What’s with External Blu-Ray Drives?

Grammatically speaking, I am not too certain about that headline, but subjectwise I’d like to thank “Reel Advice” from the “Reel Advice Movie review” blog for commenting on my Sept. 4 post about the Portable DVD and CD Drive for $40. They said:

Pretty nice deal for a portable drive but I will wait for portable Bluray drives before buying one of my own!

For me, Blu-ray wasn’t a consideration because I don’t have any Blu-ray discs — data or video — except for one or two accidental purchases, Superman II and Iron Man, which I have long since sold on eBay. Additionally, I bought the Lite-On ETDU10896 External Slim DVD ROM from TigerDirect.com purely for installing software and transferring files to computers other than my own. The other consideration was price. I didn’t want to spend more than $60 including tax.

But Reel Advice’s comment made me go back and search for portable blu-ray drives all the same. The results were interesting… for a while.

External Blu-Ray Drives

It turns out there are only two External / Portable Blu-Ray drives out there under $100 from “major” manufacturers: The LG BE06LU10 Super Multi Blue and the Panasonic UJ-120, but, for the most part, they are not available for “retail” sale; they’re pretty much ”OEM”. OEM is ”Original Equipment Manufacturer” which means they are for purchase by computer manufacturers. So if you are not an equipment manufacturer, and you buy one of these drives, and something goes wrong with it, you won’t be able to get any support from the manufacturer. (I had that happen once with an OEM motherboard I bought. There was a retail version available, but the OEM version was cheaper. Sadly, when I had trouble with the motherboard, I couldn’t get any assistance. I lived with it. Buyer beware, etc. I should have known better.)

So you can’t go to Best Buy and get any of these drives now, but they are available through other sites online.

One such site, TriangleLaptops.com, had a nice list of requirements for the Panasonic UJ-120 to work properly on your PC. Here’s the run down from their site:

• Required software is not included.
• This will function fine with your existing DVD and CD viewing and recording software.
• To watch Blu-Ray movies, you will need HD capable software such as PowerDVD 8 Ultra, PowerDVD Suite 6 or ArcSoftTotalMedia Theater.
• To use the drive as Blu-Ray player, your system needs to meet the following requirements:
• Operating system: Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or better or Windows Vista
• CPU: Core Duo or Core 2 Duo systems are generally compatible with Blu-ray disc drives. If your PC has a single processor (e.g. Intel Pentium 4), it should be at least 3.2 Ghz or have an AMD Athlon 64 FX games model, or an Intel Pentium EE Edition.
• Memory: At least 1 GB RAM
• Graphics card: This is the important part! You will need an nVidia GeForce 7600 GT or higher or an AMD/ATI X1600 or higher. You will need at least 256MB graphics memory and your card should support HDCP. Contact the manufacturer directly or visit their site for video adapter specifications if you aren’t sure whether your graphics card is HDCP enabled. You may also want to confirm that you have a graphics adapter driver version which supports Blu-ray discs (AMD/ATI Catalyst 6.7 and higher or nVidia ForceWare 93.71), and download the latest driver if necessary.
• We know this list of requirements is intimidating. You’ll often be covered if your computer is a fairly recent model. We attached the USB 2.0 Blu-Ray drive to our Dell XPS M2010, installed the PowerDVD 8 Ultra and had no problem at all viewing a Blu-Ray movie.

Good points.

Vista System Properties

If you’re interested in seeing if your Windows (XP or Vista) computer meets these requirements, do the following:

1. On the desktop, right-click on “My Computer”. A list a ppears. (Alternately, you can go to the “Control Panel” on your Start menu, then double-click “System”.)
2. Click “Properties”. A system properties dialog box appears.
3. On the screen you will find information for your computer’s “Operating System”, the “Processor” (CPU), and “Memory (RAM)”.
4. Click the “Hardware” tab (XP) and/or “Device Manager”.
5. Double-click “Display adapters” to see what graphics card you have. (You may have to do some research here to see if your card meets the requirements on the list above.)

And if you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact me here at Skylarking.

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Exclusive Deals for Skylarking Readers

TigerDirect has sent me a list of exclusive deals for the readers of Skylarking. These are TigerDirect Exclusive Deals, Limited Time Offers, Act Now And Save! Click the link at left to see a complete list of special deals. And remember, this are only available at these prices for a limited time. The link will let them know that Skylarking sent you.

Some noteworthy items are:

Maxtor Black Armor 160GB External Hard Drive: $59.99 (After $10 savings).  I like external drives for storing my music files, particularly my iTunes library. By storing my iTunes library on an external drive I won’t have any problems when I get a new computer. I’ll just disconnect the drive and connect it to my new computer. Voila!

D-Link DSS-16+ Recertified 16-Port Network Switch: $39.99 (After $20 savings). This is great for a small office network (or a big home network).

HP Photosmart C4580 All-In-One Color Inkjet Printer with Wi-Fi: Refurbished $79.99. Imagine wireless color photo printing and standard printing of 23 to 30 pages per minute on your home wireless network. It also has built-in copier and scanner functions (but no fax). This is a refurbished unit. This printer costs over $120 new from your major retailers.

Acer X203H bd 20″ Widescreen LCD Monitor: $129.99 (After $40 savings). This monitor has a 10,000:1 contrast ratio and 1600×900 pixel resolution.  You can use either a VGA or DVI connector.

There are many, many more items to choose from. So check out the rest of these TigerDirect Exclusive Deals, Limited Time Offers, Act Now And Save! And remember Tigerdirect offers $1.99 for shipping for orders over $100 but less than 20 lbs.

Note:
There’s been a lot of chat on the Internet and in the press concerning bloggers getting paid to review products and web sites. (Most notably in the Wall Street Journal last month). I get approached a few times a week to write about particular products and web sites, but I always offer my honest opinion in my posts. I have turned down many, many more offers than I’ve accepted.

The same applies to the products in this post. I have only highlighted products that I think are worthwhile and provide a significant savings compared to their regular price.

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Connect a MacBook Air to an Optoma PK 101 pico projector

Optoma PK101

Back in mid-December of 2008, I reviewed two new micro, or pico, projectors: The Dell M109S and the Optoma PK 101. The Dell model was designed to connect to a wide range of devices with its multi-cable adapter, but the Optoma PK 101 (the sexier of the two devices) was designed, primarily, to connect to devices with composite video connections, though it came bundled with an adapter for iPods and iPhones.

My Optoma PK 101 review mentioned that “The Optoma PK101 isn’t configured for connecting to a laptop or computer. unless the computer itself as a special video output.”

A few days ago, Mark Canavan, a Skylarking reader, wrote in asking, “How can I connect the Optoma PK101 to a MacBook Air laptop?”

Here’s your answer, Mark. I’ve also added this information to the end of my original review of the Optoma PK 101 projector.

The Optoma PK 101 is designed to connect to devices that have composite video connections. The MacBook Air has a mini display port that can be used as follows. If you’re averse to tech-talk, just ignore the stuff in the parentheses:

• DVI output using an Apple Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (Proprietary to DVI-D Female)
• VGA output using an Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter (Proprietary to 15-pin HD-15 Female)
• Dual-link DVI output using an Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (1 x Proprietary, 1 x Type A Male USB to 1 x DVI-D Female, 1 x Type A Female USB)

This is according to the MacBook Air’s Technical Specifications web page.

According to a MacBook Air Developer Note from Jan. 18, 2008:

The MacBook Air ships with a micro-DVI to DVI adapter and a micro-DVI to VGA adapter. A micro-DVI to video adapter, which provides composite and S-video support, is sold separately.

The Apple Micro-DVI to Video Adapter (shown above right) is available from the Apple Store in the US and Canada for $19. Apple says, “The Micro-DVI to Video Adapter was designed specifically to fit the slim profile of MacBook Air. The adapter connects to the Micro-DVI port on your MacBook Air and provides both S-video and Composite video connectors so that you can view content from your computer on such devices as TVs, VCRs, or overhead projectors with S-Video or RCA (Composite) connectors.”

Thanks for your question, Mark!

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