Anyone got any suggestions for EDI.

Anyone using Asus or Aopen DVD 1040-Pro or something that works well with old computers - lets have your comments before I waste my money!

Hardware decoder is the RealMagic Hollywood Plus.

Thanks

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), February 09, 2000

Answers

You need a Pentium 166mhz with MMX to run hardware decoding beautifully. If your PC is a 150mhz Pentium or lower, forget it. It used to be that 133mhz Pentiums and above would get away with hardware decoding but the software and hardware has changed and the PC requirement was increased.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.

Thanks Lone Ranger,

Mattias, a poster on this site, has the board and uses a 233mmx (same as mine) as a development PC so I was aware of the specs and the fact that it runs beautifully.

I am a little more interested in what DVD and the two I listed are available here in Australia and I wondered what I should be looking for because not all the stuff you guys get in the States ever reaches us down-under and $50US (80 Australian) handling means we need to think about it or find a groug to get the costs down - not as easy as you guys have it.

The 1040 is a re-badged Pioneer apparently (104 I think), any commenmts?

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), February 09, 2000.

So long as you can do hardware decoding, then the addition of any DVD- Rom will be just fine. In fact, you can add a DVD-Rom to any older PC and use it to access CDs. DVD-Roms usually read CD Data at about 4x- 12x speed.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), February 09, 2000.

Lone Ranger, can I assume the same sort of R & RW problems donot exist on the computer versions like there is with the set tops. I would hate to spend the money and find my home brew cd-r's will not play and its a bit hard to go to a computer shop and try them, well maybe not.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), February 11, 2000.

All second generation and above DVD Roms will acces CD-R and CD-RW just fine. First generation ones which are phased out and no longer available could not.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), February 11, 2000.

The limitations with Pioneer 104 and 103 or any of their clones, Asus included, have more to do with region coding than anything else. I hear these drives are locked to one region, as opposed to older models that are not. Of course if you do not intend to play movie DVDs on them as a main thing then this is not a big issue.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), February 12, 2000.

Thanks guys finally went 10x Pioneer 114, hope that performs instead of a clone????????

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), February 16, 2000.