“Can I play a Blu-ray Disc on my PC with my DVD writer drive?”
Blu-ray discs require a Blu-ray compatible drive in order to play Blu-ray movies on your PC or in your home entertainment system. A standard DVD-RW or DVD+RW drive will not play Blu-ray movies on your PC. Unless the DVD drive in your computer specifically says it is Blu-ray compatible, which technically makes it a Blu-ray drive, not a DVD drive, you won’t be able to play Blu-ray disk on your computer without purchasing an additional Blu-ray drive to upgrade your computer.
Fortunately the prices for Blu-ray drives have come down substantially and are now under US $100 for a drive you can connect to an existing Windows PC. Depending on the type of computer you have, you can either purchase an external Blu-ray drive that connects via USB or you can get an internal drive for a desktop computer case. Keep in mind in addition to the actual Blu-ray drive, you also need software capable of decoding the Blu-ray video on the disc. The software I use to play Blu-ray on my own computer is Cyberlink PowerDVD, which is a reliable software solution for all versions of Windows, including XP and Windows 7.
