I disagree
[ B.O.Y.S.: Boys On Your Screen (The Message Board) ] Written by St. Mule am 16 Jan 2001 02:58:03:
As an answer to: NO, but.... written by The Poor Farang am 15 Jan 2001 03:25:36:
>DVD is a two sided CD, with some special features.
That is not a true statement. Most DVDs have a label on one side and they play only one side. The main difference is the DVD does not use the same format as CDs. It uses a UDF (Universal Disk Format) and MPEG compressed data.
>You can add a DVD drive or replace an existing CD drive with a DVD. Any DVD drive can be used as a CD drive for any kind of CD.
Yes you can and if you look hard enough there is a DVD/CDRW IDE drive out on the market where you can get two features in one. There are 16X DVD plays too. However, I would go with a DVD and CDRW as seperate drives so you could use the DVD drive to play the CD and the CDRW to duplicate.
>If you are adding DVD to your computer, you must add a second component: a decoder. The easiest and most effective way to add a decoder, today, is to replace your video card, aka display card with a high quality video card which includes a DVD hardware decoder chip. For example, all ATI 128, AGP video cards with at least 16 meg video memory include the DVD decoder chip.
Actually with the speed of processors (1.3 GigaHertz) and enough RAM you can get good performance without a decoder card. However, I would buy a scaled down DVD play for my TV before I spend the bucks for the DVD/Video Combination. One reason is all the ones that have DVD on their computers say they don't like the limitations of viewing and want a real player.
>You don't have to be much of a computer jockey to add a DVD to your computer. But don't do it unless you have a 400mhz or faster computer. There is one jumper on the DVD unit that must be set properly (Master/Slave, same as on a CD or a hard disc) and that is about the only way to screw it up. Computer DVD units cost $100 and up. Video cards with a DVD decoder start at about $50 and prices are falling.
>My boys love their computer DVD; any boy would!Yes but how about having it play on the TV where you can snuggle up together.
>The Poor Farang
Stubborn Mule