[weyland-yutani]

Can i buy a new bluray drive to replace my dvd drive and just swap it out or does a bluray drive require additional hardware, like a grfx card or suttin? i know it will require new software, which comes with the product.

thanks.

[andy1249]

That depends , Blu rays are usually SATA , so if its replacing a SATA DVD then fine.

If you want to play back Blu rays , then all the hardware needs to be HDCP compliant.
That means your monitor , and your graphics card.

Blu-ray Player Software: Watch Your Blu-ray Movies on Windows - TopTenREVIEWS

Cyberlink ( this is usually the software that comes with BD drives but yours may be different ) have a program you can download to test your PC for Blu ray compliance ,

CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Support

[EndlessWaves]

Originally Posted by andy1249

If you want to play back Blu rays , then all the hardware needs to be HDCP compliant.
That means your monitor , and your graphics card.

That's only for blu-ray movies, blu-ray data discs don't require it.

If you are interested in the Movie side then your computer will need a powerful enough CPU to play high quality, 1920x1080 (1080p) video. Most CPUs of the last four or five years should be sufficient, and a modern graphics card can take some of the load. This isn't a blu-ray specific requirement so if you can easily play similar quality videos from the web or other sources then you'll be able to play the ones on blu-ray disks.

[weyland-yutani]

Originally Posted by andy1249

Cyberlink ( this is usually the software that comes with BD drives but yours may be different ) have a program you can download to test your PC for Blu ray compliance ,

CyberLink Blu-ray Disc Support

that gives my pc a FAIL, largely because i don't have a blu-ray drive installed