Dell M1530 Blu-Ray Info

I know there are not that many threads that fully discuss the blu-ray capabilities of the XPS M1530, so I just thought I would discuss it a bit.

1) The blu-ray drive is region free with no "region-change" limitations (normally 5 changes only). As far as I know, it can play Regions A (Americas), B (Europe), and C (Asia). Although I didn't test this out with actual BD discs, I noticed that in the blu-ray settings I could switch the regions very easily with the click of a button. Pretty cool.. Free Blu-ray "region change" (limited to five changes) is no more capable (on my laptop), maybe Media Direct (blu-ray software) updates changed that, idk ... Solution: Go to and check the region for particular movie before purchasing. If movie is region free it will work, without ever changing region on computer.

2)It is a BD burner as well, so you burn any data you would like onto the discs. BD-R and BD-RW have a lot more space that DVD-R and DVD-RW (and even the HD DVD rewritables). So you can fit a lot more on one disc and burn it in with the M1530.

3) This is a rather stupid point, but the BD drive can play all general types of disc formats, except of course for HD-DVD.

4) (This is not a capablity but a note to a prospective buyer) I read in the Asian Cnet review ( http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050489,42299395p-2,00.htm) (in the first paragraph) that the optical drive can not be upgraded to a blu-ray drive in the M1530 at a later time. This is the way Dell built the system. and when I look at the drive on my system, it seems like the Cnet Asia reviewers were correct. So, waiting for a reduced price on BD Drive wouldn't be worthwhile anyway, at least for this system, as it can't be upgraded.

5) Also with the HDMI port you can transmit a full HD picture quality to a 1080p television.

Now I am not sure if all my info is 100% correct, so please don't critisize if a mistake is discovered. I will acknowledge the mistake and learn from it. Thanks, hope this helps M1530 blu-rayers.

 

Thanks for the good info! Even though I've already bought the system and decided against it based on price alone, you answered my question about upgrading later. The cynic in me says nothing is impossible to upgrade later, depending on how badly you want it but we'll see, hehe.

Well, I guess my other concern is buying an expensive piece of hardware that hasn't won a format war yet. I haven't been following that at all for quite some time, but Dell's horse has obviously been chosen. ;P

 

I wonder if you could connect an external blue-ray drive when their prices come down.

 

NO this woudent work, like a usb could take blueray quality! I think, wait untill BLU-RAY expert posts!

Posted on the other thread but for future reference! This will be the main thread for blu-ray!
Get it now before regions are put on to it! this is a cool selling point! do you think it will be the same in the UK aswell!

And what would bluray look any better between 1400x900 1800x1050, they are both 720P?

 

You can plug an external Blu-Ray drive in via firewire, which has no problem with bandwidth. I did this with my M1210 and an external BD burner, and could watch movies at 720p. Impractical from a portability standpoint, but possible.

 

i also have the bluray burner in my m1530 and loving it. connect it to the tv with hdmi, and the quality difference between high def and standard dvds is quite amazing.

can also confirm the ability to switch regions, which is a great feature (one of the major criticisms of bluray is region coding - but the dell seems to have bucked that one. note that dvd region switches are still limited - which is a bit bizarre!).

the question i have is whether the bluray drive can be upgraded with firmware? i understand that profile 2.0 players will be released in the future - apparently standalone bluray players can't be upgraded, but the playstation 3 can be upgraded with firmware. i've seen nothing about whether laptop drives can be upgraded...

 

What screen res do you have in your 1530!

 

1280x800 - bluray looks great on the screen, but i output 1080p to the tv, whcih looks even better!

 

USB does allow high enough bandwidth. Blu-ray specification calls for 54Mbps (Megabits) and USB 2.0 usually maxes out around 30MB/s (Megabytes). 1 Byte = 8 Bits. Yes I know the USB 2.0 theoretical maximum is 480Mbps, which is 60MB/s but they only reach half that.

 

I also have a blu-ray player on my m1530 and it's great. When I loaded a regular DVD (The Fifth Element) it stated that it wasn't meant for the region and asked which region I wanted. This is the only DVD I've had this problem with. I've loaded BD DVD and no problems with it. I'll try to see if the Playstation 3 can be connected and play games with it. That would be sweet!

 

Im going to go with a 1400x900 led screen, when it comes

 

wasn't an option when i bought mine - but i would've gone for that resolution too.

the joys of being an early adopter...!

 

when i placed my order over the phone, i was told specifically that it was not a burner, she mentioned it like 3 times through out the conversation too.

 

Wait...does that Blu-ray drive also actually burn BD-Rs?
If that is really true, I will cancel my current order and buy a new M1530 with a Blu-ray drive in it.

 

yes, it is meant to be able to burn to bluray discs (at 2x speed).

i haven't tried it though - no idea where to even buy blank bluray discs!

 

achw, I don't think the firmware can be upgraded on the M1530 drive. Sony put a lot of work into the PS3 blu-ray capabilities so that the firmware would be easily upgradable to profile 2.0 when it would be available. I doubt that Dell would put that much work into their BD drive. However, one thing the XPS BD drive has over the PS3 BD Drive is the region free capabilites for movies. I'm happy enough with that.

I think that soulburner is right. I am not too sure on this subject though. But I think I have heard of external bd drives and the only ways that they can really connect to a pc is either by USB or Firewire. I'm not positive though. On the resolution question, I don't think that blu-ray would look any better with those differing resolutions, especially on just a 15.4 inch screen. And as you said they are all scaled down to 720p anyway. So decide on the resolution you want based on your eyesight and desktop space needs. I think the bd drive should be the same in the U.K.

Yes it should burn, although I haven't tried it yet. I doubt that Dell would be telling lies to all their their customers. At least I hope they aren't.

Yea, those discs would probably be relatively hard to find. But in the future I think they will be more widespread, because they can store sooo much.

Thanks.

 

Blu-Ray disc are available but it's expensive like $10-$15for one disc! And if you mess up burning one.. ouch!