Thinkpads Forum

Hi I am usually over at the "R" corner but this question may pertain to both R and T..
I was over at an friends house the other day and they've hooked up a Sony PS with blue ray...playing some movie...each movie was like 50GBs on one disc...I couldn't believe it. The picture quality was crystal clear and Iam sitting 20 feet away from the flat screen and I can make out each hair and wrinkles on the actors face...it was unbelievable! It makes regular DVD looked like VHS..
Regular dvds movies are around 5-6GB,after shrink-you get about 4.3 GB tops...
But blueray is just totally on another level...
I am wondering if anyone is playing/burning Blueray/HDDVDs on their thinkpads yet? I don't have enough knowledge on these drives so iam wondering would they be able to play on older thinkpads with flexviews..They look like they would be perfect together(BR and Flex)..Iam currently upgrading my screen and wondering if any blueray drive would work from usb plug in...I know these technologies are quite new.. just wondering if anybody go blueray/HDDVD going...(yet)

nope, not yet. The Dell XPS M1330 has a Blu-Ray option but it adds like $400 to the price tag The drives are quiet expensive. A 2x Blu-Ray burner is about $300 (that's for desktops). Most "older" Thinkpads probably can't play BD/HD-DVD movies in their full quality for a couple reasons:

1) Most of them only go up to 1600 x 1200 - "Full HD" is 1920 x 1080. Not a reason why it can't play it but just a reason it wont look as good.

2) It takes a lot of power to render that image so you need both a good CPU and GPU to play it. A 2Ghz system with i think a DX9 GPU is all but required.

3) There might be a way to get the Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive from say a Dell/Toshiba laptop and stick it in an R series or something since they only come in 12.5mm size now, not the smaller 9.5mm sizes.


Also welcome to HD I have a 50" Plasma and love watching HD stuff also I watch DiscoveryHD and drool all over myself. That show "Planet Earth" will definitely make your pixels bleeeed!!! That was so beautiful i wanted to cry just watching it.

you can buy a new R with bluray, its a $700 option

Has some company made a combination HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive yet? That would be rad and probably also cost a thousand dollars.

thatcrazycommie wrote:Has some company made a combination HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive yet? That would be rad and probably also cost a thousand dollars.

LG has a standalone player that is both bluray and hddvd