m1530 Aftermarket Blu-Ray

So I just ordered a new XPS after canceling the one that you see in my sig currently. I'm probably going to add a slot-load blu-ray in down the line when prices come down. Has anyone done this? I'm assuming Dell MediaDirect 3.3 doesn't have support for blu-ray because when I had ordered the one in my sig it was going to ship with 3.5. Anyone know if it's as easy as just installing 3.5 to get blu ray playback support in MediaDirect? Anything else I should be looking out for?

 

There are quite a few external Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD±RW readers/writers combos available these day, and you might find it's just as cheap to buy an external (desktop) model, as a slim/slot-load (laptop) drive?

However... I'd actually suggest buying whatever internal model you fancy, and sticking it in an external 5.25" enclosure of your choosing, would be an even better/cheaper option, because there are many more makes/models of internal drives to choose from - both IDE or SATA, than external drives.

Buy an enclosure which accepts both/either IDE +/or SATA drives, and you're set.
I personally prefer AC Ryan 'AluBox' enclosures these days.
They accept IDE or SATA/SATA II drives, and have both USB 2.0 and eSATA connections.

Using that method, would allow you to swap-out the optical drive, as/when better/faster drives become available.
Plus of course... desktop drives are much, much faster (typically at least twice the speed) than internal laptop models!


Just a thought



[edit] On the other hand... if you're needing a laptop Blu-Ray drive, because you'll be wanting to (i.e.) watch Blu-Ray movies on the move... ignore all the above [/edit]

 

I'm not really concerned as to which drive I'm going to buy. I'm familiar with drives, pricing, interfaces, installation etc. My question was really more targeted towards MediaDirect. Essentially I'm just looking for someone who already has a blu ray drive to see if the only difference on their computer is MediaDirect 3.5. I'll probably be buying the bare drive off of eBay when I feel like it so the chances of it coming with any software are pretty slim.

 

Fair enough

Software for playing Blu-Ray DVD's/movies you mean?
You're probably going to need (i.e.) PowerDVD 8 (which I use myself) or WinDVD for some of 'em?

 

Thanks for those suggestions. From what I have been reading PowerDVD is the way to go. I'll probably end up keeping Media Direct just because it's hard to watch a full HD movie without running out of battery (when vista is on at least). So I'm hoping it'll last if I'm booted into MediaDirect. In which case I'll just proceed to get PowerDVD and MediaDirect 3.5.