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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JEFF K who wrote (36027)	9/17/1998 2:10:00 PM
From: DiViT	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

ComputerShopper says no to SoftDVD... zdnet.com And let's not forget optical storage. You'll definitely want a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive; the latter can read CD-ROMs, but not as fast as the fastest CD-ROM drives. In its favor, a DVD-ROM drive will allow you to play DVD movies on your system. DVD-ROM software titles are still scarce, but more will be available by the end of the year. When purchasing a system with a DVD-ROM drive, be sure to ask whether the system has MPEG-2 hardware support or if it uses a software driver to decode the MPEG-2 video. A software driver may be able to provide adequate MPEG-2 video playback when combined with a fast processor, but there won't be a lot of processor power left for other CPU-intensive tasks. Also, a software driver might not be able to effectively decode the MPEG-2 video and provide full Digital Dolby surround-sound audio at the same time. Play it safe: Don't purchase a DVD-equipped PC that uses software-based MPEG-2 decoding.

To: JEFF K who wrote (36027)	9/17/1998 2:10:00 PM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Play it safe: Don't purchase a DVD-equipped PC that uses software-based MPEG-2 decoding. zdnet.com PCs Take The Fast Track (Continued) Originally published in the October 1998 issue Drive Ways Just as you can't assume that 64MB of memory will suffice for the life of your computer, don't assume that a 4GB or 6GB hard drive will survive the inevitable increase in application size. Some applications now require a 300MB installation, and with DVD-ROM entering the picture, expect that figure to jump to 500MB and beyond. If you can pay $100 to $300 to upgrade to a 10GB to 16GB drive, it might be the best money you'll spend. That size might seem ridiculously large, but a 3GB drive seemed equally far-fetched just two years ago. Most midrange and high-priced desktops include an EIDE hard drive, usually supporting the Ultra DMA spec (also called Ultra ATA), which should satisfy most purposes. If you're working with large image, video, or audio files, or plan to run Windows NT, consider stepping up to a SCSI drive for additional throughput and more robust performance when multitasking. Ultra2 SCSI drives furnish a maximum transfer rate of 80MB/sec, compared with 16.6MB/sec and 33.3MB/sec for standard EIDE and Ultra DMA drives, respectively. However, you will pay a steep price for the extra speed--SCSI drives can cost as much as 10 cents a megabyte, as opposed to 3 cents a megabyte for EIDE drives. Next year, the performance gap should narrow between EIDE and SCSI hard drives--Ultra ATA/66 drives will be able move data as fast as 66MB/sec. And let's not forget optical storage. You'll definitely want a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive; the latter can read CD-ROMs, but not as fast as the fastest CD-ROM drives. In its favor, a DVD-ROM drive will allow you to play DVD movies on your system. DVD-ROM software titles are still scarce, but more will be available by the end of the year. When purchasing a system with a DVD-ROM drive, be sure to ask whether the system has MPEG-2 hardware support or if it uses a software driver to decode the MPEG-2 video. A software driver may be able to provide adequate MPEG-2 video playback when combined with a fast processor, but there won't be a lot of processor power left for other CPU-intensive tasks. Also, a software driver might not be able to effectively decode the MPEG-2 video and provide full Digital Dolby surround-sound audio at the same time. Play it safe: Don't purchase a DVD-equipped PC that uses software-based MPEG-2 decoding. Keep in mind that DVD still suffers from several drawbacks. Most important, several rewritable-DVD formats are currently jockeying for position, including DVD-RAM (2GB per disc side, supported by the DVD Forum), DVD+RW (3GB per side, supported by HP, Philips, and Sony Electronics), and DVD-R/W (3.95GB per side, supported by Pioneer New Media Technologies). Some of these drives can't read standard DVD-ROMs, so you should definitely ask about the drive's compatible formats before you buy. If you want to keep it fast and simple, opt for a CD-ROM drive instead, with a minimum transfer rate of 24x. Remember that any rating beyond 16x is a maximum rating--it's not a throughput that can be sustained--and will have more of an effect on performance for copying files and installing software than running games or training applications. Also consider a CD-Recordable (CD-R) or CD-Rewritable (CD-RW) drive, which will let you copy data to write-once or rewritable discs. Almost all CD-R and CD-RW drives are able to read CD-ROMs, but ask to be sure. Extra-large hard drives can be an extra-large headache when the time comes to back up your data. For example, some models of the Dell Dimension XPS R400 ship with a 16.8GB Ultra ATA hard drive, which will not fit on most backup tapes. Using two or more tapes makes it difficult to perform automatic overnight backups. Even DAT tapes can't handle some of today's larger hard drives. Look for new generations of tape formats that promise to break through the 100GB barrier, including the 20GB DDS-4 (essentially an improved DAT), a 50GB version of Sony's Advanced Intelligent Tape (AIT) format, and--in 1999--a new architecture named Linear Tape Open (LTO).