After a slow start, the options for watching HD movies are coming thick and fast. Apart from the obvious set-top box, you could add a drive to your desktop PC for about £300. You could get a Playstation 3, or the HD-DVD upgrade for the Xbox 360.
But if you're just about to purchase a new laptop, why not consider getting one with Blu-ray or HD-DVD built in? Here are the pros and cons.
Long-term specifications
A notebook generally lasts you longer than a desktop. Regular upgrades can render your PC unrecognisable in a few years, as a gradual process of improvement keeps things up to date. But there's a good chance you will be using the same laptop in three years' time that you bought today.
Notebooks still cost a bit more than desktops, especially for a top-of-the-range model. So they're not the kind of kit you can afford to swap wholesale for the latest and greatest on a regular basis. This means you need to choose a specification that will last you long enough until your budget allows a new one.
Aside from a memory upgrade, there's not much room to change a notebook's components. Virtually everything will be particular to that notebook design. So that would imply that if your notebook has a Blu-ray or HD-DVD option, you should get it - because there's a good chance that even if you don't need it now, you will before you next upgrade your portable.
Format wars - again
But it's not as simple as that. Whether you choose to have an HD drive or not will be something you will have to live with for some years to come. And currently you still have to select either Blu-ray or HD-DVD - with Versatile Multilayer Discs now an additional contender lurking in the wings.
Although LG has released a desktop PC drive which will play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the LG GGW-H10N, there's nothing like this available for notebooks just yet.
Even worse, most notebooks only offer one of the options. So your choice of HD format will dictate the notebook you can buy, or vice versa. For example, Dell's high-end Inspiron XPS and Sony's VAIOs back Blu-ray, whereas Toshiba's Qosmio (unsurprisingly) and Rock's xtreme 770 plump for HD-DVD.
None of these models are thin and light, either. The 1,920 x 1,200 display necessary to do HD video justice already means a 17in widescreen, and all manufacturers so far have opted to make HD opticals an option in their biggest, all-singing desktop replacements.
Is it still too early for HD?
These aren't cheap notebooks, and where HD is an option, rather than standard, it's not a cheap one either. Swapping from a regular DVD rewriter to a Blu-ray drive costs between £200 and £300, and we haven't seen any notebooks with HD-DVD drives for under £1,300. Contrasting this with current prices for standalone players , Blu-ray is available for under £300, HD-DVD for even less - and the games console route is much the same price, with the console thrown in for free.
So a notebook is an expensive choice if you simply want to watch high definition movies. You can now pick up a 37in HDTV capable of Full HD for well under a grand, making a console-plus-HDTV package cheaper than a notebook with an HD optical drive.
Although buying a notebook with the best spec you can afford is always a good idea, because of the lack of upgrade potential we mentioned earlier, you pay a hefty premium for one with a HD drive built in. You will be limiting yourself to a hefty model, too.
So Blu-ray or HD-DVD might be nice features to have if you can afford them - and want this kind of power 'portable' - but they're far from essential just yet. Only when prices go down, and multi-format drives appear, should you make an HD optical drive an essential checkbox in your next notebook purchase.
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