HD-DVD upgrade later?

Got me a dv9000t with everything on it except HD-DVD. (didnt want to be stuck with a Beta-max)

Is it possible to upgrade to an HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive later?

 

I suppose you can use the HP Partsurfer to buy the HD-DVD drive later.

 

While I'm a Blu-ray fan, I'll help you anyway.

If you want an internal drive, you're going to be at the mercy of HP, and what components they eventually release for the dv9000 series. As you said, they have an HD DVD ROM drive available, and it's pretty likely they'll offer a Blu-ray burner soon enough.

However, buying those kind of parts from HP is ridiculously expensive, and then you have to go through the work of installing the drive.

Personally, I'd figure out which way you want to go and then get an external drive. The $199 XBOX 360 HD DVD drive works on the PC, but you'll need to get the latest premium version of WinDVD or PowerDVD to playback the files.

On the Blu-ray side, all the PC drives out now are burners that are MUCH more expensive, but this summer Lite-on is supposed to release a BD ROM reader, and Pioneer is supposed to release a combo BD ROM reader and DVD/CD burner. I'm not sure if either of those are going to be available in external versions, however. Any of those drives should come with a player application as well.

Hope that helps.

 

If you want a faceplate that matches your notebook you're at the mercy of HP, otherwise swapping in a new optical drive is trivial. The service guide documents how to do the swap.

 

Anything's possible in this case, assuming that a HD drive (either format) is made for your drive bay/manufacturer. Now, I have no clue on how likely that may be.

 

Well HP currently offers an HD-DVD ROM drive for dv9000. I'm pretty sure that the optical bays are identical for both the dv6XXX and the dv9XXX series so you can probably buy that now and use it on the dv6000. Assuming that it's compatible and stuff (in terms of software and drivers).

 

It would be costly and highly impractical for HP to have different sizes of drive bays for current ranges of laptops (unless was ultra portable). Factoring in disc sizes, optical drives would have to be of a standard size. The only issue will arise if/when the laptop drives interfaces change, such as from IDE to SATA

 

Well, the situation is somewhat more complicated than just the drive.

Blu-ray or HD DVD software players require that any video card and monitor that use a digital interface to both support HDCP. If they don't, they SHOULD downres the video to SD quality, but in most people's experience, they just simply don't play. There are hacks that some people have had success with, but others haven't, and potential forced updates could invalidate those hacks. Playing the video over a VGA interface (which is analog) to an external monitor SHOULD work also, but doesn't seem to work in the current software players.

Fortunately for the OP, the dv9000 series IS HDCP compliant (hence why they offer an HD DVD drive option) but none of the other models currently are.

For others considering the upgrade, though, getting such a system set up is anything but easy, and you probably don't want to bother "dropping in" an HD DVD or Blu-ray drive into your notebook (unless it's a dv9000 series).

 

also should note that the current HD-DVD player offered by HP only burns DVD+/-R at 4x (i know, I have one). quite inconvenient considering I dont really care for HD-DVD but this was the package that was available when I needed this laptop.