DVD

[Graham]

What make/speed DVD do you recommend, (be gentle, it's my first time)

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

G

[surrealchereal]

Hey G, I'm gonna take a chance here, if I get pinged with a coaster to the head cover me. I bet everyone is going to recommend the fastest and best technology money can buy.
I on the other hand,,, have come to the conclusion that it's the software that makes a big difference, and you'd have to make a heck of a lot of coasters to cover the additional cost...
surreal-whoosh-chereal... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[RayH]

If you find an "old" DVD ROM, it might not have a region code in the firmware.

[Imperion1]

It depends on the speed of your computer.
Anything under a Pentium or AMD class 450 will require the use an mpeg decoder card for smoother frame rates. The decoder card allows for DVD play without the full use of the cpu.
Any computer faster than a 450 you can use either a software decoder or you can still use the decoder card. Advantage to a decoder card is that you can view the DVD on a tv.

[AuraEdge]

I recommend any of the Pioneer Slot loading drives. Slotloading is much more convienent than Trayloading. They are all coded 10Xs, where X is any number from 3 to 6, the higher numbers being faster.
www.mwave.com (http://www.mwave.com) has the 106s for $79, but it's just the bare drive and comes with no DVD software. If you already have DVD software, or have an older computer with which you would need a hardware decoder, then this is a good buy. DVD software can be expensive if you buy it seperately (~$50).