dvd choices

[bigbenv]

Hello all,
I have been looking into a dvd drive for a while and based on what i've seen here and other places i'll probably go with a pioneer 106. What i need to know is whether or not i can buy a "bare bones" package or if i need whatever cables and software come with the retail package. I've never had a dvd system, so i don't know what cables are required. Also, my video card is a rage fury pro, and i remember it saying that it supports dvd decoding. does this mean that i don't need a seperate hardware decoder? Will i still need a software decoder of some type? my computer is a 667 PII with 448 megs of ram, so i should be ok with software decoding anyway, right? thanks a lot for your help.

 

[bigbenv]

^

 

[bigbenv]

please?

 

[dadx2mj]

Good choice I got my Pioneer a few months ago and have been very happy with it. I got the OEM drive just hook it to any IDE channel and go for it. you will need a software player I recomend WinDVD.

 

[bigbenv]

thanks. anyone else?

 

[Shmorq]

I used to recommend a Toshiba, but they have an issue when ripping DVD's so now, I usually go with the Pioneer when I build systems for others.

Your computer is much more than sufficient for software decoding. Ordering the retail drive will give you the mounting screws, cables, and a DVD player. I don't know which player you'd get since I've only gotten bare drives.

If you decide to go with the bare drive, you'll need any standard ATA33 IDE cable or better.

 

[LuNoTiCK]

Maybe the aopen 1648 since its a slot dvd and is retail box. Or just get like the pioneer 106 or 116.

 

[bacillus]

the pioneer 106 is a fine drive though some will say it's a bit noisy on reading data cds. it's not clone cd compatible if you're into that sort of copying.
you'll need dvd playback software such as power dvd or win dvd to view dvds.
you can just replace your present cd drive with this drive as it will read both dvds & cds!

 

[MaxDSP]

I'm also looking for a good DVD drive right now. I dont know the specs of the Pioneer 106 or 116 but this is the drive I'm looking at right now. Which would be better? I've got a 1 GHz Slot A Athy with 256 MB PC133 RAM. See my thread here and reply if you can help.