PCMCIA Laptop DVD Drive ??

[BigLance]

Anyone had experiance w/ using a PCMCIA dvd drive ? I just bought a PII300,64,5GB,13.3 tft IBM laptop ($375) and want to put a DVD on it. Think it will run smoothly ? Should I consider the unit below or find something else ?? Thanks !

PCMCIA 4X

 

[Nefrodite]

you could, many superslim laptops can use pcmcia or firewire dvd drives. but.. your processor is way too low. the video chip is probably lousy too

 

[BigLance]

Ok well I have been using a DVD since I had a P2 350 on one of my desktops.. Are you sure a 300 won't cut it ? I see 233mmx's selling on Ebay w/ DVD's ... I imagine they are using some sort of hardware decoder ?

 

[jschuk]

You could get a MPEG2 decoder card. I have a decoder card in my laptop (not a PCMCIA one) and it does a great job with DVD's. I have ran the machine at 110MHz and DVD playback is still smooth. On the flip side, I have used software decoders and even at 440MHz, the DVD playback still suffered some jerkiness and pauses.

 

[BigLance]

Ok, I'll look into that.

It has one of the NeoMagic 128 2 mb SGRAM cards

 

[Nefrodite]

You could get a MPEG2 decoder card. I have a decoder card in my laptop (not a PCMCIA one) and it does a great job with DVD's. I have ran the machine at 110MHz and DVD playback is still smooth. On the flip side, I have used software decoders and even at 440MHz, the DVD playback still suffered some jerkiness and pauses.


hmm didn't know they made hardware decoder cards for pcmcia, would be kinda interesting. you'd need it to be the right type slot and have another slot for your dvd my laptop uses a damned neomagic too, does video ok, but it probably doesn't touch those new ati/nvidia mobile chips.

 

[Burnt]

check out margi dvd to go decoder cards. They sell on egay for about 50 bucks.