I'm getting a DVD drive, what do I need to know?

[agallag]

My brother let it slip that he's getting me a Pioneer 104S 10x slot load DVD drive for xmas. Any caveats or instructions? Should I be looking at upgrading the cinemaster engine or anything, or is the version on the g400 cd good enough? Is there any way to turn off macrovision for making, ahem, "backups" on vhs? Will it send AC-3 through my sb-live to my receiver?

Throw me a frikin bone here, I need the info...

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Andrew Gallagher - andrew@agallagher.com
Asus P2B-S (1011), PII-350@350), 64MB PC100, 12.7GB Quantum Fireball EX ATA-33, 2x2.1GB Quantum Atlas I UWSCSI, Toshiba 6201 SCSI CD, Yamaha CRW4416S SCSI CD-RW, WangDAT SCSI, MillG400 32MB DH w/ 5ns RAM(5.25 Divers/1.5 Bios/Fo=310.5MHz), SBLive! Retail (LiveWare3), JVC RX884V Dolby Digital Receiver@500W, Dell D1728D-LS 17" Monitor (first head), ProScan 27" NTSC TV (second head), Win98SE, BeOS 4.5.2, RedHat 6.1, NT4SP6a

[This message has been edited by agallag (edited 21 December 1999).]

[Goc]

hi Andrew

If you would like to make backup copies on your VHS cinemaster engine upgrade is a must... There's nothing wrong with the one that comes on Matrox cd, but it has crappy macrovision protection... I'm not sure to which version you have to upgrade (i'm at work so I don't have access to my machine, but I'll post it when I find out)...
I don't have a SB Live, but if you have digital output on your card it will play AC3 pretty neat...

erm... Are you sure those are just backup copies Yep they are! No one would dare to copy movies and CD¹s.
MP3? Bwah... MP3 is dead!

I'll be back!

[Fat Tone]

Hi Allagag

A region-free crack has just been done for that drive, check out http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/

Tony.

[traverso]

bonjour agallag

try to go to
www.dvdutils.com

[smokva]

Version 1.028 is macrovision disabled.
Matrox player has 1.029, so download 1.028 and install it to disable Macrovision.
You can find it on www.dvdutils.com

[agallag]

Sweet, thanks guys...

[LAMFDTK]

I installed one last night...How fast can you take out screws?

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PIII-450@504, 128 HDSRAM, Asus P3BF, G400/32, SBLive!,Brand stinkin' new Sony G400 19", (no Dual head) Nokia 447Xi 17",AOPEN DVD-1040 10x slot, and some fish,



[This message has been edited by LAMFDTK (edited 21 December 1999).]

[red2]

Is it a SCSI drive? I think there were problems with SCSI's and DVD playback on the G400; maybe they are fixed by now. Also, how about telling us about the BeOS drivers.

[Himself]

I have a 104S as well, no problems with it here.

Let's see caveats and instructions:

To install, just plug it in, tighten the screws and you're done. It's detected as a CD-ROM drive.

There is a 1.23 firmware update available and a hacked version of it to make the drive "region free". http://www.dvdutils.com is a reference point for that stuff.

As for the drive being 10x, 10x is rather misleading with CAV technology, but they all are like that so it's relative. It's really more like a 4x-9x drive, the beginning of a movie it's 4x and it gets faster as it goes along. You'll also find that dual layer DVDs much slower than regular ones, forget 9x anywhere on the disk. UDMA helps a lot with regular DVDs.

AC3? That is just data read off the drive like you'd read a file off a CD-ROM drive, there is no hardware involved on the drive end dealing with that, it's up to your sound card and DVD player software how that is dealt with. WinDVD does the best software decoding of AC3 (LFE, quad out), most players offer hardware SPDIF output for Live! and Vortex 2 cards. The Matrox player just does stereo software decode, but offers SPDIF out.

As for making backups, you'll have to use older versions of the DVD players out there for that to get around macrovision protection, and that kind of sucks, especially since you only have a PII 350, since it will play back slower and you might get the odd dropped frame or stall. If you are using the Matrox player, you'll have to downgrade it (is that possible?) to copy DVDs onto VHS.

Hope that helps.

[agallag]

LAMFDTK, I have a cordless variable speed drill with a screwdriver head. Would that be fast enough?

Red2, it's an IDE drive. The extra $50 for the scsi version didn't seem worth it.

Himself, thanks for the ac-3 info. I'll have to find a copy of windvd to try out. Won't matter for a while though, since I only have two speakers plugged into my receiver at the moment . I'm saving up for some PSB speakers. The Alpha A/V looks pretty special, in a nice compact and inexpensive package.

I'll probably skip the macrovision crap too, since I'm not the type to watch movies over and over, unless it's something like Army of Darkness, and in that case I'd want a good original dvd copy

[agallag]

Damn, I was looking forward to using my new hammer

[LAMFDTK]

Thats a Pipewrench not a Hammer...

[merchant2112]

ah red line in 40 pin cable next to power connector.

don't take a hammer and beat on the drive it will break.

hey my computer don't have a retractable cup holder (no tray) ive been riped off i want my money back.




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msi 6167 mobo k7 500 wk41 now at 650. 256 meg ram ,addtronics case w 250watt sp power supply, matrox g400, maxtor diammax 2500+ 10gig hd,10x aopen slot dvd, 3com 10/100 nic and 56k ext modem, sb live xgamer sound card, lots of controlers (joystick throttle rudder raceing wheel), 19in ctx monitor, microsoft inteli mouse explorer(5 buttons, and klipsch promedia v2-400 speakers.

noel

[IceStorm]

Mmmm... Army of Darkness on DVD is really cool... :-)

[orangejulius]

Himself wrote:

It's really more like a 4x-9x drive, the beginning of a movie it's 4x and it gets faster as it goes along. You'll also find that dual layer DVDs much slower than regular ones, forget 9x anywhere on the

Eh? I thought DVD movies spin at 1X and nothing more.. DVD-ROM discs might go faster but movies no.
http://www.distinctiverecords.com/