DVD Questions

[kangster]

Hi all,

I was interested in people's opinions on a good DVD solution for my PC. I currently have a Duron 700 / 256mb / Turtle Beach A3DXStream Soundcard / LeadTek Winfast GeForce 256.

I need an IDE DVD Drive, and some speakers, (and also a GFX Card with TV-Out but I can deal with that myself). Unfortunately noone really tells you how quiet DVD Drives are, I'd rather pay a little more for a drive which doesn't sound like Concorde taking off - any suggestions?

In terms of DVD Drive I was looking at the Creative 12x, possibly with the DXr3 bundle as this would save me upgrading my GFX and Audio card. My preferred retailers also have Pioneer and AOpen drives...

(BTW: surely DVDs all play at the same rate, so why the increasing speed? Is this just for faster buffering or something? )

For speakers I am looking at DTT2500, although I would like to know how these compare to the Midland S4/8200 or even the S4/7100s. I will only be using this system for DVDs and the odd game now and again.

Any suggestions people can give me would be much appreciated, this is one area of PC Hardware thats rushing by me!

Thanks
Kangster

 

[Tominator]

I think the concensus around here is either Pioneer or Toshiba. I have an example of both here. The toshiba is silent compared to the Pioneer.

 

[kangster]

Any particular models to look out for? (Hey - wheres the DVD-ROM drive roundup?! ;-)

 

[whitelight]

for speakers, get either midiland. both models offer much more power than the creative speakers. i have the midiland s4-7100m plus, which comes with a dolby decoder, and it's been awesome for my dvd's. the 8200 also comes with a decoder, and has twice the power of the 7100's (200w compared to 100w). but of course, the 8200's sell for about $300 while you can get the 7100 plus for $199 from midiland.com. (there's a summer special on these speakers and that's why midiland is selling them cheaper right now. they sell for $240 elsewhere.)

 

[bacillus]

if max DAE extraction is your ultimate aim then also consider the Lite-On LTD163

this is copied from cdspeed2000

New King of DAE!

The Lite-On LTD163, a 16x DVD-ROM drive can read audio at FULL 20-48x speed!.
This is fast enough for making audio copies on the fly with a 16x, 20x and even a 24x recorder.
The DVD performance is also excellent, 11.92x on average which is as fast as the AOpen DVD-1640.
His little brother, the Lite-On LTD122, a 12x DVD-ROM drive can also extract audio at full speed which is 17-40x.
Both drives are high on top of the DAE list with the Plextor PX-40TS right in the middle.