Recomendations On a Hardware Decoder card?

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  • Bing Fung
    Ultra Senior Member
    • Aug 2000
    • 6521

    Recomendations On a Hardware Decoder card?

    Hi all,

    I have a friend who is experiancing problems with his low level HTPC since installing Win 2K.

    He is now looking for a Hardware decoder card, What would you recommend, the Hollywood?

    I beleive his system to be:

    800Mhz Athalon
    Matrox G400 max
    Was using Cinimaster DVD playe, but now needs to upgrade $75 for the new W2K driver.

    Power DVD does not seem to work anymore as he has tried to un-install and re-install.


    Abandoning W2K is not an option :B

    Suggestions...?




    Bing
    Bing
  • JonMarsh
    Mad Max Moderator
    • Aug 2000
    • 15261

    #2
    WIN2k is something of a problem for DVD, partly because it is really WINNT 5.0, and doesn't allow direct writes to hardware, and a lot of stuff still isn't supported in multimedia. Among those are Dolby Digital SPDIF output.

    The existing "hardware" decoders may not work at all under NT, for much the same reasons. The boards like the Hollywood Plus are reasonable if you have a low power CPU, and only want to drive a TV with S-Video. They aren't good for high res systems, because they use chroma key overlay with a pass through, and there are syncing and jitter noise issues as the playback resolution rises, such as would be the case for an HDTV setup or FPTV. What is your friend driving? Why is WIN2K a must? Is he using this PC for "everything", and he's chosen WIN2K for his main operating system? It's fine for business and design tasks, but for multimedia, it still has some issues. Also, no video cards support custom resolutions under WIN2K, such as you need or want with HDTV sets or FPTV setups for 16X9.

    More info, and maybe I can make better suggestions. A $75 dollar upgrade for a new driver/player compatible with WIN2K is certainly competitive with the cost of a hardware decoder board.

    Regards,

    Jon




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    • rlabarge
      Member
      • Jan 2001
      • 67

      #3
      Windows 2000 is actually more DVD friendly than Windows NT 4.0, but not as friendly as Windows 98, or even Windows Me.

      The Sigma Designs Hollywood+ decoder card is one of the best consumer boards available and it does have Windows 2000 drivers. You can download the drivers from:

      http://www.sigmadesigns.com/support/download_hollywood_plus_win2000.htm

      The current version of the Creative Labs Encore board is actually an OEM version of the Hollywood + card so you can also get it to work under Windows 2000, but you may have to use the Sigma drivers. Creative is pretty slow about releasing new drivers.




      Ralph LaBarge
      Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
      Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
      rlabarge@alphadvd.com
      Ralph LaBarge
      Managing Partner, Alpha DVD
      Author, "DVD Authoring & Production"
      rlabarge@alphadvd.com

      Comment

      • Bing Fung
        Ultra Senior Member
        • Aug 2000
        • 6521

        #4
        Thanks Guys!

        He is using it to output to his 32" Sony. It is a everyday PC and not dedicated to HTPC use only, thus the Win2K.




        Bing
        Bing

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