Help with Acer Aspire

[Toeragh]

Hi All,
I'm new to here, so be gentle!!!

I have an Acer Aspire 5738 laptop, it indicates on the palm rest that it can play blu ray's but the drive does not have the blu ray symbol. What do I need to do to get it to play B/R discs.

Thanks in advance

Peter.

[katala]

Alas, I don't think there is much you can do.

You'll need a BD ROM drive.

5738 ships with a DVD player.

While the version of Media Player seems to be able to play BD format and the laptop supports HDMI and true 5.1 sound, but worse case external BD drives often come with player software, your laptop has no easy access eSATA or SATA interface to connect this drive to. The only option is replace the internal drive with an Acer BD one, which is non-existent for this model right now.

[hiro1030]

Hi Peter,

You could buy an external slim type Blu-ray drive like I did for my laptop (Dell 1545). It is a USB powered Matshita (Panasonic) UJ-120 and it burns DVDs too. I paid about $70 at ebay. My laptop spec are very similar with yours (Dual Core CPU, 3GB RAM and Intel GMA 4500MHD). Most importantly, it plays Blu-ray movies flawlessly.

Like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-Blu-ra...d=p3286.c0.m14



- Hiro

[katala]

Hey, that's interesting, and go for it.

BD x 1 has a transfer rate of about 4.5 MB/s while USB 2 transfers at ~60MB/s. So the USB can certain take it, but I've never ever seen the bus go faster than 6MB/s. Still, that could play well with some preload buffering.

Those external players run for about $80.

[hiro1030]

Here is the pic BTW. Sorry about the quick & dirty shot.



When I bought this budget laptop ($399 at BB), I didn't even think about watching Blu-ray on this laptop. And then, I found out Intel GMA4500MHD is capable of playing Blu-ray. So, I decided to give the Matshita UJ-120 a shot.

Here is a screen shot of ArcSoft BD Assistant. It's not 100% correct about my hardware specs (e.g. I have 3GB RAM installed) though.



When I built my desktop last year (specs in my sig.), I carefully picked up all the components for smooth Blu-ray palyback. But, I guess today even budget laptops are capable of playing Blu-rays without a problem lol.

My laptop specs:

Intel Dual Core T3400 @ 2.16GHz, 2.17GHz

3GB RAM

160GB WD HDD

Sammy DVD burner

Vista 32-bit Home Premium

15.6” 16:9 1366 x 768

$399 @ Best Buy

[katala]

Hiro, you the man!

Have you tried outputting the video to a 1080p TV? That's the real acid test.

You can decode BD easily onto a laptop screen, but to span it across full 1080p takes more doing. Your cpu seems able, but now its a test of the video card.

[hiro1030]

Originally Posted by katala

Hiro, you the man!

Have you tried outputting the video to a 1080p TV? That's the real acid test.

You can decode BD easily onto a laptop screen, but to span it across full 1080p takes more doing. Your cpu seems able, but now its a test of the video card.

Hi katala,

I just tried it with a 40" SONY BRAVIA 1080p via VGA, but it won't fill the entire screen (The TV says PC 1280 x 768 at the top left corner). I guess I need to go through the setup procedure like this.

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-022544.htm

Well, since a standalone BD player is hooked up with this TV and kids are watching a movie at the moment, I might try again some other time.

[Blu-Boy in BKK]

I too have an Acer Laptop (4736) It has similar specs to the 5738 except the screen is 14". Last week I took delivery of a Sony Optiarc BC5500A White External BD Drive. Now I play mine flawlessly. Even got the chance to watch Fight Club for the 1st time on Blu-ray since I bought the Steelbook Last December.