when is a PCI DVD Decoder card necessary?

[murphy55d]

?

Do I need to use one w/ a 16x Liteon and the system in my sig?

 

[Pariah]

If you want the best possible TV-Out quality or you own an ancient computer. Otherwise you don't need a card.

 

[The Wildcard]

That's pretty much true. Like before, a DVD decoder card also allowed you to get Dolby Digital 5.1 output. But since the introduction of Creative sound cards that have the 5.1 dolby digital decoder on the sound card itself, there isn't a need for the decoder card in terms of sound.

TV-Out is pretty much the only thing going for it.

 

[murphy55d]

Okay, thanks guys. 🙂

 

[igowerf]

A little off topic but.. how does the TV out on decoder cards compare to the TV out on Radeon's?

 

[BCYL]

Originally posted by: The_Wildcard
That's pretty much true. Like before, a DVD decoder card also allowed you to get Dolby Digital 5.1 output. But since the introduction of Creative sound cards that have the 5.1 dolby digital decoder on the sound card itself, there isn't a need for the decoder card in terms of sound.

TV-Out is pretty much the only thing going for it.

But it's so much more complicated to hook up the Creative cards for 5.1 surround sound... with a decoder card 1 cable and you're done!

 

[Kingofcomputer]

the introduction of Creative sound cards that have the 5.1 dolby digital decoder on the sound card itself,

No. SB Live 5.1 is just a 6 channels analog output sound card, the dvd software does the DD decoding. You really believe there is DD decoder in a $30 (used to be $60 for oem card) sound card?

how does the TV out on decoder cards compare to the TV out on Radeon's?

This is apple vs orange. The tv-out from vga card outputs everything to tv, the tv-out from the dvd decoder card only outputs the movie playback to tv.

Draw back of dvd decoder card:
1. If you don't use the pass-thru cable, you won't see the movie scene in games such as wing commander iv dvd version (this game is bundled in Creative's 1st gen dvd decoder card + dvd-rom drive package) on monitor.
2. Pass-thru cable degrades the display on monitor.
3. Take up 1 pci slot unless it's a daugther card attached to the vga card.
4. Need to use proprietary driver and software.

I've the 1st gen Realmagic Hollywood in the closet.

 

[iluvdeal]

This is apple vs orange. The tv-out from vga card outputs everything to tv, the tv-out from the dvd decoder card only outputs the movie playback to tv.

Well if you were to just compare mpeg/dvd playback, then nothing beats the Hollywood Plus, it's as good as my standalone dvd player. I'm still wondering why video cards still haven't matched it.

 

[kazeakuma]

Originally posted by: iluvdeal

This is apple vs orange. The tv-out from vga card outputs everything to tv, the tv-out from the dvd decoder card only outputs the movie playback to tv.

Well if you were to just compare mpeg/dvd playback, then nothing beats the Hollywood Plus, it's as good as my standalone dvd player. I'm still wondering why video cards still haven't matched it.

Agreed. I still have my Hollywood Plus in my PC (actually a Creative rebadge but there are ways 😉 )
The decoding quality of this card is awesome and makes badly encoded movies look good. Block noise reduction, excellent deinterlacing, skip free fast forward/rewind, moire reduction, etc. My friend almost wet himself when he saw what Ghost in the Shell looked like on my PC compared to his software decoding. The fact that my CPU utilisation is at 2% when playing movies is cool too 🙂