BluRay over network to HTPC/plasma?

[Scooter70]

I'm thinking about building a new main PC and hooking my current one up to my receiver and plasma tv (50" Pioneer Kuro 720p). If I put a BluRay player in the new PC, will I be able to display it on the tv over the network or does the BluRay player need to be in the HTPC? My current machine's mobo is IDE, not SATA, so I assume that would limit my options on a BD drive.

Thanks.

 

[0ldfart]

Re motherboard, Its not an issue. You can add an ide-sata converter to it. The downside of this is that it takes up an entire IDE slot (which would otherwise accommodate two ide drives on the same cable).

Alternatively, you can add a PCI sata controller card. (requires a free PCI slot). Try to find one that does not use Windows drivers if you can, otherwise the drive will not be bootable.

 

[Scooter70]

I'm revisiting the topic again. Even though I already have a PCI SATA card in the PC, I'd like to put the BlueRay drive in the new PC for ripping purposes.

My question still is: Can Windows Media Player play a movie from a drive on the network?

 

[AngelProcesser]

What would the bit-rate be for streaming BluRay? I'm thinking ~40Mbps.

...........................................Router/Gateway
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ^
PC # 1 Gigabit NIC-------(unmanaged) Gigabit Switch-------PC # 2 Gigabit NIC

The router will control the LAN connection, but the data will stream across the switch only.

(Note: ignore the dots and x's)