Best DVD drive?

[OmegaXero]

I'm thinking about getting a DVD drive for my comp. I run an tbird 800 OC'd to 950, 256megs of ram, GF2 MX, and an SBLive. First of all, which brand of drive do you think is the best? Second, do I need a decoder board to go with it? Or do I have enough horsepower to decode DVDs without any hardware support from a PCI card?

 

[Shmorq]

The general consensus on DVD drives is Toshiba #1 and Pioneer a close second.

About decoding the DVD movie, your computer will have no problems. However, if you wanna output movies to a TV, I would get a hardware decoder since the TV out on vid cards don't match the quality of a dedicated decoder's.

 

[rbV5]

I can vouch for the toshiba 1402, very nice quiet drive. You should have plenty of horsepower for good DVD playback without a decoder card.

 

[Chsh]

I have the Pioneer 16X DVD drive, and I must say, it's a decent drive, if a bit on the loud side for my tastes. The key to eliminating noise, I've found, is to build a box full of egg cartons and cotton around your computer. Egg cartons are an ideal noise-killing shape from what I've been told, and it seems to work fine for me.

 

[OmegaXero]

Thanks. Toshiba sounds like they make a great drive. What about Asus and AOpen? Does anyone know if they're any good? And if I have enough horsepower to do software DVD decoding, which software decoder is the best one to use?

 

[mitaiwan82]

the 16x pioneer seem like the best deal right now...you can get the slot loading one for ~80. WinDVD is a pretty good software decoder prog, but I think w/ a 16x and your system specs you shouldn't see too much difference between the various players. Aopen's 16x is a rebadged Pioneer 105 i believe.

 

[drewdogg808]

i've tried about 3-4 different dvd drives, and i must say the toshiba 1502 that i currently use has been the best. it hasn't given me any problems and it's super quiet. most the other 16x drives are very loud. my friend has a pioneer 16x that runs well for him too, but mine is a bit quieter.

i use the ati dvd player, but i've also used powerdvd and windvd...they all work well, and you shouldn't have any problems with your system specs.

 

[Torghn]

I realy like my 16X Pioneer-115, it's only about $75 around here and works wonderfully. It's not too lound, but it'd definatly not quiet. If you want a quiet DVD drive the Pioneer-116 is identical, just a little quieter.

 

[Shmorq]

<< which software decoder is the best one to use? >>


Windvd is one of the best for quality in video and sound.
PowerDVD has more features than Windvd however.

 

[miniMUNCH]

I have an ASUS 8X drive which I really like. During movie playback the drive is absolutely silent. It's also region free and has a digital audio output. Quality and performance seen very good.

I've heard the same of Aopen drives...