CT7160 (Creative PC-DVD Inlay)...any good?

[dpopiz]

I'm looking for a decoder card for my friend who has a very slow comp. I found the CT7160 on pricewatch for a low $23. Does anybody have some experience with it? Does it have any compatability problems? Here are some specs I know from my friend's comp:
Pentium II 350
Onboard Riva 128
dunno what speed dvd, probably a 2x or something slow like that

You know of any others *cheap* dvd decoders I might consider (must be hardware of course for a *350MHz*)

 

[StormRider]

It's great for playing back DVDs on the TV but in my experience the monitor display was not as good compared to software DVD decoders.

It is also very picky about the video card. You video card needs to have a 26-pin VMI/VIP connector in order to work. Even if it has this connector, the graphics drivers have to support this.

In my experience the best card to use with this decoder card is the Geforce 2 MX or Riva128 series.

It also worked with my Savage3/4 and ATI Rage Pro type cards but the display on the monitor looked the best with the Geforce 2 MX. On the Savage3/4 and ATI Rage Pro, I get bad quality (pixellated and jaggy edges) with the CT7160 drivers. With the generic Luxsonar reference drivers, it actually looked really good on the ATI Rage Pro.

There are only beta Win2K drivers for it and they are not that good. So I would only recommend it for Win98 systems.

 

[StormRider]

You could try the Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus. It's pretty much the standard for hardware DVD decoders. It plays DVDs great (on both TV and monitors) but I can't stand the analog pass-thru cable it uses. It causes my regular text and desktop display to be blurry. Some people don't mind but it drives me crazy...