[SweetS2K]

USB powered BD drives seem to be on the horizon (available now from fastmac). Sounds pretty interesting for folks who have ION based nettop boxes without optical drives. What are the chances that something like Ubuntu will recognize the drive and allow native or archived movies to be played in XBMC? Not sure if the little ION box would be powerful enough to process the movies... but I think ZOTAC has a box with a built in BD player.

Here are some links from Engadget about the drives:
Plextor USB BD Reader:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/21/plext...e-for-100/

Buffalo USB BD Burner:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/02/buffa...r-in-japa/

Just came across these also:
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.ph...cts_id=406
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.ph...cts_id=449


I'm thinking this would be a nice addition to my Revo Aspire...

Sorry if this has been discussed, I did a search but didn't come up with anything.

[bigdog66]

seems the general opinion is a bd drive on your XBMC box isnt going to provide much and may even create some headaches...many seem to have suggested just having a set top bd player

but i will leave it up to the pro's to say why.....lol

[poofyhairguy]

The reason you get a set top player is that DRM on Blu Rays is constantly changing, and since XBMC and its roots are open source that means years of headaches.

The set top player (with ethernet or wireless of course) will automatically update with the newest DRM and every disk will play.

As a bonus a set top player can stream Netflix, one of the things XBMC can't do. An XBMC box + a Blu Ray player is a good partnership.