DVD performance & playback quality?

[MTDEW]

A friend gave me an 8X DVD drive he pulled from is compaq pc.

I never cared about DVD cuz I have a DVD on my TV, but since I got it for free, I took my old PIII1000mhz, bought a 64mb Kyro2, installed the DVD drive & hooked it up to my 36" Sony Wega.

Ok, the Kyro2 came with Power DVD, so thats what I use.

I think the DVD play back is great, the picture looks great & playback is as smooth as can be.

Im using a seperate 56x cdrom drive for gaming installations & whatever.

Is there really any advantage to buying a newer "high End" DVD drive?

Would it offer better picture quality or is that more a result of what video card your using?

Like I said, Im perfectly satisfied with this pc as it is. (its my PC/Console hybrid & DVD player) (sure beats up on my PS2)
Madden on a 36" screen at 1024x768 with FSAA on, blows the PS2 version away by a mile visually.

But as Im new to using a pc as a DVD entertainment system, Im wondering if maybe Im missing something in image quality, that I may just not be noticing without another Pc DVD drive to compare it to.

I know someone is gonna say "if your happy with what you have now, then thats all that matters".

Well, what I wanna know is , "could I be happier & I just dont know it?"

 

[AndyHui]

It would not offer better picture quality, as that is a function of the video card and the decoder software.

DVD movies don't really take advantage of higher speed DVD ROMs, since they all play at 1x. The only time you would benefit is during seeks, chapter skipping, or software that ships on DVDs rather than movies.

 

[MTDEW]

Thank you.
Thats EXACTLY what I wanted to know.