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DVD Decoder Card, What does it Do???

A

Alacazam

Member
Hey all, I am about to purchase a DVD drive, but was wondering if I need a decoder card. I have a Geforce that has the capability, but does the card offer superior image/sound quality or what? I heard software uses the CPU, I have a 950Mhz Duron, is that OK?

Any info/linkage to guides would be appreciated.

Oh BTW, I would be getting the Hollywood Plus card, its one that I hear does the best at whatever it does.
 
It offloads the cpu when watching a DVD Movie. You have plenty of speed, and don't need one unless:

1) Your soundcard can't do AC-3, and you want AC-3
2) Your videocard doesn't have tvout, and you want to watch it on a big screen.
 
The main reason to buy a hardware decoder these days is if you plan on watching the DVDs you play on your computer on a TV. The vast majority of TV-out on video cards suck, but the Hollywood+ provides TV-out quality that is only rivaled by set-top players.

Otherwise, you don't need a decoder. Software players require a ~350mHz CPU, so you have more than enough power. Current software players provide equivalent video quality compared to a hardware decoder, and have many more sound decoding options.
 
Dolby Digital does no good if you don't have an external decoder, generally in the form of a 5.1 receiver. DVD decoder card doesn't decode AC-3, it just sends the stream through the digital coax output. It doesn't do the actual decoding so you need a receiver.
 
Hehehe, the reason the Hollywood + TV output quality is only rivaled by set-top players is because that's the only other rival on the market. Second by default because there's only 2 players.
 
You do not need a home theater receiver to receive AC-3 if you have a set of computer speakers with a decoder box.

[*]DTT 2500 / 3500
[*]Videologic DigiTheatre
 
I have both H+ card and WinDVD. Only advantage of H+ is that
you can watch DVD on TV and use your computer to do other things
(like browsing and stuff).

Duron 850 is more than enough to watch DVD in software (like WinDVD).
In this case quality really depends on videocard TV-out.
 
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