If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
"codec" for Samsung CD-R/RW DVD drive
I installed a Samsung SM-352B combo drive on my Dell
XPS-R450, and it reads CDs fine. I haven't installed any other software, but I assume it writes CDs OK, too. But... when I try to run a DVD, an error message pops up that says something about no compatible DVD codec. Is this "DVD codec" a piece of hardware or software? I was under the impression that no hardware was needed in conjunction with this unit to enable displaying DVDs. If so, where does one get the software codec? Or is that ancient PCI card that came with the early 1999 Toshiba DVD-ROM player in my Dell Dimension still needed as the codec? FranklinWright |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
"Franklin Wright" wrote:
I installed a Samsung SM-352B combo drive on my Dell XPS-R450, and it reads CDs fine. I haven't installed any other software, but I assume it writes CDs OK, too. But... when I try to run a DVD, an error message pops up that says something about no compatible DVD codec. Is this "DVD codec" a piece of hardware or software? Well, I got an automated reply from Samsung saying to try calling their tech support line at 1(800) SAMSUNG, and lo and behold, it was manned by.... an American!! - in Illinois, where it was around 2:35 a.m., Sunday morning! It seems the Samsung tech support is available 24/7 - amazing! Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! FranklinWright |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
"Franklin Wright" wrote in news:zlrkb.2422
: Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your player. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
"Theo" wrote: "Franklin Wright" wrote: Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your player. Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs? FranklinWright |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
No. DVD decoder boards do, but most of those are gone -- use the software
decoder. "Franklin Wright" wrote in message ink.net... "Theo" wrote: "Franklin Wright" wrote: Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your player. Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs? FranklinWright |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
ink.net "Theo" wrote: "Franklin Wright" wrote: Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your player. Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs? Codecs (coder/decoder's)are required to playback (or record) the many different media types. DVD video is encoded in MPEG2, so an MPEG2 codec is needed for playback. Other different codecs are required to playback DIVX movies, mp3 or wma audio files, etc. There are probably hundreds of codecs: http://www.siggraph.org/education/ma...cs/Default.htm http://www.fourcc.org/indexcod.htm http://www.codec-download.com/module...name=Downloads |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
ink.net... "Theo" wrote: "Franklin Wright" wrote: Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD" (of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief! Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your player. Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs? FranklinWright Way back when DVD-ROM drives were just beginning to be popular, people who already had a PC could buy a "DVD Kit" that had a DVD-ROM drive, and a PCI card, an MPEG-2 decoder board. Since DVDs have high bitrate MPEG-2 (its the high bitrate that gives it the quality, and because of that also needs so many GBs of space on a disc, and for some longer movies 9.4GB isnt enough and it has to go to two discs, ie, Godfather II etc.), it would be far too much for the PC to handle on its own, so the MPEG-2 decoder board would take the encoded MPEG-2 from the DVD and decode it, so the PC can display it. Nowadays, though, the CPU is fast enough to decode MPEG-2 all by itself. It takes about 700MHz to do this reliably, and at the time, there were many people who only had 300, 400, even 500MHz CPUs that couldn't decode the MPEG-2 by itself. Therefore, these MPEG-2 decoder boards are completly useless in a modern PC, so they aren't used. As to the DVD-R/W (or DVD+R/W for that matter), they also do *not* require one of these boards. If someone is so inclined, they can buy a TV tuner for their PC, so that they can not just watch TV, but also record it. With many pieces of software, it is an option to record directly to MPEG-2, DVD compatible format, so it can be burned onto DVD. It is far more demanding for a PC to encode the video to MPEG-2 than it is to decode the MPEG-2. Therefore, many of the high-end TV tuners have on-board MPEG-2 Encoder chips. These are *not* a seperate board, but are built right into the TV tuner board. I have a 1200MHz PC and a TV tuner, and I cannot encode MPEG-2 directly from the TV without dropping frames, if I choose a resolution that is almost DVD. (DVD has 720x480, the resolution my software allows is 640x480, which shouldn't work when I burn it to DVD). So, even with a 1200MHz that is quite capable of playing back MPEG-2, I can't encode it in real time. So, if I record TV it has to be in the older Video CD (VCD) standard which is the older MPEG-1, at half the resolution of DVD, which would be 352x240. It also has a lower bitrate, and actually manages to fit audio & video in the same space as an audio CD fits just audio (ie an 80minute CD-R can record 80 minutes of VCD files). Hope I haven't further confused you |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
"Anonymous Joe" wrote: Way back when DVD-ROM drives were just beginning to be popular, people who already had a PC could buy a "DVD Kit" that had a DVD-ROM drive, and a PCI card, an MPEG-2 decoder board.... Yup, my Dell Dimension with a 450Hz Pentium II came with a DVD PCI card for use with the DVD-ROM drive. Nowadays, though, the CPU is fast enough to decode MPEG-2 all by itself. It takes about 700MHz to do this reliably, and at the time, there were many people who only had 300, 400, even 500MHz CPUs that couldn't decode the MPEG-2 by itself. The same 450MHz PII in my Dell Dimension handles the MPEG-2 decoding for my Samsung CD-R/RW DVD ROM combo nicely. I don't know about doing anything else while that is going on, though. The reason for my original question about whether the codec was software or hardware was because the minimal setup instructions didn't say that the CD labeled "PowerDVD" contained the software codec. For all I could tell, it was DVD editing software. Fortunately, I thought, I still had the old PCI card DVD codec and I wondered if I should put that back in the ol' PC. Turned out it wasn't necessary. FranklinWright |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
The same 450MHz PII in my Dell Dimension handles
the MPEG-2 decoding for my Samsung CD-R/RW DVD ROM combo nicely. I don't know about doing anything else while that is going on, though. FranklinWright I have a self built 600MHZ Athlon system that easily plays movies just through Power DVD while running quite a number of large programs in the background, including AOL 9 which I am using to write this. I always thought the DVD playing a movie would be a real drag to my older system but it handles it very easily with not much drain at all on resources. Try opening up some big programs and see how yours does. |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
"Franklin Wright" wrote in message k.net... The reason for my original question about whether the codec was software or hardware was because the minimal setup instructions didn't say that the CD labeled "PowerDVD" contained the software codec. For all I could tell, it was DVD editing software. Fortunately, I thought, I still had the old PCI card DVD codec and I wondered if I should put that back in the ol' PC. Turned out it wasn't necessary. They just told you to install PowerDVD because if they said. "Install the MPG2 codec" you would have said "What?" So they simply told you to install software what would automatically install the proper codecs on your computer. Power DVD will also recognize and play DVD's. It gets complicated, but the short explanation is that video is encoded in a variety of formats. In order for your computer to play that format, it must have the proper software installed to decode it back not viewable video. That piece of software is called a "Codec". Common formats are. MPG1, MPG2, MOV (quicktime), AVI (both generic and DIVX) WMA (windows media) RM (Real Media) and DV (raw uncompressed digital video) As people posted before, the Codec's were often in the past encoded directly onto video capture cards. This was because they could create a dedicated card to convert raw DV into a compressed format. (Raw DV will consume approx a Gig of space for every 5 min of video.) A card dedicated to doing one thing will do it alot better than a computer that designed to do many things. But, as people has said, todays processor speeds make a software solution far cheaper today. Todays encoders availabe for consumer use can process uncompressed DV into high quality MPG2 video at almost real time speeds. For example, I recently encoded a 6gig, 30 Min raw DV into a 500MB very high quality MPG2. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Installing an Old Harddrive? | Zip | General | 41 | January 12th 05 03:19 AM |
Question about transfer speeds between HDs, and DMA mode | ZigZag Master | Overclocking AMD Processors | 25 | July 25th 04 09:56 PM |
current/voltage peak: HD & PD drive dead | ~misfit~ | General | 7 | May 15th 04 08:21 PM |
How Move OS XP from Old to New HD? | Nehmo Sergheyev | Homebuilt PC's | 80 | January 12th 04 05:10 PM |
Multi-boot Windows XP without special software | Timothy Daniels | General | 11 | December 12th 03 05:38 AM |