Multimedia Add-Ons
06/01/98
Computer Shopper
Page 501
(COPYRIGHT 1998 Ziff Davis Publishing Company) Copyright 1998 Information Access Company. All rights reserved.
CD-ROM Basics: Plunging CD-ROM drive prices mean you should settle for nothing slower than a 20x or 24x--if not a 32x--player. Desktop users will find that internal drives with EIDE interfaces cost less than drives with external cases, SCSI interfaces, or both. Look for at least a 128K onboard buffer.
The Case for DVD: DVD is an increasingly compelling alternative to CD-ROM because of its whopping capacity--4.7GB per disc side per layer--and because a DVD-ROM drive, when paired with a hardware or software DVD decoder, plays DVD movie titles.
Upgrading to DVD: Aside from buying a system that comes preconfigured, the easiest way to add DVD capability is via an upgrade kit--which should include both the DVD-ROM drive and an MPEG -2 decoder board. (Note that most DVD kits will need at least a Pentium 133MHz; the PCI bus in anything less will likely be too slow.)
DVD Checklist: Before investing in a DVD upgrade, check whether the drive can read both single- and double-layer DVD discs, and whether it can read CD-R and CD-RW in addition to CD-ROM and CD audio discs. Ask, too, whether the drive supports 1x (1,250K/sec) or 2x speeds; either is sufficient for DVD movie playback, but the latter may improve performance with DVD-ROM titles under certain conditions.
Decoding DVD: For the kit's decoder board, check for critical parameters such as its maximum display resolution and refresh rate, and important features such as support for copy-protection schemes and the ability to drive a computer monitor and TV at the same time.
Decoder Card Specifics: Check whether the board requires a graphics card with DirectX support, hardware video acceleration, or specific audio or video connectors. Give points to one that offers a variety of video-output formats, including VGA-compliant RGB, NTSC composite, and S-Video. It should also output both analog and Dolby Digital-ready S/PDIF digital audio, and be able to mix audio input from both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. Virtually all employ PCI bus-mastering architectures, but each uses any of three methods (see below) to input data from the graphics card and route output to display devices. Be sure any board you buy can handle your favorite video settings.
Option #1: Some decoders use the PCI bus for data streams coming to and being fired from your graphics adapter. This simplifies card design and eliminates the need for external cabling, but it crowds the bus and saddles the graphics card with video-acceleration and -scaling tasks.
Option #2: Analog overlay boards connect to your graphics card and monitor via external shielded cables, and create the fewest conflicts since they transfer only standard uncompressed VGA and NTSC video. While slightly more expensive, these are good choices for systems with older processors.
Option #3: Digital inlay boards use an internal bus to transfer digital video between decoder and graphics card. If you own a late-model graphics card, this can eliminate external connections, besides a standard monitor cable, without burdening the PCI bus. But more is required of your graphics card, which can lead to conflicts and affect output quality. Before buying an inlay card, ask the manufacturer how well it will work with your particular graphics card and CPU.
A Soft Solution: A new breed of software decoding systems do away with the board altogether, but picture quality will depend on your CPU and graphics card. Note that even with a 266MHz Pentium II, decoding an MPEG -2 video stream can consume nearly 100 percent of CPU resources.
PCI Sounds Better: The old 8MHz, 16-bit ISA bus's days are numbered. A new PCI audio card is not only more likely to be usable in the next system you buy, but it's a better buy than an ISA card, thanks to the better performance offered by the 33MHz, 32-bit PCI bus. Many PCI sound cards are fast enough to cut costs by forgoing the onboard memory used to hold ISA cards' wavetable samples, loading patch sets instead into system RAM.
Gamers' Concerns: If keeping current with gaming technology is important to you, look for a card that supports DirectSound 3D positional audio. If backward compatibility with old DOS games is high on your priority list, look for a PCI sound card that's fully compatible with the original Creative Labs Sound Blaster standard for games that must boot and run under DOS, or that supports real-mode DOS operation through a capability like Distributed DMA (DDMA).
Listen Up: Your ears are the best judge of PC speakers, but don't ignore checklist features such as multiple audio inputs, conveniently situated controls, and an automuting headphone jack. Built-in magnetic shielding is a requirement for all contenders. You should also order from a vendor with a liberal return policy since you won't know whether you like the speakers' sound until you try them out.
Speakers to Suit DVD: If you'll be playing DVD movies, you may want to take advantage of the format's Dolby Digital Surround Sound (formerly known as AC-3 Digital Surround Sound). But reaching this acoustic nirvana is no slight (or cheap) undertaking: You'll need to connect the MPEG -2 decoder's AC-3 output to an outboard surround-sound processor or stereo receiver with Dolby Digital circuitry. You will also need extra speakers to take advantage of six-channel sound.
Kits Can Add It All: A multimedia upgrade kit can provide an integrated, easy-to-install upgrade solution, but you must assess each component of a kit as carefully as if you were buying it separately. Watch for cut corners, especially subpar speakers or closeout-special CD-ROM discs.
Multimedia to Go: Most notebooks nowadays provide CD-ROM drives, stereo sound, and audio-out jacks (for plugging in replacements for their tiny, tinny internal speakers). With some lightweight models, the CD-ROM drive is part of a detachable base or docking module. Avoid media modules that operate only on AC power and external CD-ROM drives that have slow parallel-port interfaces.
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