Playing BluRay from external source? Dell Studio 1555

I was wondering if there was a way to watch Blu-ray videos from an external source, such as Blu-ray players. I know there are external Blu-ray drives that you can hook up via USB, but I have a portable Blu-ray player that only outputs HDMI and component.

There are a few devices out there that can do it via 34mm expresscard. The devices I saw took HDMI inputs through the expresscard but the device and software were in the $400 ranges...(was made for video editting professionals)

Any ideas? Basically I want to be able to play the Blu-ray movies on my laptop screen, rather than the portable blu-ray's screen (its a nice 10 inch screen, but nothing compared to my laptop's screen).

I have the Samsung BD-C8000.

 

The cleanest solution would be to replace your 1555's optical drive with one that can read Blu-ray discs and install a player application like PowerDVD.

Since the 155x systems use a slot-load optical drive, choices are somewhat limited. If you only want to read Blu-ray discs and not record them, there are a number of drives that only read Blu-ray but can burn DVD and CD media. An add-on (USB, etc.) drive would also work. If you want to burn Blu-ray discs as well, I believe the only current choice is the UJ-235A drive, which is still somewhat expensive.

All of the video connectors on the 155x are output-only. As you discovered, getting video into the system will require a video capture card and software.