Putting together a build to watch Blu-Ray discs (Initial Thoughts)

[Mike Maloney]

(Accidentally put this in the wrong forum the first time, sorry)

I have an aging PC that is currently hooked up to my living room television. It's an old Sony VAIO that has been quite dependable, and allows me to watch all of my DVDs that I have ripped onto my other PC. However, it's 8 years old, and just can't handle the processing power needed to play any kind of HD file (mkv, avi, whatever). So, I'd like to put together a build that will allow me to play these files, but I would also like to look into getting a Blu-Ray drive for it. The build itself would be pretty basic, it will mostly just be used to play whatever media I have, or for occasional internet browsing.

That being said, I have no idea about the additional costs involved in putting a Blu-Ray drive into a PC (Aside from the cost of the drive itself). Are there certain requirements regarding the type of mobo or video card that I need to have? Is there certain software I need to have to be able to play the discs? Is it worth it at this time to bother with a Blu-Ray drive vs. purchasing a standalone Blu-Ray player? I'm only looking to be able to play Blu-Ray discs, I don't have any interest in ripping them to my hard drive at this time (I just don't have the hard drive space and don't want to invest in the hard drive space at the moment).

Any advice on the subject would be apprecated, I am not well-versed in Blu-Ray PC technology at all.

[Alaron]

You can easily add a Blu-Ray drive to a new build to accomplish that, but you really don't need to go that far. I'd just pick up a standalone Blu-Ray player for a few hundred bucks.