$250 combo drive: the cheapest way to get into both Blu-Ray and HD DVD
 

This is a combo Blu-Ray and HD DVD drive for PCs. It's made by LG, who were also responsible for the first set-top combo players.

Warning: mighty PC is not included. You will be needing Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD equivalent and it helps a lot to have a video card which can offload HD video decoding like Nvidia Geforce 8 series or ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000 series.

Also, the rules about HDCP still apply if you want to output using DVI or HDMI. If you have video card or display device which is not HDCP compliant, you have to either use analog VGA output or you have to use Slysoft AnyDVD HD software to get 1080p output.

Here's the gigantic AVS Forum thread about this drive:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=927751

Here's where to buy it online:
http://www.ncixus.com/products/26553...20Electronics/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...3&Tpk=GGC-H20L

If you are in SF Bay Area THIS WEEKEND ONLY the drive is $250 at Fry's! Get 'em while they're still in stock!

This is what I did a few weeks ago and built a HTPC.

Here is what I am running to make sure there is no slow down.:

Gigabyte - GA-965P-DS3
Intel Dual Core 6600
Nvidia 7950 GTKO 512MB Ram
2 GB of Corsair Ram
Western Digital 10K Raptor 74GB Hard Drive
LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY HD-DVD Reader
Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
MCE Remote Control and Receiver remote (best $30.00 you can spend on a MC Media Center remote)
Silverstone HTPC Case
Software used:
Vista Premium
Power DVD Ultra 7.3.3304

At this point, if you play your cards right and watch online deals, you can grab a stand alone HD DVD player and a Blu-ray player for $450 or so total. Plus 10 free movies + instant ones depending on the store.

I don't think the internal combo players are doing so great with the recent Fox releases (Die Hard, Fantastic Four) or Sony (Pirates3). But I'm sure someone else can tell you.

My friend and I just watched Live Free or Die Hard using this combo drive today. It worked perfectly.

Thanks to Best Buy Business, I just got into both formats for a grand total of $126 and change :D .

At least until BBB cancels the $18 Blu-Ray player deal....

Yea that isn't a bad deal if you already have a very nice PC.

I have had no problems with anything I throw at the player. The key here is the software player.

You don't need a mighty PC, but the software and drivers are not mature, and choice of OS and parts is critical. I spent days of tinkering to get mine to work with DVD as well as the HD formats; in the end, the winning combination was a rather low-end PC consisting of $45 Foxconn 939 mainboard, $75 4200+ CPU, and $85 MSI 8500GT video card, with Windows XP MCE 2005 OS. (Under Vista x64, HD playback was impeccable, but DVD playback was choppy.) A Powercolor HD2400PRO offered NO hardware acceleration, with the result that HD playback was akin to a slide show.

This combination can work well, but ONLY with the right combination of hardware and software.

The Seattle-area Fry's was charging $299 as of last Friday. I paid $280 shipped for a unit from NCIXUS (I had it three days after placing my order).

Seattle is, last I checked, not in the San Francisco Bay Area. ;)

Apparently the HD2400 series cards do not have the H.264/VC-1 offload, only the HD2600 series and above do (but NOT the HD2900 series).

ATI claims they do. It may be BIOS-dependent, because some on AVS are reporting success with hardware acceleration on the 2400-series.