Bangkok Post: Gadget News & Review. Televisions.

Willich, Germany - The dimension take up arms is over, and Blu-ray has emerged as the victor in the fight to inherit the standard DVD. Now manufacturers are hoping that Blu-ray DVDs will also conquer the hearts of PC users. Surprisingly affordable drives are now ready for home computers: Pure playback devices identical to Pioneer’s BDC-202, the DH-401S from Lite-on or LG Electronics’ GGC-H20L are on sale and shy at 130 dollars. Combo drives are more practical.

While only able to read HD disks, they can also against back and record DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray burners remain more expensive. Prices start at around 250 dollars, with newer drives as though the LG BE06LU10 costing around 400 dollars.

Buyers visage a fundamental choice between external and internal drives. Blu-ray drives may someday amusement an important role in data archiving, says Alexander Droller from hardware maker Pioneer. With a position of up to 50 Gigabytes (GB), the blank blue disks offer significantly more storage margin than DVDs.

“Blu-ray generally isn’t worth recommending as a backup solution yet - the blanks are still exorbitantly expensive,” says Peter Knaak from the German consumer testing organisation Stiftung Warentest in Berlin. Single-burn BD-R media holding 25 GB of matter outlay almost 10 dollars per unit, while re-writable 50 GB drives (BD-RE) back at least 30 dollars each. An alien hard drive is a better superior for backing up PC data, Knaak says.

The drives can present other problems when installed into older machines, notes Hartmut Gieselmann from the Hanover-based c’t magazine. Not all graphics cards and monitors come forward appropriate inputs, nor are they designed for the copy protection inherent to HD films. This applies for PC-controlled televisions and projectors as well. Users must also conflict through a thicket of cover formats and sound output styles.

The average user may not find much value in making a computer HD- sharp anyways. As Knaak reports, when watching films, “the contradistinction from a DVD often can’t be seen.” Anyone wanting to watch a film on their computer wall must have at least a 24-inch display for the new technology to be visible.

Televisions require an image diagonal of at least a metre and a gorged HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. “You also can’t gather further than two metres away from the screen,” Knaak says. Gieselmann recommends waiting until pre-packed Blu-ray PCs head start hitting the market.

“Or put a Playstation in the living cell - they function as a Blu-ray player for your television and don’t require much tinkering,” he added.

Opinion post: here