Sapphire video card 'has Blu-ray built in'

Blu-ray is starting to appear as a built-in feature on video cards with Sapphire the latest company to add the technology to its products.

The Sapphire HD 3850 Ultimate Edition is completely silent thanks to its passive cooling system.

And the HD in the name stands for high-definition - as a built-in unified video decoder means Blu-ray movies can be played back using the graphics card.

[TANOD]

nothing unusual though but it is good to see that BD is becoming mainstream tech

[DJ]

I'm gonna need it when I start backing up my Lightwave and Realflow renders (5~15GB each).

[WilliamRLBaker]

hey nasim/shmee do you add any thing to a conversation or a news post? no you just post pro sony propaganda.

[ravenguard88]

Don't trust a disc format for backups unless they are changed often. Invest in a few 500gb hard drives. If you plan on keeping the discs in the closet for a few years the quality of the discs can degrade.

Unless you're like me and a cheap ass, then you could just go for the BD-Roms :P Have fun burning those slow things though :P

[Charlie2688]

I don't think a lot of people should find this surprising if thy had been reading for example if you check some of the drivers for NVIDIA (and ATI I assume) there have been upgrades for Blu-Ray and HD DVD playback and some other things, other hardware has already had for a good while Blu ay and HD DVD compatibility like motherboards for example my Gigabyte mobo

[DARKKNIGHT]

if u look on disc it says DL,50 gig, version 1.1, 2x(speed).

thats the ill s#it right there.

THE FUTURE IS BLU!!!!!!

[WilliamRLBaker]

*you edited your comment* but yes you sitll need an blu ray drive its just got an hardware decoder on it.

[Charlie2688]

yes, remember the Blu Ray has a different type of laser to read the different density on the Blu ray disc compared to regular DVDs

I think many of this "supports" are to make it almost as if you had a actual Blu ay player and not only a Blu ray driver, video card provides video and mobo provides audio

[DARKKNIGHT]

yes i confused my self, lol.

thank you, both. +bubbles for your help

that 8800 gts with 1 gig ram looks promising.

i hope its a g92 core with gddr5.

[Bolts]

Bluray support in a video card is pointless. The GPU doesn't care if you're playing Bluray or HDDVD. Its all about the drive and the player/software.

[GavinMannion]

I have to admit I don't know to much about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD...

But as far I knew it was a physical difference and had nothing to do with the video card in the machine?

[ravenguard88]

You are actually not quite correct. The point is it will be handled by the video card in an efficient manner reducing power consumption and making sure it plays back without a hiccup. It also allows for passive or low power cooling solutions because it uses much less power. Not to mention it frees up system resources.

I wouldn't call that pointless.

[ravenguard88]

ATi and nVidea have support for hardware level high definition video playback, it's not specific to BD, and includes HD-DVD video and other forms of high-definition video.