PC or Component

[essinger]

The PC could, theoretically, produce an even better picture than the stand-alone blu-ray player because of higher quality components and more processing power. Whether you could tell the difference, or care even if you could, is an individual impression. I can tell a substanial difference between the quality of a DVD picture on my Media Center PC as opposed to my Sony standalone DVP-CX985V. The PC is much better.

However, the state of the blu-ray playback software is not great at the moment. All the current software (I believe) requires full hardware playback as a copyright protection method, so any benefit from the processor is minimal. Add to this the hassle of dealing with software updates and incompatible titles -- well, I certainly wouldn't recommend the PC route now to anyone who isn't fully commited one box for everything mindset. The standalone player is, IMHO, a better solution right now.