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Hi,

 Just noticed that Pioneer are now offering a DVD Rewriter with Blu-Ray reading capabilities. If you have an existing media centre PC with 5.1 or 7.1 analogue outputs running to your 5.1 channel inputs on your receiver, for around £200.00, which includes a copy of PowerDVD 7 Ultra, you can enjoy HD movies and HD sound, theoretically :-)

 More details here:

 http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_112_ENU.html @ $99.00 US - supports Dolby Digital Plus and True HD as well as traditional Dolby and DTS variants.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=625331 @ £136.00 inc VAT

 Cheers,

 GR.

Hi,

 Well I have taken the plunge and ordered the above bits to add to my PC in the lounge:

AMD x2 Dual Core Processor

2 GB RAM

ATI X1950 Pro 512 MB HDCP Enabled

320 GB HDD

Creative Audigy 2 ZS with analogue outputs.

Hopefully these will be sufficient to run the HD Movies and HD sound.

Hi,

I am hoping/presuming that the decoding is done via the audio codecs that come with the PowerDVD software rather than those native to the card itself. These would then go to the 5.1 Analogue Outputs of the soundcard, much in the same way that some mid-tier HD players have both HDMI 1.3 and 5.1 channel analogue out, with HD audio being fed to the latter.

These are then linked into the 5.1 ch analogue inputs on a suitable receiver thus providing the 5.1 amplified audio.

Worse case scenario is that I can now watch Blu-Ray movies withou the HD audio and without spending at least £300.00 on an old standalone player of £400.00 on a PS3. 

Regards,

Rob Knight.