g200 dvd or creative?

[Bionic]

I have g200 and creative dxr2 dvd.
The dvd rom is broken and I will buy a new one, but I will buy just the dvdrom and not the dvd card.
What do you recomend: buy a dvd rom and use the creative dvd card or use matrox g200 instead of dxr2 creative dvd card?
thnx

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[Rick6612]

Hi Bionic,

I've never used the DVD card, so I don't know how well it works... but from what I've heard, I would think it's probably a lot better than using the software DVD player.

I've been using both Power DVD and Zoran SoftDVD with my DVD drive in my 500 MHz PIII system... and it works pretty good. But if you move the mouse, or do any little thing while the DVD is playing, it causes the picture to stutter a freeze for a fraction of a second.

Rick

[Dayspring]

Hi there!

I tell you what, I have a similar system; Marvel G200 & Creative Dxr2; and I would not give up my Dxr2 for the world. That card/DVD set is still just the coolest one out there. I'm sure there are higher quality ones (certainly newer and faster ones), but I'm still happy with that one, and until the Playstation 2 comes out, or H-DVD is on its way, that will probably be my only DVD player.

It's got a lot of nice things about it, for instance, the little hack that allows me to turn off Macrovision. I've never made any DVD copies, so I don't much care about that, but if you're like me, it's not too unusual to have to hook things up to your TV via a VCR or similar thing, and Macrovision makes even this simple task impossible. Not a problem when you can just turn it off.

The world codes are a moot point as well, with the same little hack program. I haven't used this at all, but it's nice to know that it's there.

However, there are a couple of other VERY nice things about this card that are relevant to use with the G200. Firstly, you can output most MPEG1s and MPEG2s directly to TV, so you don't always need to worry about MJPEG. Another neat little feature available with that little hack program I have is that this card can play PAL MPEGs as NTSC or vice versa, without any time spent converting. I don't know how it works, and I don't care. All I know is that if you've ever waited around while converting a 25 fps file to 29.97 fps, you'd know why I really, really like this ability.

Anyway, everything I've heard about the g200 DVD add-on just points you to buying another DVD player for use with the card.

Hope this helps,
Matt

[This message has been edited by Dayspring (edited 14 March 2000).]

[Aryko]

I have a Pioneer DVD 104DS (slot-loading model). It's the coolest thing since sliced bread. With a fast enough processor I doubt you need a DVD add-on card - I have a Pentium 500 w/ 128 MB Ram and I have no problems at all. I use Cyberlink PowerDVD 2.55 as my software DVD player, although there are good things to be said with the PCFriendly DVD software that came included with the Matrix DVD.

If you want Digital sound though, I'd make sure you have a sound card with a S/PDIF input (ie., SB Live X-gamer or above - the value doesn't have it).

- Aryko