Blue Ray drive questions.

Hello there, i'm about to buy a 1530 and i have some questions about the blue ray drive i may buy with.

1-Can i play (and burn) Blue Ray disk right away in windows (vista nor xp?) ?

2-Did microsoft cripple blue ray because they are behind HD-DVD ?

3- It's more an opinion request ; i think that 300$ for the blue ray drive is a good deal since it's a burner too, what do you think about that ?

Thanks in advance.

 

1.) If the drive is a burner you should have no issues but you will need software to do this, I would assume they include some sort of software with the drive but this may not always be the case, or that software may be limited in what it can do (aka not rip a movie)

2.) No

3.) Suppose it depends on your need for it and your budget, for me who makes barly enough to get by its a horrible deal. The drive is expensive, then the media is expensive too. There is no practical use for it unless your pirating movies or do a ton of home made videos or something that requires a ton of space and you dont mind having it on disks.

Personally I just use external HDD's 1TB for 200$ on black friday and I can use it over and over again. Also if I had to choose I prefer HD-DVD it stores less but its more durable and its cheaper.