Watching DVD w/o DVD drive

[slacker85]

I wanted to buy some dvds to watch on my computer, but my computer doesn't have a dvd drive. Can i still watch it with a cd-rom, using software decompression or something like that?
Thanks.
--slacker

[otheos]

No, you definitely need a DVD-Rom drive.

[slacker85]

Thanks, Otheos!

[Ritalin Kid]

Technically if you have a friend who has a DVD drive and a CD Burner you can rip the DVD into Divx format and then burn it onto a CD and watch it on your Media Player provided you have the newest DiVx codecs downloaded. Though this is alot of trouble to go through just to watch movies on DVD plus you will lose the Digital Quality that DVD offers and not to mention it could be considered illegal if the DVD you have belongs to someone else or is a rental. Just a thought.. :p

[Ritalin Kid]

Oh yeah also this would not be cost effective because then you would have to buy CDR's and the DVD movie...

[Mal]

so you're saying its more reasonable (in price, that is) to do it the illegal way. ;)

[RayH]

If you just want to take popular, available movies in DVD and turn them into VCDs, it's much easier to just order them on VCD format from overseas. Do a search for VCD movies.

You can play them on your computer with Windows Media Player and they make subsequent generations just fine.

I am thinking of getting an All In Wonder card to make VCDs out of out of print VHS, though.

[RayH]

Slacker Depending upon the speed of your microprocessor, you might be able to get by watching DVD movies on your computer w/o hardware acceleration. If your processor is about 1 GHz or better, it should work. Just make sure the DVD ROM comes with software. You can pick up a DVD ROM for about the same price as a CD ROM.

[otheos]

If your processor is about 1 GHz or better...

erm, unaccelarated DVD playback requires a minimum of Celeron 333. With an ATI card (supports MC and iDCT) and software even a P200MMX will be enough. And with dedicated decoder, I've seen P133's playing just fine.

So the 1GHz suggested here is a bit ooover the minimum, lol!

[RayH]

I'm running a K6-2 450 MHz...without hardware acceleration, the picture is jerky. My son has a 1 GHz w/o hardware acceleration and it runs just fine.

Since Slacker wants to do it on the cheap, drives are fairly cheap. But if you have to add an ATI video card or Hollywood Decoder card, you may be into it for some money. It may be cheaper to just go and get an Apex and connect to the TV!