I love science fiction, but everybody doesn't sahre my passion, so this page will be about DVD tech.

Informatics DVD are  rare, there's some games on DVD, you will find a recap of computer 's DVD player. Those players can be of interest because you can use it for home. You can read movie DVD.

    How DVD looks like ?

    It's a DVD player (of course) and a CD Rom player. So like CD Rom player they can be found in IDE and SCSI interface.

    IDE means Integrated Device Electronics, it stands in the peripheral itself, now controler are integrated in mother board to be in conformity with the PC/AT standard adopted by IBM (the standard is conform to the Western Digital ST-506 rule). An IDE controler can handle 2 peripherals, they are called Master and Slave, the master has priority upon the slave during data transmission. On a PC you have two IDE controlers (primary and secondary) for a total of 4 IDE peripherals in your computer.

    SCSI means Small Computer System Interface, this standard has been defined by the american commitee ANSI (American National Standard Institute). We talk about SCSI chain, because you can put 7 peripherals on a SCSI connector. Few motherboards integrate SCSI controler. In order to complicate things there are multiple standards : SCSI, SCSI2, Fast SCSI, ULTRA SCSI, ULTRA WIDE SCSI3, ULTRA2 WIDE SCSI 3. The tuning of an SCSI chains is complicated. With the great numbers of peripherals, each of them has an number (ID), only one peripheral can transmit data to the controler, priority go to the peripheral with the higher ID.

    Advantage of SCSI upon IDE : tranfert speed up to 80 MO/s for U2WSCSI3 to 33 MO/s for E-IDE UDMA (Ultra direct Access Memory), thus it does not take all the processor's time. But SCSI is in all its version more expensive than IDE. I must recall here that it's only a theorical transfert rate, almost never reached. Best rate I have measured is 15 MO/s (IBM 14.4 Go 7200 Rpm) and 20 MO/s (Seagate Cheetah 10000 Rpm) on a SCSI one.

   So back to the main topics : How DVD looks ? Well from outside, it looks like a CD Rom player. So it's plugged like one depending on the interface. So you must have a free slot in your SCSI or IDE chain. And don't forget about a power plug in your PC and a 5 1/4 bay in your tower.

    In a SCSI chain, no matter th ID you give to your DVD, when you're watching a movie you do nothing else. But with IDE you can experiment problem due to access to virtual memory, so if you have choice, leave it alone in master mode on the secondary bus. To increase performance install the busmaster drivers for your PCI controler of your mother board (Power DVD ask you during installation), because IDE controlers are placed on a PCI card even if you can't see it because it's integrated in your mother board.

    Now that you have the informations on it's installation

    How to choose a DVD ?

    The first question is the mark and what about an MPEG2 card ?

    Well, that depends on your configuration, if you have a little one (lower than PII266, AGP card 8 Mb), turn on solution DVD + MPEG2 card. I've seen Impossible Mission on a P200 MMX 64MO SD Ram and Matrox Mystique 4 Mb, it's really slow when there's lot's of actions (15 to 18 fps max).

    The solution I recommand you is DVD Creative Kit DXR2 2x or 5x. It's the best choice for multi zone.

    What about zone : someone somewhere has decided that DVD must be encoded depending on their geographical zone. Why ? To avoid little french men to see Scream2 3 month before it's in the Theater (when you see it this way, you can undestand, producer have to make money to drive in a Mercedes SLK Kompressor). Well let's get back to technic, the entire world has been cut in 6 zones (like in Yalta), US and Canada is zone 1 and we the European are in Zone 2). Actually we can't read DVD from another zone than ours. It's theory only, because you can go over this limitation (including with Home DVD).

    Most of the computer's DVD player does not include a zone definition (except in Creative DVD Encore 2x and 5x). It is defined by sofware you use to read the DVD or by the MPEG2 card. The ATI DVD player (which you can use even if you don't have an ATI) ask you about the zone during setup, then it warns you that you have only 4 changes left. And then, just reinstall the software to reset the counter. Power DVD from Cyberlink (the soft I'm using) never ask me anything so I can read DVD from zone 1 and 2. You can experiment problem with the Cinemaster card because the encoding is directly on the card itself. For the special case of the Creative, the encoding is in the firmware, but changes are limited to 3 times or 4 on the 5x. Changes are made by software, you can find on the internet a little program to overcome the limit of 3 or 4 times putting the limit to 1 000 000 times. This program also exist for the 5x but the method is quite different.

    Let's resume :

    Little PC (<PII266) : DVD plus MPEG 2 card (Creative 2x or 5x)

    Big PC (PII266 with AGP card 8 Mb) : DVD player only if you want. On my computer I notice some slow down in 800*600 (which are getting bigger in 1024*768), I have nearly 22/23 fps with PII266, 64Mb, ATI Xpert Work  4Mb and Pioneer SCSI DVD. It's better with 8 Mb (problem only in 1024*768). And even better with ATI player using ATI DVD playback specification. The best solution is to have a card which can do hardware DVD playback like ATI Xpert Work/Play, All in Wonder, 128.

    What about the mark :

    The Creative has the advantage to be the cheaper in kit package. So let's compare the performances.

    First of all, choose only 2nd generation DVD (2x for DVD and 20x for CD Rom ) or 3rd (5x for DVD and 32x for CD Rom). I prefer the Pioneer because it's Slot In and is the only one with a SCSI interface.

    If you live in the USA, you don't care about how to get zone 1 DVD. So you can split the next section.

    Where to get zone 1 DVD.

    If you come in France you can go to

CinéLaser : 40 rue de Lyon Paris XII. You have several of them so just check out through the Minitel 3611

FNAC : avenue des Champs Elysées Paris VIII M° Franklin Roosevelt or Georges V - Best Choice but only this one.

    From everywhere now :

DVD Express : a US site, lot's of ordering formula (from the most simple to UPS or Fed Ex)

Another US site : DVD Empire, looks very similar to DVD express..

A french site : Espace DVD  No secured internet payment yet, but if you're member of the European Union, no problem, and remember that you're under the protection of the European right.