Thinkpads Forum

I know the 12mm Blu-Ray Ultrabay Enhanced drive is out there, or will be, but do you think there will be a 9mm slim?

Now, I heard someone say there is one for Sony, so there's probably gonna be bare OEM units popping up eventually too. I'm wondering if there's no retail Ultrabay Slim one, whether a disassembly of the Slim DVD-RW "caddy" will allow a swap in of a bare drive. (Assuming here, but they usually are caddied in some way)

What about HD-DVD? Has Lenovo offered them in any fashion? Has anyone else offered a 9mm HD-DVD burner too?

Just curious...

you do realize that none of the laptops out there really support HD-DVD or BD playback right? The CPU usage of either of these high definition discs without a directx 10 graphics card is like 90% for a core 2 E6600. Thus for like 90% of all notebooks that don't have a directx 10 GPU or a T7600 CPU, hd playback just simply isn't feasible.
But then again, what's the fun in throwing away $1000 if the product you're purchasing actually has some utility?

.....not to mention that there might be digital rights management problems with playing Blu-Ray on a high definition computer screen.

Actually, there is a provision in the standard for enclosed systems (ie, laptops). This allows the playback of AACS encrypted / HDCP protected media on a laptop equipped with a BD / HD-DVD drive.

I'm not sure if there is a technical requirement for DX-10 for playback of high-def content; there is nothing that should prevent a decent video card from doing as much as possible to support the playback.

A dual-core CPU / decent video card should handle it just fine, though no idea what impact on battery life may exist.

There are plenty of laptops that are shipping with HD-DVD and BD drives (Dell XPS M1710 and Toshiba Qosmio, for example).


Patrick

Thanks. 9mm is key here for me, since I'm wondering if a T61 can be upgraded down the line. However, 12mm is also of interest for me for another laptop.

Oh, and to the other guys: I wasn't even thinking about video playback. I want it purely for archival purposes.

Video playback would be nice though, since you mention it....but a T61 with a T7300 and X3100? Doubtful.

Noticed here that swapping in an OEM is probably impossible:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_bu ... aBay_drive

ATTENTION!
UltraBay Enhanced (and possibly UltraBay Slim) formfactor uses a proprietary connector which is soldered to the board. No standard drive can be modified to be used in UltraBay Enhanced (Slim?) equiped Thinkpads.

Ultrabay Slim BD/HD drives will eventually come into existence. Especially since the advent of an even smaller blue light laser.