Okay a little lesson:
The optical drive has _absolutely_ nothing to do with the image quality of your videos.
The software you use to play video, on the other hand, has EVERYTHING to do with image quality.
If you're playing BluRay / HD-DVD, the only way to do so in real-time is with PowerDVD or WinDVD. They're awful pieces of software (slow, bloated, expensive, annoying), but do a decent job, provided you can get its RGB conversion working properly.
If you're playing DVDs, there's lots of good options. Media Player Classic (Home Cinema) with ffdshow-tryouts has the capability to "upconvert" (I use that term loosely because it can be as simple as stretching video to fill your screen, or something much more complicated) very nicely. Using a sharp resize filter, adding a bit of sharpening, and adding a tiny bit of HD grain will give most movies a nice look.
~MiSfit