Does my video card have to be dvd ready?

[jonnyjack]

i'm getting my Lite-On DVD-ROM today...i have a fairly old video card (CL VooDoo Banshee) will i be able to watch dvd's on it? or do i need a new card? TIA

 

[jonnyjack]

this morning newegg.com had the ATI Xpert 2000 Pro w/32MB and TV-OUT for $29 + $5 shipping...it's now out of stock...

i think that's a pretty old card but i really only do word processing and internet on my computer...so gaming is a nonissue...newegg also has the VISIONTEK Xtasy 5632 GEFORCE2 GTS-V card for $19 more($48)...and i don't think it does hardware dvd decoding...should i wait until newegg restocks the ATI card? any suggestions would be really helpful...TIA

PS how long does it usually take newegg to restock anyway?

 

[GT578]

As long as you have a DVD software to play dvds.....you can watch DVDs using any videocard.......

 

[jonnyjack]

what are the benefits of the ATI cards with hardware decoding then? i'm new to dvd-rom's so sorry if these questions are stupid...🙂

oh yeah, this will be for a new system that has a duron 950mhz so cpu power shouldn't be a problem...

 

[GT578]

Some built in hardware stuff...iDCT or something like that.....anyways....I have a radeon and I still get 50% or more CPU usage when I'm using WINDVD in WinXP....so I'm not sure if that stuff is working for me or not. ATI also has the best image quality ......well thats what most people say. I can only compare my radeon and my old Voodoo3 and there is a difference between the two in terms of quality of video(DVD,MPEG..etc). Voodoo looks washed out and has more jagged edges.....and the ATI is more colorful and just seems cleaner to me.