Question Internal blu ray drive on PC audio/video quality when connected to home theatre?

[japesthetank]

Greetings all.

I put significant time and expense into my home theatre when I built my house last year. Currently running a 65inch C8 OLED, 5.1.4 powered by Dali Oberon 7 and a Denon 4500X receiver. As we got most of our content from online sources, I have yet to buy a blu ray player. They also seem to be over-priced where I am(Japan), at about 800$ or more for a decent one.

As such, I was thinking that since my PC is already hooked in, perhaps buying software and a blu ray drive (about $200) would be a good value. But would image/picture quality suffer compared to a stand-alone blu ray player? As it is digital content, I don't imagine so, but I have not been able to find good information online. If it is reasonable in terms of picture and audio quality, any recommendations for which internal drive for PC and which software (atmos!).

Thanks in advance!

 

[bigboss]

In terms of outright quality, as long as you're using HDMI cables and no picture processing, there won't be a noticeable difference in quality. Personally, I would still go for a standalone 4K blu ray player for ease (don't have to start my PC). Even budget players will be better.

 

[japesthetank]

Budget players don't tend to have atmos support, which is my worry. I don't see the point of putting over $10k into a home theatre just to skimp out on the blu ray...

I don't mind turning on the PC. I watch lots of content from it already.

 

[bigboss]

Atmos support is dependent on your AV receiver, not player. All players support Atmos by default. What's the rest of your system like? How many speakers? Which AV receiver?

 

[abacus]

If you are happy to use a PC (As mentioned not as convenient) then providing you can output to HDMI, an external UHD Blu-Ray drive will be fine, just get a retail version (Rather than an OEM version) which will come with all the software you need.

Bill