Do I want a hardware or software DVD decoder?
With your DVD ROM you will need a DVD Decoder, your DVD Drive by itself will not play DVDs for you. You have two choices on DVD decoder, Hardware or Software. Hardware can work in pretty well any computer that has Windows 95 or higher and a PCI slot. It puts very little strain on your CPU. For a software player for smooth fullscreen playback at least a 400Mhz CPU is recommended.
Provided you have at least a 400Mhz CPU you have a choice, and there are benefits to both.
The hardware decoder has several key advantages:
[*]It doesn't use much CPU time, so your CPU can be free for other things if you want to multitask.
[*]Paired up with that, when you set the hardware board for TV-out mode the picture does not appear on your monitor as well, so you can let people watch DVDs on a TV while you work on your computer. Since the hardware uses no CPU you are free to work as normal (minues one CDRom of course).
[*]The hardware decoder board has 2 channel (stereo) analog output and a digital output on the card, so it does the sound output itself, a software decoder relies on your computer sound card for audio output. This is espeically useful if you want to use Digital output under Windows 2000. Many people have problems getting the sound card to properly output Digital audio in Win2000. The hardware decoders do not have this limitation.
[*]The decoder has very good quality TV-output compared to most video cards if you plan to use TV-output a lot (a software player has to use your video cards TV-output, on a monitor a software player can look just as good as a hardware player, but that is not the case on TV-output).
[*]You can buy a remote control that plugs into the COM Port of your computer, making it practically a set-top DVD player.
The Software decoder also has several advantages:
[*]Hardware decoders use a VGA passthrough cable (your video card connects to the hardware decoder, and it connects to your monitor) and at higher resolutions this can affect 2D quality. The hardware decoder officially supports 1600x1200 but it does hurt 2D quality at such high resolutions. I use 800x600 for desktop and there is very little difference between with and without the decoder. So dependant on your desktop resolution this may or may not be important. A software decoder of course does not have such a cable so has no effect on other 2D tasks.
[*]The user interface/play controls on the hardware decoders are fairly basic. With just a "Remote Control like" panel that you have to click with your mouse. There are no "right-click" menus. Software players have right click menus and controls tend to be laid out very nicely on these menus, which is handy for full screen playback. You can hide the play control box and quickly get at any play control features with a right click. You can't do this with a hardware player.
[*]The Software decoder uses your soundcard for Audio output. This can be a benefit or a negative. A hardware decoder uses it's own output, it has 2 channel analog or digital, and encoded digital passthrough (Dolby Digital, DTS, etc) only. A software player coupled with a godo soundcard can output in either of those modes, but also 4 channel mode or 5.1 analog mode if you have speakers that support it. With a hardware decoder you have to have an external audio decoder or you get stuck in 2 channel mode. On the other hand, if you have a poor quality sound card, the audio quality will suffer in a software player.
You will have to weight the advantages of each for yourself, and decide. Personally I use both. I have a hardware decoder in my system for the high quality TV-output, but I don't connect the passthrough cable (which means you can't use the hardware decoder to play on the monitor), and use a Software decoder for monitor playback so my 2D quality doesn't suffer from the passthrough.
Note: There are really only two modern hardware decoders worth buying. One is the Sigma Designs Real Magic Hollywood Plus, the other is the Creative Dxr3, which is just a rebadged H+ with different firmware and drivers. The capabilities are identical. Which you choose makes no difference, get the one that is cheaper in your area.
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)
Facebook
Twitter