Minimum hardware spec for playing Blu-ray disks

Question

What is the minimum hardware spec for running Blu-ray disks, and uncompressed 1080p video?

Answer 1

Sytem Requirements For Blu-ray Disc Playback in WINDOWS 7 & VISTA

For Blu-ray Disc Playback CPU Minimum Requirements

Intel

* Pentium 4 541 (3.2 GHz)
* Pentium D 840 (3.2 GHz)
* Pentium D 930 (3.0 GHz), 935 3.2GHz or 940 (3.2 GHz)
* Core Duo T2400 (1.83 GHz)
* Pentium M 755 (2.0 GHz)
* Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.8 GHz) or T5600 (1.83 GHz)

Recommended

* Pentium EE 840 (3.2 GHz) or 955 (3.4 GHz) or 965 3.73 GHz, Pentium D

945 (3.4 GHz), 950 (3.4 GHz) or 960 (3.6 GHz), Core Duo T2500 (2 GHz), T2600 (2.16 GHz) or T2700 (2.33 GHz), Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.8 GHz), E6400 (2.13 GHz), E6600 (2.4 GHz), E6700 (2.66 GHz) or X6800 (2.93 GHz), T7200 (2.00 GHz), T7400 (2.16 GHz), T7600 (2.33GHz) Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4 GHz), Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66 GHz), or X6800 (2.93 GHz).

AMD

* Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2 GHz) or 4000+ (2 GHz)
* Turion 64 X2 TL-50 (1.6 GHz)
* TL-52 (1.6 GHz) or TL-56 (1.8 GHz)

Recommended

* Athlon 64-FX, FX-60 (2.6 GHz) or FX-62 (2.8 GHz), Athlon 64 X2 4200+

(2.2 GHz), 4400+ (2.2 GHz), 4600+ (2.4 GHz), 4800+(2.4 GHz) or 5000+ (2.6 GHz), Turion 64 X2 TL-60 (2.0 GHz).

System Memory (RAM)

* 1 GB or above is recommended.

Disc Drive

* Super Multi Blue combo disc drive.
* BD-ROM/BD-RE.

Graphics Cards (GPU)

Intel

* 965, G33, G35, G45 graphics software decoder (Intel Core 2 Duo

E6700 (2.66GHz) / AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8GHz) or above is recommended). * Recommended driver version: 15.8 or later. * Video RAM: memory requires 256MB or above.

NVIDIA

* Minimum: GeForce 7600 GT, GeForce 7800 GTX 512, GeForce 7900

GX2, GeForce 7900 GTX, GeForce 7950 GX2. * Recommended: GeForce 8400 series, GeForce 8500 series, GeForce 8600 series, GeForce 8800 series, GeForce 9400 series, GeForce 9600 series, GeForce 9800 series, GeForce GTX280. * Recommended driver version: 174.53 or later. * Video RAM: graphics card memory requires 256MB or above.

ATI

* Minimum: ATI Radeon X1600 series, X1800 series, X1900 series.
* Recommended: ATI Radeon HD 2400, 2600, 2900 series, ATI MOBILITY RADEON

HD 3400, 3600, 3800 Series, ATI HD 4600 Series, ATI HD 4800 Series. * Recommended driver version: 8.44 or later. * Video RAM: graphics card memory requires 256 MB or above.

Note: we strongly recommend that you update your graphics card driver to the latest version. Display Devices

* HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) compliant display

for digital output. * TV or computer monitor for analog output.

Source

Answer 2

Actually, all you need to play 1080p HD Blu-ray x264 movies are an Intel Pentium 4 CPU, or AMD equivalent, and an AMD ATI HD graphics card. Also, you probably only really need 512MB of RAM. MPC is the best software to use when playing HD movies.

I only have single core P4 1.5Ghz CPU and HD movies play perfectly on my 1080p screen because when you use MPC it allows the HD decoding to happen on the AMD ATI HD video card. Therefore, it only utilizes a maximum of 20% of the CPU.

If you think about it, I doubt stand alone Blu-ray players ship with a 2.4Ghz (dual core) or 3.5Ghz (single core) processors just to play a Blu-ray movie.