I have been considering getting the Samsung BD-UP5000 hybrid player to side-step the whole BluRay vs. HD-DVD thing, I already have the XBOX HD-DVD drive but having a integrated experience that would allow my family and I to "just not care" would be great, the problem is its just to expensive for what it is coming in at $799.
This got me thinking what would it take to make a PC that had this capability, so this morning I sat down for a few minutes and figured that out, this is what I came up with:
Which comes in at $1069 I could have shaved another $100 or more off the price of this system if I were to go with a little lower end components, for example the following lowers the price to $830:
In this lower configuration the difference in price for the full HTPC styled Media center PC would have been just $30 (vs $170 in the higher end configuration) In this configuration the system comes in at $270 more than the Samsung BD-UP5000 and with a little more shopping around I bet you could get a configuration that is less than more comparable to the Samsungs pricing.
Now its certainly fair to say the HTPC approach wouldn't be as integrated as the hybrid player, but with Windows Media Center and Power DVD (included with the LG drive above) the delta would not be too significant and it would be upgradable to being a PVR also for a $100 more (AVerTV Combo PCIe Media Center Upgrade Kit).
Its also fair to say one solution is a box of parts and the other is, well a solution but the thing to keep in mind that a OEM like Dell or HP could put a system like this together for less than what I listed above including assembly through the volume power that have.
Why do I bring this all up? I think its shameful how expensive these hybrid players are; I find it very hard to believe that the difference in the Bill Of Materials between the BluRay only Player from Samsung (Samsung BD-P1400) and the hybrid player is anywhere near the $500 difference in price (The BD-P1400 goes for $299).
Now I fully believe in the free market, and Samsung's right to charge what the market will bear but this just doesn't look like a very good value to me.
[Update 12/24/07] Several folks have writen me indicating that a faster base CPU will be needed for BD-HD DVD to work well on this configuration, though no one has expressed what minimums would need to be; in any event follow this configuration with caution as a result.
[Update 1/1/2008] Happy new year, found a review that gives a good overview of this motherboard, see it here and a post at AVS Forum that confirms the HD Audio concern raised by a reader, see here .
[Update 1/1/2008] After a bit of reading on AVSFORUM I have come to the conslusion that a E6750 is the minimum for the in-proc HD Audio decoding, which runs about $110 more than the 1st configured system so I have revised it accordingly and nixed the second system, though most of the other items in it would still be relevant.