Thinking of getting one of these, its only $188 down the road and a LG model. Was wondering if it has any jerky playback running on a PC to an LCD in 1080i mode. How does it compare to PS3 playback? Also what models are region free blu ray and will it require a firmware hack?

Time to trade in a PS3??

I have the LGE GGC-H20N/L Black Blue Ray HD Combo drive in my PC. It comes with the OEM version of PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe 7.3.

At the moment I'm running a 8800GTS which doesn't support HD offloading but as the rest of my system is a C2D 3GHz with 4 GB ram, playback performance isn't an issue for BD, or HD-DVD.

I use AnyDVDHD to handle all region free issues for SD-DVD, and Blu-Ray (HD-DVD has none). This allows me to play all regions including Region A & B Blu-Rays.

I don't have a PS3 so I can't tell how it compares.

Major issue at the moment is the lack of HD audio support for PCs.

ps that was more than 1 question.

Thanks for the reply!

Got the LGE GGC-H20N/L in the end, Region A worked fine so did a HD-DVD. 360 drive didn't withdrivers installed. Maybe my PC is not fast enough or the add on is dying?

running a duo core 2, 2.2 ghz, 8400 geforce, 2gb ram.


cheers

The LG is simply an optical drive, like the Xbox360 addon, so theoretically they should perform similarly for HD-DVD.

The LG is a Bluray/HD-DVD drive whilst the xbox360 addon is HD-DVD only. If you tried playing a Bluray disc in the addon, I'm not surprised it didn't work. If you are talking about failure of the addon to play HD-DVD, I'm not sure why that would happen, although there are a few discs that won't play in the LG (Stalingrad HD-DVD for example, although it will play in the addon) and maybe something similar happens with the addon.

Region coding (applicable to Bluray only) is handled by the playback software, not the optical drive: thank the gods. Consequently you don't need a hack for the drive, but AnyDVD HD is very useful for making a Bluray disc in the drive appear region free to the playback software.

Maybe it's a software compatibility issue: you didn't mention what software you are using for HD playback.

PowerDVD (not OEM) doesn't seem to have an issue with either the LG or addon.

Isn't a lot of it down to the video card and how quickly it can process the information,
all of those systems should handle any of the other processing needs easily.

Can anyone tell me if the LGE GGC-H20N/L drive is Profile 1 or whatever ? If so, is there a firmware update for it ?

I ask this because I use one in my HTPC and having rented the BR movie 'Jumper' tonight ( FOX) I was a little disconcerted by the image breakup and the locking up of my HTPC because of disc incompatibility with this drive.

All the other HD DVD's and Blu-ray's I have played have been flawless in their presentation except of course for this one from FOX.

BD+ ....I suspect is the problem.

C.M.

Typo's edited

Sorry to bump this topic guys, but I was thinking about getting a blu ray combo drive for my PC.

Specs:

Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz
2 GB RAM
2x 8800GTX in SLI

I'm pretty sure that my computer would be able to display the image, but I wasn't sure as according to kiwimeat his 8800GTS doesn't support HD offloading, and I'm not sure whether or not the 8800GTX does.

The spec's of your computer mean that you can enjoy HD playback - it's just that your CPU utilisation will be considerably higher than if you had a card that supported offloading. Blame Nvidia who gave the 8500 & 8600 offloading but not the more expensive 8800 - at least initially.

Profiles related to the entire combination rather than the drive only. Thus a HTPC with a BD drive can be any Profile depending on the rest of it's hardware and software.

My immediate suspicion is that you are looking at a software issue. What are you using for BD playback?

When Die Hard 4.0 came out - we had to wait a couple of weeks for Cyberlink to issue a version that supported the BD+ code found in the software on the disc. This could be similar.

Do you use AnyDVDHD? I have on occasion had to disable some of the features to get BD playback working.