Laptop Blu-Ray as substitute for standalone player?

I was wondering if hooking up a Blu-ray read-only drive on a Vaio will be just as good as a stand alone Blu-ray player. Seeing how the cheapest player from Future Shop is $299cdn, it seems spending $200 for a blu-ray read only/ATI Mobility Radeon would be a good deal.

 

What will you do for remote control? Unfortunately, Sony doesn't provide one (although they have them in Japan). Dell XPS 1530 has Blu-ray burner, HDMI, and remote control.

 

If you are going to use HDMI and you don't mind hooking the laptop up to your television to watch a movie, then it is fine. You probably won't have a remote for your laptop, which is one thing that you may miss from a dedicated player. However, you can watch Bluray movies on-the-go, so that's always good too.

-J.B.

 

I heard that a Blu-ray laptop wouldn't be as good if you connect it to a big screen TV. I could be wrong though.

 

Signal quality should be the same since it's all digital from disc to TV. You may have issues with the BD profiles though. Since this is a Sony, I would hope that the software supports profile 2.0. Also, profile 2.0 features can demand a tremendous amount of CPU. So a PS3 "supercomputer" may in fact be your best bet for handling newest Blu-ray features. I'm gonna have fun testing all that out when I get my FW.

 

I was thinking that a dedicated Blu-ray player has better performance than general purpose laptop computer. It's like a stand alone TV has better picture quality than a TV Tuner of your computer.

 

I'm pretty sure the Laptop Blu-Ray player is much better than a standalone player. Why? CNET (one of the most famous electronic review sites) always saids the PS3 is the best Blu-Ray player out there. Better than all the standalone players. Why? Because the PS3 gets constant updates from Sony to make it better and up to date. I think the laptop blu-ray player would be somewhat similar, especially since Sony made Blu-ray.

 

This is one of the reasons I will be getting the bluray player (and burner for other reasons) in my FW, hooking it up to a LCD in the living room.

 

It's not the BD drive that will cause sub-par performance, it's the application. What software does Sony include with the BD drives? I'm guessing Corel or Cyberlink...

 

WinDVD 8 BD for VAIO.

 

lol @ using it as a primary blu ray player

 

While the software is certainly the limiting factor, the one plus is like the PS3, it's software upgradeable so if the profile changes, it's a software update.

 

What has been said about the remote is true, although if the Z has a receiver, you may be able to control it using a universal remote. You can also buy a MPC remote control for 15$ and provided you have a home premium or ultimate version of Media centre, you can use it to control your setup.

Regarding your question, the biggest difference is not quality but ease of use.

At the moment, I'm using my destop to play BR (with an LG combo drive and PowerDVD8). The quality is great, even on a big screen (I have a Mistsubishi HC6000 video projector ) but here are the reasons why I'm buying a dedicated player:

PROs:
- Easy of use, ie remote control, short setup time, no fiddling with windows, etc...
- Quality: although it's true the signal is digital, there are some way to improve the way it's handled. While the best BR player until very recently was the PS3, it's not true anymore. I'm thinking of a player like the Panasonic BD50 for example, which is the first profile 2.0 player, with an ethernet port for easy update of the firmware and interactive functions, and offer, if reviews are to be trusted, better picture quality (for the first time).
- Simplicity: the BIGGEST downside of using a computer (laptop or desktop) to play BR is that in order to have the best picture quality, you need to adjust the refresh rate of the external screen manually for each disc (for example, say 1080P@24 for a BR movie, then 50hz for a PAL DVD or 60Hz for an NTSC DVD. If you only plan to play BR, thn it's fine, you can leave it setup on 1080P@24, but otherwise it's really tedious. The advantage of a dedicated standalone player is you just feed in any disc and it adjust automatically for the best quality.

CONS: cost, of course, the panasonic costs 600$ and it's little brother, the BD30, which is only profile 1.1, doesn't have an ethernet port.
- Of course a laptop drive can be a burner, which is handy.
- Biggest thing going for a laptop player is it's very easy to make it multi-region (you just need AnyDVD) while to get a multiregion dedicated standalone measn paying roughly twice its price, and have a very limited choice (at the moment, a few Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer models mostly).
- Processing time (set up and loading of discs). The PS3 (or a powerful latop/desktop) still rule the game, as standalone players can be REALLY SLOW, up to a few minutes just to get to the main menu on complex discs.

 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the biggest problem with using the Sony laptop as a primary BD player: SOUND.

The Sony will only output digital stereo over HDMI... not even the lossy 5.1 core DD and DTS streams, and most definitely not the lossless TrueHD or DTS-HD MA streams.

If you're just running the sound directly to your HDTV the stereo is fine, but if you have a receiver with HDMI or even optical input then this is a serious short-coming of the laptop.

My own needs are simple for BD: I want to use it to take to friends' houses to occasional hook to their HDTV for blu-ray on the road. In that case, all I really want is a remote control!!!

Can anyone provide me with a real solution to be able to navigate blu-ray menus and control blu-ray playback with a remote on the vaio AR laptop? The keyboard in the dark is a royal pain.

 

Can't you use something like this?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/accessories/5a84/

 

My dream for a remote continues...

but that USB LED flex light totally rocks... and will enable me to type with the lights off. It's mine.

BTW, anyone ever wonder why laptops don't have lit keyboards (like a cell phone)? THAT would be cool!

dave

 

Almost all modern notebooks have an Expresscard slot. All Vaios have 34mm slots except for the AR which has a 54mm slot. There are remotes that fit in the Expresscard slot in both 34 and 54mm varieties. Below is a 54mm one.



Several notebooks do have backlit keyboards, most notably the Apple Macbook Pro and Air models. Several PC models have them too, but these are currently rare and Sony does not offer them at all unfortunately.

 

Ummm..that's just a distinction based on storage i.e. where you store the remote when you are not using it. You still need something like an infrared port on the laptop to communicate with the remote, unless there is some sort of infrared/USB dongle which serves the same purpose.

 

Lots more cheaper ones here...and free shipping too.

http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.usb light

 

I've been using PowerDVD 8 Ultra on my FZ348E/B and am able to remix into either DD or DTS from Dolby TrueHD via the SPDIF selection. It Sounds great. Picture quality is awesome, but I only have a 720p display.

 

Quick question about the expresscard remote option:

there are varities that use infra red and varieites that are blue tooth. Are the sony vaio laptops bluetooth enabled? do they have an IR receiver build in? would like to order something that will work!

dave