Dvd!!!

[roadie]

i am really dissapointed that none of the reviews have looked at the DVD playback of parhelia. for me this is important as i do not have the money to build a home theatre, but parhelia promises the quality to be found in one.

question of the BBoyz- is the DVD playback as good as the specs suggested, and how does it compare to a seperate system???

[Cheesekeeper]

I have no idea how the Parhelia does with DVD (very well I suspect), but I can tell you that the SigmaDesigns Hollywood+ cards do a brilliant job. They should - it's a dedicated fully-hardware DVD decoder, but the output quality is superior to many set-top boxes. And they aren't horribly expensive either, so it's worth keeping in mind.........

[TdB]

"While using 2 displays at a time both at the highest display resolution (2048 × 1536),
certain display limitations may apply. (For example, video playback may be limited.)"

from:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/user_manuals/parhelia/parhelia_en.pdf

[bryop]

I don't really understand this whole dvd pahelia feature. Can someone explain it to me? What does it actually do? How is it better than a regular pc dvd player? How will it affect my current dvd player in my computer.

Thanks

[CHHAS]

The Parhelia has a 10-bit DAC for DVD decoding, as do most newer/higher end stand-alone DVD-players. Most old stand-alone players and all previous PC DVD solutions used a lover quality 9-bit DAC.

[bryop]

Ok, but I still don't understand. Does the parhelia have a built in dvd player? Can I throw out my existing dvd player and just use the parhelia to watch dvds?

If not, how does the dvd movie know whether to use the parhelia or the dvd player to decode the movie? Also if it is able to use the parhelia to decode, does it matter if I have a junk dvd player or a good dvd player in my computer since the parhelia is doing all the decoding?

Thanks

[Jazzz]

Originally posted by bryop
Ok, but I still don't understand. Does the parhelia have a built in dvd player? Can I throw out my existing dvd player and just use the parhelia to watch dvds?

If not, how does the dvd movie know whether to use the parhelia or the dvd player to decode the movie? Also if it is able to use the parhelia to decode, does it matter if I have a junk dvd player or a good dvd player in my computer since the parhelia is doing all the decoding?

Thanks

If you wanna watch DVDs on your computer you need a hardware decoder and and DVD drive, the Parhelia is the hardware decoder and you say you have a DVD driver, it helps to have a good DVD drive as well as it will improve the quality of the DVD playback Make you have a good DVD playing program as well im not sure if one comes with the Parhelia but PowerDVD is good

[Jon P. Inghram]

That's not quite correct... you don't need a HARDWARE dvd decoder, there are quite a few nice software decoders.

Originally posted by Jazzz


If you wanna watch DVDs on your computer you need a hardware decoder and and DVD drive, the Parhelia is the hardware decoder and you say you have a DVD driver, it helps to have a good DVD drive as well as it will improve the quality of the DVD playback Make you have a good DVD playing program as well im not sure if one comes with the Parhelia but PowerDVD is good

[az]

Roadie, go here and tell Johan from Ace's Hardware (the very best hardware site IMHO) what you expect from their Parhelia review

There's no need to register to be able to post there, you don't even have to give your email if you don't want to.

AZ