I know everyone thinks the PS3 is the best thing since sliced bread.

However, I might be able to acquire PC parts more economically.

What is the prevailing opinion on the viability of hardware and usability of the software to play Blu-Ray via a PC? Must I have Vista?

Thanks for your wisdom

If you gave up beer for a few months, you could have yourself a PS3 at a discount...

But life wouldn't be worth living.

Is there a way to get the HD audio formats from a htpc?

Do they make a card that outputs HD video and sound through HDMI in a single output?

I imagine the hardware requirements for blue ray playback are preety steep although pc parts are pretty cheap these days.

The way to do it is binge for a whole week, then you'll be good going without for a month or so. It will taste sooo good when you resume after the PS3 is in your possession.

If its HDMI passthrough there will be no penalty. The most recent video cards do onboard hardware decoding so again, there is no processor penalty.

I havn't done any reading on this in a couple of months, so I don't know what the state of affairs is for HDMI 1.3 either for video cards or players.

Tom, I'm a little out of date on hardware and software players for bluray. Last time I checked a month ago the only player I could find was the older hp (I think) HD-DVD/Bluray combo player at around $200. I doubt it will handle HDMI 1.3.

A quick search on someplace like avforums will probably give you an answer.

In order to get that Blu Ray player to work on your PC, be prepared to drop some coin on a pretty decent graphics card, most of which won't pass the audio at all. Processing capabilities are a different issue entirely. On the audio side, I suppose you could get a card to send the PCM stream out to your receiver to decode, but that's pure speculation. I bet that there is an audio card that can either do that, or decode the Blu Ray signal internally and pass it via multi-channel outs.

For my money, I think you're better off with the turn key stand alone player or a PS3. All that hardware (not to mention software compatibility issues and no tech support) to buy makes me concerned - and I looked into this option a couple of months back before deciding to go the stand alone player route.

Also consider that, if you buy a stand alone player today - get one cheap, try eBay - you can always hustle that one to a second TV when the players get cheaper and better.

Just seems like a bigger headache than its worth.

Have a look at this card for your sound needs.

Stop being a tight ass and just buy a damn player Tommy.....