Why DVD?
DVD drives, like other technology, can be a confusing and sometimes be thought of as a non-important consideration. Below is some insight to why a DVD drive may be important as well as different considerations to look at when purchasing a DVD drive.
Why DVD? DVD by many is thought as just a solution for users to watch movies on their personal computers. While for many individuals this may be enough, it is important to also look at the factor that DVD is now being used in games or data DVDs, such as an encyclopedia. DVD prevents the user from having to switch between different CDs and instead places all the data on one DVD.
Decoding
Software vs. Hardware For the purposes of watching DVD movies on the computer, you must consider the two below possibilities for decoding the DVD movie.
Hardware - Hardware decoding requires an additional card, called an MPEG card, be installed into the computer. This card allows for the movie to be mainly decoded with that card and not software / CPU. This means other things can be done as you are watching the movie. However, this is the more expensive solution verses software, and requires additional system resources (IRQ/DMA).
In addition, MPEG cards will also give users the capability of connecting external video to the computer, allowing the computer to function as a DVD player for your home entertainment system.
Software - Software decoding requires a software program and the CPU to be used to handle the decoding of the DVD movie. This solution is generally a cheaper solution but requires complete access to the computer, and in some cases users with processors lower than 200MHz on an IBM computer to notice poor quality video.
