There are several makes of Blu-ray/HD players on the market (LG, Sony etc) but has anyone successfully installed and used one - especially with OpenSuse? I can't find any in the hardware compatibility lists.

BR drives (readers and writers) function identically to regular DVD or CD optical drives, they simply are able to address more data. BR drives are supported by dvd+rw-tools, which in turn means that essentially every Linux burning application also supports BR (though the program's GUI may or may not be updated to reflect this yet).

I know there are some tricks involved in actually playing BluRay movies though, due to encryption and licenses for video content. Last time I heard, it can be done, but not with 100% success for all films, and not without considerable manual setup.

But if you are just trying to use BR discs for data, you don't need to worry about that.

Thanks for the information - I will give it a try!