Minimum requirements for DVD-ROM

[Guest]

I was recently watching a DVD movie on a friend's laptop and found that the picture would frequently mess up. If I paused the DVD for half a minute or so, that would generally clear up the problem for another 15 minutes or so. My friend said it was due to the CPU being overheated, yet the laptop had just been turned on solely to watch the DVD.

Are there some minimum requirements (i.e. processor speed, DVD-speed, graphics card, etc.) that would avoid such problems with a DVD? After all, if I invest the money in a new computer system, the least I would expect is to be able to play DVD videos without having to pause so frequently.

 

[yoda271828]

That's probably due to a slow laptop processor. To play a DVD without dropping frames you need a fast CPU, or a hardware DVD decoder. You should have no problem playing a DVD on a new computer (I'm assuming you wouldn't buy anything slower than 700Mhz).

 

[Arrow]

If it's a modern computer, there's no need to get a decoder card, so save the money.

Rob
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[Guest]

Yes I agree you dont need a hardware decoder If you have a half decent computer. I had smooth dvd playback on a old K6 3 400!! with software decoder. Just be sure you buy a decent dvd rom drive and have a half decent vid card. like at least a Matrox G200 era card will do anything older will probably get jerky playback. You will need to make sure DMA is turned on on the dvd rom as well.

 

[Guest]

DVD's would play smoothly on the original PIII (Katmai) so I guess you would definitely need a 500 Mhz CPU or faster if you're not using a decoder card.

 

[Arrow]

I believe that DVD should run okay without decoder on a processor that's at least a 300~something mhz.

Rob
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