.

What's the consensus here?

Its not necessary unless you've got a rake of Blu-ray movies. I don't have any, and I don't even know anyone who has any. HD doesnt interest me, it'll be ages before Irish TV is broadcast in HD, and i'll be damned if im re-buying all my DVDs just to get slightly better quality. Matter of fact, ive never sat down to watch a DVD and thought 'damn this is terrible quality'....it's not.

It'll be a long time before BD is an 'accepted' format (ie games, programs, OSs start shipping only on BD). Until then, the only reason to bother would be if you're a movie buff. If you are, fair enough, buy away. Most people I know are pretty disinterested in the whole thing tbh, seems like a scam by movie companies to re-sell us films all over again.

thebman

Well its more than a scam to get you to do that. Its a way to get copy protection into things again since DVD encryption has been broken for years now.

Anyway there is a noticable quality improvement. Colours are much better and less grain on Bluray movies. I only have two. I've not noticed them anywhere for sale either.

Overall since Bluray drives play DVD's, you won't have to buy your DVD's all over again and TBH the difference is noticable enough that you would unless you really care about quality and it was a movie you really loved. 480P is good enough on DVD's which you can get with any DVD player with a HDMI output.

Overheal

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

What advantage would uncompressed textures on the blu-ray disc offer to pc gamers? Well apart from maybe decreasing install times.

which reminds me that this is a terrible idea. Remember when CDs came out? Game installs went through the ceiling! Then you had 2-disc games, 4-disc games, then came the DVD. And now a typical game install is 8GB. Im in no hurry to see games with 50-100gb install sizes. *shudder

AlmightyCushion

Game instal sizes wouldn't have stayed the same if we were still using cds for games. They would just put the game on more cds and we'd have games coming out on 10 cd's instead of a single dvd. Games install sizes will keep getting bigger because of higher res textures, higher quality fmv etc. The medium they are shipped on will not change this.

TerrorFirmer

Gah don't talk to me about multiple CDs, everytime I have to install Dawn of War, the add-ons and the patches, it involves around 20 disc changes....and everytime I have to do it I always think whyyyyyy....whyyy in this day and age did they choose to stick with several CDs over a DVD?

JavaBear

I think it depends on how long you are going to keep this laptop. If you're going to get a new one in about 3 years, then I think there is no point.

Of course, if money isn't an issue you might as well.

Overheal

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Gah don't talk to me about multiple CDs, everytime I have to install Dawn of War, the add-ons and the patches, it involves around 20 disc changes....and everytime I have to do it I always think whyyyyyy....whyyy in this day and age did they choose to stick with several CDs over a DVD?

I got fed up, and did an ISO-rip of my discs. Swapping discs with a click. Ah... I just fcked the images onto a dual layer DVD.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah, but then you still have to mount and unmount images, so it's still as annoying...:p

BostonB

silvine wrote: »

I've been reading articles hear and there about Blu-ray and a lot of people seem to think that Blu-ray in laptop is a waste as

a) Most laptops don't have a resolution offering full HD anyway
b) At a 15" or even a 17" screen size, the benefit is negligible
c) If you have a HD TV, instead of paying extra for laptop with Blu-ray and using it as your player, you could just get a PS3 and a cheaper laptop.

What's the consensus here?

Its not a waste if you'll use it.

Its it worth the money considering you'll probably not use it that much?

No.