Need a New Computer - Any Advice on Dells? Need HD?

[dumbldor]

Any opinions on the Inspiron series vs. XPS Desktop series?

My wife wants to get a Blue-ray Disc Drive that plays and writes HD video. Do you see this as the future? Is it a necessity in the next 5-6 years?

Any other advice?

[Adam West]

I'm not sold on Blue Ray discs yet.

I haven't looked at any of the DVD players but some claim to convert your standard DVD's to a Hi-Def format without having to switch to DVD.

I have too much money tied up in DVD's to just abandom them at this point and can live without the crystal clear picture.

[toys2cool]

Blu-ray and HD is pretty much the same thing man,you should'nt base your decision on that,which ever the best deal is on one that has either or you should be alright

[cjefferys]

Although I caved in, and bought something to play Blu-ray discs on my TV (a Playstation 3), I'm holding off a bit on adding a Blu-ray burner to my computer (although I really want to get one). It might be best to wait and see how the whole format war pans out (although there doesn't seem to be an end in sight yet!). HD video is definitely the future, but at this point it's still hard to say what format will prevail, Blu-ray, HD DVD or something else entirely. Besides, blank BD media is still very expensive, so I'd definitely want to wait for prices to drop on them before I bought a burner anyway.

[MegoSteve]

It really depends on what your wife is doing with her computer, but it's been my understanding that the XPS series is more for high-end gaming and might be more than she really would ever need. I'm still chugging along on a low-end Dimension that's pushing three years old and it works great.

HD is a tricky question, because the format war still hasn't shaken out yet. I'm not really sold on either format as the clear winner, though I'm not a huge Sony fan and their history of creating successful proprietary media formats is less than stellar. I just bought an HD-DVD player for the 360 because Toys R Us had them on sale cheap; I had planned on waiting on the sidelines for a while, because I don't relish spending all that money on a format that may be unsupported in a few years.

I searched on Dell's web site and I couldn't even find an HD-DVD burner or a Blu Ray burner for sale. I know NewEgg.com sells Blu Ray burners, but they're ~$500 and the media are $11 each.

Why would you need it now? The only possible reason I could think of would be if you have some kind of digital camcorder that supports high definition video and you want to record your kids. I don't even know if such a device exists for the home market yet.

My opinion: don't bother with the HD burner yet. You can always buy one and put it in your computer later. Optical drives are very, very simple to install.

If you want a player, don't bother if you don't have an HDTV. If you do, I don't think it would be a huge waste to buy a player of either format; just hold off on spending tons of money on movies.

[Comic Book Geek]

Unless you're made of extra cash, wait on the burner. As far as a PC is concerned, I build my own so I'm not sure what to choose there. I've bought Dell and Gateway in the past and unless you're doing a lot of graphics and games any of the above would do.

[cjefferys]

The only possible reason I could think of would be if you have some kind of digital camcorder that supports high definition video and you want to record your kids. I don't even know if such a device exists for the home market yet.

There are HD camcorders available for consumers now. I was just drooling over a couple of them at Best Buy the other day. They usually have a built in hard drive and from that you can transfer the video to your computer. From there it is possible to burn the HD video onto a normal DVD-R, but due to the size of the video file, you could probably only put a half hour or so onto each disc (in other words, you don't really need a blank Blu-ray disc, etc. to record your HD video onto, but they do offer more space compared to a normal DVD-R, 25 GB compared to around 4.7 GB, or around 8.5 GB if you use a DL DVD).

[Hulk]

Skip the Blu-ray or HD format on a PC for now, you can always get an external later if and when you decide on a format (which will probably be cheaper in a year than adding now). I'd probably recommend just getting a good DVD burner. You should still be able to play them on an HD-DVD player, and how much HD content will you really watch or enjoy on your PC?

[dumbldor]

Thanks for the input, guys.

We are going to go with a lower level XPS (not one of the really high-end models for gaming) without a HD burner.

[JDeRouen]

Good choice, Dan. PC's are pretty upgradeable these days, so if something comes along that you just can't live w/out, you can always add it later.