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Price $39.00
It's time to get a DVD player for your computer. They are now as cheap as what you paid for a normal CD-ROM player just a couple years ago. The DVD disk drive will take care of your CD-ROM duties along with playing DVD movies or running applications from DVD disks. I know not much has come out on DVD disks for computing, but why be the last one to be ready with prices as low as they are for a DVD player?
Along with a DVD player you will need some way to decode the information on the disk to watch movies. Movies take up a lot of digital space even for a DVD disk, so a compression process was devised to be able to fit everything on these little platters. Depending on the processing power of your computer you may have to buy a hardware decoder card. If your computer has the speed, you will be able to use a sotware solution. You may get a decoder application with your DVD or you may have one that came with your video card. If not, take a look at MGI SoftDVD MAX. MGI has come out with version 4 of SoftDVD MAX to handle DVD duties. The minimum requirements for using SoftDVD MAX are still quite high for those who haven't upgraded to a newer computer in a while. There is quite a detailed minimum requirement published for using this product. The operating systems it will work with are Microsoft's Windows 98 and Windows 2000. To keep it simple, be sure you have at least a 400MHz processor, 64MB of memory and one of the newer video cards installed on your system. Check MGI's web-pages or the box at the store for more details. Some video cards have what is called Hardware Motion Compensation (HWMC) and can help lower the minimum requirements somewhat.
Installation was quite easy. The program comes with an exclusive feature called SoftDVD AutoSense which will find your hardware sound, video and processor to correctly set itself up. I had a chance to install the program on the Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 Professional operating systems. I used the same computer with different hard drives. The setup was:
Windows 98SE or Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 1
Abit VT6X4 Slot 1 Mother Board
Pentium 3 800e Coppermine processor
256MB CAS2 100MHz SDRAM
Maxtor 20GB or 30GB 7200rpm hard drives
Asus AGP V7100 GeForce2 MX
32MB video card
Creative Sound Blaster Live Value audio card
Toshiba SD-M1042 12X DVD-ROM player
ViewSonic 17" P775 monitor.
With Windows 98SE I was using the 20GB hard drive and the 30GB was used with Windows 2000 Pro. Otherwise, the setup was the same except for driver versions for some of the hardware because of the differences in the operating systems.
MGI has made a pretty good product with the SoftDVD MAX decoder software. The controls come to the screen with a graphic of a normal control panel such as on the front of a stand alone DVD player, or they will pop up with a right mouse click on the picture you're viewing. There is fast forward, rewind, pause, and slow motion among others to choose from. I found the fast forward and rewind to be a bit disconcerting. Instead of speeding up or backing up smoothly, the video would jump ahead or backwards in spurts while using these controls. I'll credit MGI with a nice touch in that you can vary the speeds by 2x, 4x, or 8x by continuing to click the mouse on the appropriate graphical button. Color and brightness can also be controlled with this program if your system allows it. Mine didn't, so I had to use the built in monitor controls on the front of my monitor or use the software controls with my video card. Actually, this decoder program did a good job in the color department so I didn't feel I needed to change this. I was subject to a somewhat darker and less contrasted picture than I was used to with the Realmagic Hollywood Plus DVD decoder card and used the contrast adjustments found on my monitor.
I was generally satisfied with the picture when I watched on my computer monitor. I was also able to view the DVD picture on my 27 inch TV using the S-video cord and RCA audio cords. The output was superior to the monitor but very watchable on the TV. In fact, the DVD on the TV was much better than normal VHS tape.
Sound on DVDs is about as good as it gets. Depending on your hardware, you can get stereo or surround sound output. An interesting addition with SoftDVD MAX version 4.0 is the ability to get Dolby 5.1 SurroundSound with ordinary stereo headphones. I do listen to movies with headphones occasionally, so I tried it. There is a marked difference from normal stereo with this experience. Of course, read the box first. It takes extra computing horsepower to use this feature.
So, is it worth the bucks? I think if you are in need of a DVD decoder program and don't want to shell out the money for a hardware solution this product will fit your needs and then some. I was more impressed with the sound capabilities than the video output, but I'm sure that the video is somewhat dependent on your VGA video card so variations from machine to machine will be evident.
Copyright © April, 2001 by Paul Cooper
Product Information:
SoftDVD MAX version 4.0
MSRP $39.00
MGI Software Corp.
2105 South Bascom Ave.
Ste. 300
Campbell, California 95008
Phone: 408-961-6200
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