
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).
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