DVD Defined

Format DescriptionCapacityAvailability
DVD-ROM
DVD5
DVD9
DVD10
DVD18		 4 capacities
Single Sided, single layer
single sided dual layer
dual sided single layer
dual sided dual layer		  
4.7GB
8.5GB
9.4GB
17GB		  
DVD-RAM Rewritable DVD SS 2.6GB
DS5.2GB		 Very soon
DVD-RAM
Second
generation 		Rewritable DVD SS 4.7GB
DS9.4GB		 by 2000
DVD-R Write once DVD SS 3.95GB
DS7.9GB		 Very soon
DVD-R
Second
generation		 Write once DVD
but much lower cost		 SS 3.95GB
DS7.9GB		 Unknown
DVD-R/W
not formally
supported yet		 Rewritable DVD SS 3.95GB
DS 7.9GB		 Unknown
DVD+RW Rewritable DVD
using phase change		 SS 3GB
DS 6GB		 Mid 98

DVD Upgrade kits

DVD upgrades can be broken down into two separate part of the kit. The first is the DVD drive itself. All I have seen are IDE devices. You will need to make sure your system has an IDE available. Zip drives, hard drives and CDROMs can all occupy the 4 Max count of IDE.

DVD Drive

Check and see what the DVD drive is compatible with. The first versions of DVD drives were compatible with data CDs, and Single sided DVD's only. This meant to read a double sided DVD you had to eject the disc, and flip it over. These same early drives would not read CD-R and CD-RW discs. This may or may not be a problem for you. The early drives were relatively slow as normal CD readers. Only 8x.

The easiest way to tell that it would only do the single sided disc is that it can only read up to 4.7GB max.

New DVD Drives

Newer second generation drives such as the new Creative Labs Encore DXr2 will read double sided DVDs and are suppose to handle CD-Rs. Experience says this is most true with GOLD CD-Rs.

Decoder card

To play DVD movies you will need to have a DVD decoder card. It is actually possible to do DVD decode in software, but it will require a very fast system, Pentium II 266 or better, and do not plan on doing much of anything but watch the movie. This card takes the DVD movie data and then decodes the movie. The output from this card is then broken into audio which is fed into your audio card and video. The video can be passed in on of two ways:
  1. down the system bus to your video card. This method requires the least setup and is the most compatible, however uses a fair amount of system resources to do this so you will need a fairly fast system, Pentium 166 or better, and do not plan on doing much else while the system is playing the movie. This is called Inlay.
  2. passed directly to the video card. This requires very little system resources, but requires you to install a cable to your video card from your decoder. This will require that your decoder and your video card be compatible, so be careful if you choose a kit that uses this method that your video card is supported. This is called Overlay.
DVD-2 drives can also read CD-Rs as well
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