Could you guys tell me what the best DVD decoder card for computer is?

[VadRad]

Hi I want to buy a dvd drive and a decoder card, I heard that the Pioneer 115s is the dvd drive of choice and I dont know what kind of decoder card to get...many people say if you have a fast computer dont buy one but I have seen dvds on computer with decoder cards and WOW its way better then software emulation. So if you guys know of a good dvd decoder card please let me know. Thx a lot

 

[Adul]

Sigma designs real magic hollywood plus is the best hands down.

 

[Noriaki]

The hollywood plus without a doubt.

A friend of mine leant me his and I agree that hardware decoding is superior to software, it's nice to have the digital out as well, and especially the TV-out quality is FAR better than Software decoder + TV-out video card.

(this card also goes by the names Hollywood3 and Hollywood+98, they are all the same hardware though...not sure why it's called different things)

 

[Insane3D]

I agree with Abdul....Hollywood Plus.

 

[Dulanic]

I disagree with them all 🙂 I think software looks the best if you have a decent video card. I only have a Creative dxr2 to compare to but software looked 10 times better.

 

[dcdomain]

I agree with everyone saying that the Hollywood decoder card is the best out there. You can get it from compgeeks.com for under $40 I think. However I've heard that some people actually disconnect the pass through when working on normal computer related activities because the quality is actually poorer, and then reconnecting the passthrough when watching DVD's. Because of that, I decided to go with a software decoder. Besides... I don't watch that many DVD's anyway...

 

[VadRad]

Hey guys thx a lot for all the info.

 

[Sluggo]

When I hooked up the pass-thru cable on my Hollywood+, it looked like someone had rubbed Vaseline all over my moniter, it sucked. Only plug in the pass-thru when watching a movie.

 

[BigToque]

One more thing...

get the Pioneer 105s. Its the same thing as the 115s, only instead of being tray loading, its slot loading. cool as hell 😀

 

[culex]

After trying on 5 different PCs, there is infinitesimal or no difference in DVD quality ON A MONITOR between hardware or software decoders. If you have a slow CPU, 350 and less, then you might notice 'speed' using hardware decoders.

However, Hollywood Plus has a VERY VERY nice quality TV output... its the only reason I use it.

I use PowerDVD if I'm viewing on my monitor since it has more features than hollywood plus.

 

[Noriaki]

<< After trying on 5 different PCs, there is infinitesimal or no difference in DVD quality ON A MONITOR between hardware or software decoders. If you have a slow CPU, 350 and less, then you might notice 'speed' using hardware decoders. >>

I think that's pretty fair. I've tried WinDVD 2000 2.3 w/ Radeon and PowerDVD 3.0 and the H+ and I think on a monitor they are pretty similar in Video quality. I like the H+ for being able to output dolby digital/dts stream through an SPDIF port, in win2000 using your soundcards doesn't work 🙁 And the TV-out quality is definately better on the H+. All in all I like having the H+ better. the only thing that kind of annoys me is no right click menu, because I'm used to it from WinDVD.
I only use my monitor in 800x600 so the quality issue isn't really noticeable to me. Plus I only have a Voodoo3 and they aren't that great for DVD quality.
If
[*]you have a video card with good DVD playback quality
[*]your video card has TV-out (even still it probably won't be as good as the H+ but you might not care)
[*]your soundcard has SPDIF output
[*]you don't use Win2k
then a hardware DVD decoder is probably unneccessary. However if you don't meet all these then a hardware decoder has something to add and they are cheap enough to make it worth it in my view.