How in the Tech

Determine if your Computer can Playback Blu-Ray Content

By Adam Myers ⋅ April 15, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Multimedia

Today’s advanced high-def video codecs can produce fantastic visual results but it comes at a steep price. The processing power required to decompress and output a 1080p HD video is enormous – often times too much for your general purpose Intel or AMD processor. While a standalone Blu-Ray player costs just a couple hundred dollars and does the job admirably; a computer upwards of $1000 could struggle. The reasoning is the hardware integrated in the Blu-Ray console is highly specialized – it does one job and does it well and efficient – process high-def video. Conversely, your Intel processor found in your computer must handle a wide range of tasks. The cliche’d saying jack of all trades master of none applies quite literally here.

How do you know then if your computer has what it takes? Cyberlink attempts to answer that question with their Blu-Ray Disc Advisor application. The free assessment and diagnostic tool will query your CPU, memory, video card, and software player in order to determine whether playback will be acceptable. A symptom of an under-powered computer playing back high-def content is jerky video playback or stuttering audio. Blu-Ray Disc Advisor isn’t the complete authoritative answer on your playback ability but it should go a long way in identifying the components in your system that are holding you back from HD glory.