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Get an internal Blu-ray drive for $56.99 shipped

Perfect for system builders or anyone running a media-center PC, this Lite-On drive lets you watch Blu-ray movies on your monitor or HDTV. Player software is included.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
It's not much to look at, but this Lite-On drive adds Blu-ray capabilities to your PC. Lite-On

What's cheaper than a $98 Blu-ray player from Wal-Mart? A $57 Blu-ray drive for your PC. That's the deal from ZipZoomfly, where you can get a Lite-On iHOS104-06 Blu-ray drive for $56.99 shipped.

Granted, this isn't the ideal solution for everyone, but if you have a PC hooked up to a big monitor or an HDTV, it's aces. (Just make sure you're using a DVI or HDMI connection to avoid copy-protection issues.)

The iHOS104-06 is a SATA drive with an 8x DVD read speed and 4x Blu-ray read speed. Although the specs don't mention it anywhere, my informants tell me the drive comes with PowerDVD 8, which is necessary if you want to actually watch Blu-ray movies on your PC.

Drives like these were selling for well over $100 just last year, so 57 bucks is a deal indeed.

Oh, one more thing: make sure your video card is HDCP-compliant and supports 1,920x1,080 resolution so you enjoy full 1080p goodness on your big TV.

Update: Looks like ZipZoomfly is out of stock, but fear not: SuperBiiz has the same drive for the same price (with coupon code SUPERSTEALS).