DVD question?

[tmerry]

Thanks for the input

[Mike... the real one]

I think Seb and I just bought the same DVD drive. I to bought the Pioneer 16X in tray and I find it really cool.

I agree it may takes sometimes a good 5 or even 10 secondes for it to open. But for the quality of the drive, I doupt you can find better. It's not noisy at all and it's damn fast if you want to read CDs. I saw a big difference between the Pioneer and the Creative CD-ROM I had before (40X).

OH! And just by the way, in the case that you would buy one of those puppies... There is something you have to do before installin it or you'll get a blue screen at the start up of Windows. If I remember well, it does that if you have EZ CD Creator installed on your machine. There is a file in conflict and you have to change the extension. I think it's scsi.vxd that you have to change to scsi.vx1 ...Check the FAQ on the site for more info about that.

And please... If you have to buy a DVD, buy anything except the Creative Ovation... Too many broken I've seen. I dunno for the quality, but the durability seems quite poor.

Well that's what I had to say. =)

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I'm the real Mike, and proud of it!

[Sam_D]

I'm going to go with the Pioneer (slot, of course ) drive. Where'd you buy it?

[Mike... the real one]

MicroBytes..that's a store in Quebec.. I really dont know where you can find those in US. Just look for the model DVD-106S ATAPI. Best Buy seems to have it.

[Sam_D]

What software should I get to go with it?

[Sam_D]

Okay thanks.

[Mike... the real one]

There is no software coming with it since you'll surely find it in OEM. But drivers can be found on the web site and you can get PowerDVD from almost anywhere...Email me if you dont find it.

[Sam_D]

Okay cool. Now all I need is a tv-out capable video card (and a tv that's in my room). Any suggestions?

I don't want it to be too expensive, but I also don't want the worst quality, either.

Thanks for all your help!

[Mike... the real one]

Ok... well for that one there is a really great one right now. A lot of companies are doing it. They all work with the Geforce II MX from NVidia, and most of them (like Guillemot that I really like, and Creative's Annihilator) got the TwinView. Which means that youc an plug it on your tv and that you can use both at the same time to have a bigger workspace. Really useful for programmation or 3D imaging.

The best I know is the Guillemot Phrophet II MX Dual Display. That you can find in most stores for around 120$ US I think... In Canada it's around 220$. And if you dont want to put that much, you could still try to find a Guillemot Xentor 32 (It works with the TNT2 Pro chip, and still got a TV OUT) that's what I have and it's really great quality. But still, I would suggest to find out one of the GeforceII MX TwinView chip... Since it's the best quality/price ratio there is on the market right now.

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I'm the real Mike, and proud of it!

[Sam_D]

Yeah I have a voodoo3 chip in right the 500mhz compaq now. It works, I guess. Thanks for the reply

[Seb]

let's not forget ATI has some good TV out too

[Mike... the real one]

Sure, but ATI video cards are made especially for someone that has to use a lot of video presentation and things like that. Their Radeon All In Wonder 32 Mo is extremely great quality, but cost loads of money. Right now, I really think the best deal is on the NVidias, especially cause those are the best for gaming also, and watching DVDs too, cause most of them have kind of decoders inside.

[Seb]

1) my ATI Radeon 64 DDR has a good TV out, no need to go for the All in Wonder

2) gaming... i don't know, Unreal Tournament looks really good on my Radeon, and the anti aliasing for flight and racing sims is very sweet...

3) there is a DVD decoder in my Radeon. but, like most decoders, it sucks. the image and the sound is crappy. that's why I use PowerDVD, like lots of other people that have mpeg-2 decoders.

[Mike... the real one]

My TNT2 Ultra came with DVD decoder and it works real fine with xing DVD player for example. Thing is that the Radeon 64 Mo DDR costs more than the Geforce II MX, and the 64 Mo is totaly unuseful since the processor isnt powerful enough to tare care of the whole bandwicth. Same for all the cards, except like the Asus 7700 Geforce II GTS DDR Pro...but this one is like 700$ (can). ATI does make really great products though, all in wonders are the best of the best for video things, especially if it's a Radeon processor on it... But I still prefer NVidia for game and DVD performances...Oh well, that's what I think.. =)

And now that Nvidia bought 3DFX, I supose they will take the famous Z buffer and Anti-aliasing from them to put it on their next chipset.

[Seb]

mike, to tell you the truth, i think the geforce and Radeon are pretty much equal. they both have advantages.

i got the Radeon because it was the same price as the Hercules Geforce 2 GTS and because it had better performance than a Geforce 2 MX (according to the sites I went to), but the Radeon was more readily available to me and i thought it suited me best.

but I wouldn't mind if I went with the geforce instead. nobody agrees on that issue anyways. whatever, I know that my card gives me very good performance with the games i play, and that's what matters, isn't it? I'll be upgrading before I can actually realize the frame rate dropped anyways, since on my system the vidcard is the bottleneck.

oh, BTW, I think the additional 32 megs is really useful, and even though the card may not exploit it to its full potential, there is a big increase from 32 to 64 in all the tests i've seen. compare the hercules cards, for example.

hey, shouldn't you be at school?

I don'T see you on icq...

[Mike... the real one]

Ok let's say this is true and the diffenre between the GForceII GTS and Radeon is infime... (which I dont really beleive...but anyways..) The 64 Mo is surely a little bit better even if your processor isnt the best, but I would rather prefer to buy a 32 Mo which runs extremely fast, than a normal 64... That I'm sure of... Hey we make benchmarks in our store! Could you beleive we got a 89 fps at quake3 timedemo high quality with a Duron 700 Mhz and a Gforce II mx? Quite incredible!

Not on ICQ?..mmmmm...well my school is like at 50 meters from my home... so I'm either in a class, either before my screen. =)

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I'm the real Mike, and proud of it!

[SNARFYrDOG]

If you are really into video card comparisons, check out this site! Tom's Hardware

[Sam_D]

Thanks Snarfy

[Aknar]

Just to get back onto the subject. The Pioneer 115-DVD (16x) is fast, reliable, and is pretty durable. I remember buying an Acer 32x CD-Rom at Costco, and it broke a week later, so I bought this! Got it a while back at Micro Bytes for $200 Can, and that was CHEAP back then. Now there only $140 Can. I have to agree with Seb about the noise and the spin down, but hey, I'm not in a hurry. PC-Gamer, and Maximum PC say this is the best DVD player, and an equally good CD player. The slot version does look nicer and only has about 10-20$ difference, don't now if there are any downsides to it though!

[Sam_D]

Thanks, I appreciate all the advice everyone has given me. I am also looking for a decent tv-out card (it doesn't need to be a full-blown geforce2, just a stand-alone tv-out card. Is there such a thing? If not, any cheap alternatives?

Thanks