One word describes why I felt I needed a new computer: Blu-ray. My old computer would not play Blu-ray discs in any watchable way. Not that I watch them on a computer, but when checking things out, half the time I would switch off the speakers because the stuttering sound was so irritating. With the new computer (Intel Core Duo E8400 running at 3GHz with 4GB of RAM), PowerDVD plays them smoothly and well.
I also scan lots of Blu-ray discs with BDInfo in order to learn more about their inner workings. So far I’ve scanned about 70 of them. On the old computer (a Pentium D) that took a lot of time. A typical dual layer disc would take three to four hours, and use 40% or more of CPU, seemingly increasing as the process continued. I took to starting a scan going when I knew I’d be away from the computer for a few hours, usually at bed time.
I’ve just scanned the Blu-ray of Sleeping Beauty (DVD vs Blu-ray comparison coming soon). The disc is 31.5GB. I would have expected it to take at least three hours. It took 37 minutes!
Now, if only I had Internet!