HTPC Optical Drive

July 18, 2008 · Filed Under Suggested Hardware

If you just want a standard DVD playback, a DVD rewritable drive can be had for around $25 and all do a decent job. Generally Asus and Pioneer tend to be the most reliable and quietest.

As Blu-ray is now the official standard for HD content, there is no reason to buy a HD drive. If you already have a large collection of HD DVDs, LG makes combo Blu-Ray readers and writers, that also play HD DVDs, such as the LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray / HD Combo.

If you are after a Blu-Ray DVD player, there are a few different types. Just be aware that as Blu-Ray is still new technology, Blu-Ray players are currently quite expensive, and they are constantly bringing out newer, faster and cheaper models.

The 3 different Types Blu-Ray drives are:

Blu-Ray read only drives – these are about $200 and will only play Blu-Ray DVDs. This means that if you want to play or burn standard DVDs, you will need a 2nd DVD drive. Just make sure that your case can support 2 drivers.
Combo drives – these are about $100 more then read only drives. These play Blu-Ray dvd drives, as well as reading and writing to CD and DVD. This is currently the best option for a HTPC, as it allows you to buy a case that accommodates only a single DVD drive.
Blu-Ray writable drives - These are drives that can write up on to BD-R. DB-R can hold about 50Gb and can be written to at about 4xd speed. That’s a long time for a DVD to be written. These drives are currently about double the price of a combo drive. As prices come down these drives will become more affordable, but at the current price I don’t think many people will be writing Blu-Ray DVDs.

As we are starting the 2nd generation of Blu-Ray drives, try to get a 2nd generation model. These have improvements over the 1st generation, being faster and more reliable, as some of the problems from the 1st generation have been ironed out.

Good company Blu-Ray DVD drives are:

Sony- their new generation of drives are meant to be excellent, but as with all sony products you can sometimes pay a bit of a premium.
Pioneer – Has a reputation for making excellent and reliable drives. Be careful though as some of their models don’t support dual-layer rewritable media.
Panasonic – this is a popular drive for a good price, and is commonly used by PC vendors in their prebuilt systems.
Lite-On – Like the Panasonic is a budget drive. Be careful though as some of their models don’t support dual-layer rewritable media.
LG – makes some good drives at a reasonable price that can read both Blu-Ray and HD DVDs.