ATI All-in-Wonder Pro update - June 1998
Summary: Returned DVD-Encore, looking for video card with DVD playback capability.
Jan 1998
I recently tried a Creative Labs DVD-Encore bundle. I was looking for a computer-based DVD player since I have an Electrohome ECP-3000 front-screen projector. It is capable of displaying 1024x768 non-interlaced output from its RGB input. It also has S-vid and composite NTSC input, but NTSC is only 512-line interlaced display. My belief is that a computer DVD player/decoder combo will give better quality picture than a stand-alone DVD + line-doubler, at a fraction of the cost.
I purchased the DVD-Encore kit since the drive is able to read recordable (gold) CD's (saving me the trouble of keeping a regular CD-ROM in the computer along with the DVD). It was also reasonably priced at around $500CDN. It comes with a PCI DVD decoder card. The DVD-ROM drive is an IDE device and plugs into your existing IDE controller (the DVD decoder card does not have an IDE interface). The Decoder card has an internal audo out connector that goes to your existing sound car, as well as external connectors for VGA pass-thru and a proprietary combined S-vid and composite connector that uses an included y-cable that splits out to a standard S-vid male DIN and RCA for composite.
The unit was relatively easy to hook up. I installed the card, DVD-ROM, and hooked up the audo cable to my sound card's internal audio in connector. I initially hooked up the projector via RCA composite since at the time I didn't have a VGA->RGB cable. I couldn't use the S-vid since the cable wasn't long enough (I had a 5m S-vid cable but since the DVD-Encore's cable had male S-vid on the end I'd need a S-vid coupler which seemed hard to find).
My first problem was that before getting the Encore I was using my VGA card's S-vid tv out to connect to the projector (remember I didn't have a VGA->RGB cable). The Encore has VGA in/out but no S-vid in/out. So initally I had to switch between my projectors S-vid and RCA inputs to see the Windows desktop and the DVD output. This sucks. The DVD playing must be controlled through the windows software, and there is no on-screen menus on the DVD output.
So I got a VGA-RGB cable ($50 CDN), and I plugged my existing VGA card's video out to the DVD-decoder cards video in and plugged the DVD-decoder VGA out to my projector. Set windows for 640x480, 16-bit color (planned to try 8x6 later) and loaded up the included Wing Commander DVD. The output was *rock solid* and looked better than any home video I had seen before (i.e. laserdisk + line-doubler + projector). Although the output was good there were some serious problems. First it would seem the unit has problems with multi-layer DVD's. I had no problem playing most CD's but when I played the movie "The Rock" which is a 2-layer DVD, the playback would hang and give a green screen part-way through most chapters past chapter 11 (around 2/3 through the movie), the only way to continue was to eject the DVD, and skip forward to the place where it hung and resume playback. The other problem was audio. I do not have a AC-3 decoder, so I was using the stereo out jack connected with a 4-wire cable to my sound card. This seemed to pick up a lot of nose (not surprising since the internal cable is unsheilded).
End result: I returned the Encore within the 15-day return period of the store I bought it from. They seemed surprised when I brought a sheet of paper with a list of several things that were problems with the bundle...
Now I'm looking for a video card with hardware Mpeg2 playback (or enough Mpeg2 acceleration to use under 15% CPU on a pentium-100). The card should also have a TV tuner, and video capture would be nice but not necessary. I'd like AC-3 decoding software for the computer that will output dolby surround on my sound card (if MP3's can be decoded in real time on a pentium, AC-3 should be possible as well). Many video cards claim "dvd ready" where you will need to buy an add-on board in the future. Given what I've seen so far I figure it will be May/June '98 before I find what I'm looking for. So far the only possibility I've found is the Verite V2200.
ATI All-in-wonder Pro update - June 1998
I've had my ATI AIW Pro for a couple months now and have been reasonably satisfied with it. I got the PCI version shortly before the sofware DVD solution was released for the AGP version. From reports I've read on the net, the quality isn't as good as most hardware decoding solutions. They haven't released the DVD decoder add-on, and they backed-out of their promise to make one for the Rage II, so I'm not holding my breath (but I am still hoping).
Video capture on the AIW works on my AMD K6-200 on an FIC 2012 board up to CIF 352x240 30fps without dropped frames. I'm pleased with the capture quality. The ATI player that comes with the board is OK, but lacks real video editing features. I'm planning to try win98 on it shortly since it is supposed to support the ATI tuner built in to the AIW. Output to VGA from NTSC is good and has 3 different modes of scan doubling One just captures 1 of the 2 fields, another captures both but has the "crawls" on horizontal movement, and a last does some averaging of the 2 fields to get rid of the horizontal movement problems but sacrifices some overall sharpness and clarity. Capture seems to work fine from cable, RCA, and S-VID.
Given the price drop on the Creative DVD Encore (I can get the oem pack for under $300), I might bite the bullet and buy it again. (by now the firmware and sofware should be less buggy I hope).