Willich, Germany  - The format war is over, and Blu-ray has emerged as the victor in the fight to succeed the standard DVD. Now manufacturers are hoping that Blu-ray DVDs will also conquer the hearts of PC users.

Surprisingly affordable drives are now available for home computers: Pure playback devices like Pioneer's BDC-202, the DH-401S from Lite-on or LG Electronics' GGC-H20L are on sale and start at 130 dollars. Combo drives are more practical. While only able to read HD disks, they can also play back and record DVDs and CDs.

Blu-ray burners remain more expensive. Prices start at around 250 dollars, with newer drives like the LG BE06LU10 costing around 400 dollars. Buyers face a fundamental choice between external and internal drives. Blu-ray drives may someday play an important role in data archiving, says Alexander Droller from hardware maker Pioneer. With a capacity of up to 50 Gigabytes (GB), the blank blue disks offer significantly more storage space than DVDs.

"Blu-ray generally isn't worth recommending as a backup solution yet - the blanks are still exorbitantly expensive," says Peter Knaak from the German consumer testing organisation Stiftung Warentest in Berlin.

Single-burn BD-R media holding 25 GB of data cost almost 10 dollars per unit, while re-writable 50 GB drives (BD-RE) cost at least 30 dollars each. An external hard drive is a better choice for backing up PC data, Knaak says.

The drives can present other problems when installed into older machines, notes Hartmut Gieselmann from the Hanover-based c't magazine. Not all graphics cards and monitors offer suitable inputs, nor are they designed for the copy protection inherent to HD films. This applies for PC-controlled televisions and projectors as well. Users must also fight through a thicket of film formats and sound output styles.

The average user may not find much value in making a computer HD- ready anyways. As Knaak reports, when watching films, "the difference from a DVD often can't be seen."

Anyone wanting to watch a film on their computer screen must have at least a 24-inch display for the new technology to be visible. Televisions require an image diagonal of at least a metre and a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. "You also can't sit further than two metres away from the screen," Knaak says.

Gieselmann recommends waiting until pre-packed Blu-ray PCs start hitting the market. "Or put a Playstation in the living room - they function as a Blu-ray player for your television and don't require much tinkering," he added. (dpa)