Simple to use, clean and effective.
Written: Nov 18 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Simple to install, great performance even without high-powered CPU
Cons: Creative Labs Tech Support
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| skunkworks's Full Review: Creative Labs PC-DVD ROM kit |
Preamble: The Creative Labs DVD-ROM 6x DxR3 is very similar to the 5x DxR2, the only difference being 1x faster and having a slightly different model. They both have excellent performance.
Being a movie fanatic, I dreamed of owning a DVD-ROM. My room has no TV and I wanted to watch movies late-night without waking up the rest of my family. I researched for a very long time as to which DVD-ROM drive is best for a fairly slow computer (Pentium Pro 200, 32 MB RAM). I decided to go with the Creative Labs DVD-ROM 5x with the DxR2 decoder card. I've owned it for around a year and it hasn't given me any problems.
First, a little about watching movies on DVD-ROMs. DVD movies are of file type MPEG-2, a high-resolution. They require lots of space so much of it is encoded. To watch the movie, the MPEG-2 file must be decoded. If you have a slow system (like mine), you will need a decoder card to help the computer decode the movie, unless you like herky-jerky stop and go movies that sputter. If you don't have a decoder card, the decoding is left completely up to your CPU and software. This isn't a problem if you have a fairly powerful system, say, above 400MHz or so. However, if you have a decoder card, most of the decoding is done in the card itself, freeing up CPU clock cycles and producing silky smooth results.
I'm no audio expert, so when I hear things like Dolby AC-3 and such, it basically goes in one ear and out the other so I can't comment about the special features of this drive. However, installation was fairly easy, although I had problems connecting wires in my small, cramped computer. The software installed effortlessly. Movies show up brilliantly and with very little fuss. One feature looked over with this drive is that it is also a 32x CD-ROM drive. The laser in the drive itself is very high-quality, which means that MP3's ripped from my CD's come out sharp and without any clicks. Another upside to this drive is its easily-breakable region coding, which normally limits you to watching movies from Region 1 (North America). If you buy any DVD's from Hong Kong or Japan or Europe, you're usually out of luck, but with the use of a program and a firmware upgrade, both of which are easy to install, you can watch DVD's from anywhere. However, I will not recommend that you do so, since there is a small chance that if you don't know what you're doing you can screw up your drive. If you are adamant about doing it, go ahead and try it out.
Overall, the DVD-ROM and decoder card are both highly-reliable, give good performance, and are easy to install.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
skunkworks
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Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 14
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