Howdy folks: Check out the ThinkDVD site at: http://web.tiscali.it/thinkdifferent/english/howto.html and their links.
I bought a Toshiba DVD-ROM about 18 mo ago. It was bought primarily for the Mac bootable feature as a CD burner, though it was kinda slow. The only glitch with thing is having to keep a formatted CD loaded in it, or get a nagging unreadable disc, Finder error. About six months ago I finally opted for the ATI Radeon 7000 DDR 32MB PCI Video card for the video and to utilize the DVD ROM, with variable results. Some DVD's play flawlessly, but many hesitate, or 'frame jerk' minorly, and sporadically. A pached version of Apple DVD Player 2.7 freezes occasionally, espec on quite used DVD's, but for me, works much better than vers 2.4. The Apple DVD Player becomes reasonably responsive if loaded in a RAM Disc. I haven't tried other DVD players, ATI used to have one. To optimize playback I set up a dedicated volume with a stripped down sys 9.1 at 640 by 480 resolution, and allot 82,719K to the DVD Player with Virtual Memory off. One of the DVD guides says also to bottom out the Memory Ram Cache, but it seems to make no difference (high or low), to me. Basically, it's not a smooth, hi end DVD player. It most always has some frame jerk on fast, full frame pans, but I find that easy enough to overlook. The occasional freeze-ups are a pain, though. I believe the minor problems I have are with Apple's software DVD reader vs. the basic hardware limitation of the Starmax's low bus speed (40MHZ) and a marginal CPU speed (320MHZ). I wonder if the Wired4DVD card fairs better? System Configuration: StarMax 3000/200 160 meg RAM MetaBox JoeCard G3/320 (XLR8 MACh Speed Control 2.0.2) Slot 1: Sonnet Tempo ATA/100 PCI card Slot 2: ATI Radeon 7000 DDR 32MB PCI Video card Slot 3: Farallon Ethernet Card Slot 4: XLR8 2 Port USB Card Slot 5: IXMicro ix3D UltimateRez Video Card 2 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 133 HD's, 80GB & 40GB Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R1002 Sys 9.1 (with OpenGL from OS 9.2.1) Lou ----- On 10/20/02 3:29 PM, Frank & Susan Malinowski ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: >Can anyone who has a DVD (especially if you have a DVDR-anything) working >on their SM describe their hardware and software setup. I received the >suggestion theat a SM w/G3 upgrade should be able to handle software >decodong of DVDs, does this work for anyone? What software would be used, a >hacked Apple CD/DVD driver or Speedtools or something else? This would just >keep the old SM going like the Energizer Bunny. -- StarMax is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... / Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \ / <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \ Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> StarMax list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/starmax.html> Send list messages to: <mailto:starmax@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:starmax-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:starmax-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lowendmac.com> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/starmax%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
