minimum dvd watching requirements

[l3ored]

I'm considering building very low end computers to be used for internet and word processing, and selling them on campus (college). The most taxing thing i can imagine they'd be used for is watching a dvd. is onboard video good enough? A friend of mine had choppy playback with dvd's after building his mother a similar system.

 

[tuteja1986]

ATI 9250se 128MB DVI $35ish

 

[F1shF4t]

The specs of the computers would help.

As far as i remember the absolute minimum spec to be able to play a dvd is like a p2 @ 300mhz... it also depends on how good the onboard video card in terms of output picture quality... for example in my old box the integrated video card looks awful compared to even a fx5200.
Also quiting the other programs running would greatly improove playback.

 

[gsellis]

Although I would say lower, I would not recommend under P4 1.6a. At that level, the processor is fast enough to encode analog to digital video at 30 fps. That is a good benchmark to see where the processor can encode and decode on the fly. You really can't buy much slower these days anyway, so draw the line there. With XP, get 512MB of memory (it will run on 256, but not task switch well).

 

[Alex]

you either want a decent video card with 128mb or at least 1gb of system ram and preferrably both... back in the day i had a decent rig (athlonXP 2800), good video card (radeon 9500) and 512mb ram and it worked perfectly but i've seen ppl with weaker rigs struggle with less than 1gb to play cause the video stutters too much...

 

[sandorski]

I think practically every video card has DVD acceleration these days. With that you don't need much for a cpu to play DVDs. However, if you want 5.1 Dolby Surround that'll add some load. Even though a PIII or SloA Athlon would be plenty for DVD watching, just get something new like a Sempron or whatever you find cheap. If you are outputting to a TV, check out reviews on Quality and such of various cards. No sense going through the trouble only to get a crappy picture when a $40 Walmart DVD player could give you a better result.

 

[zmaster]

What a load of bull. I have two p3 laptops that i use to watch dvds on. One is a dell 600Mhz with 256 ram 8megs of which is the gpu memory, and the other is an ibm with 500mhz and 128ram with 8 megs s3 rage card. I use both as a dvd players at night as i dont want to set up a multymedia system i my bedroom. O btw all use Win XP, a huge memory hog, so that should be a comparison of what is needed.

 

[CU]

I first watched a DVD on my computer using a K6-2 300mhz and Rendition V2100 video card. I would think anything would play a DVD without problems.

 

[rstrohkirch]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127128

more then enough for mpeg2

 

[gsellis]

OK guys, re-read the OP.

I'm considering building very low end computers to be used for internet and word processing, and selling them on campus (college). The most taxing thing i can imagine they'd be used for is watching a dvd. is onboard video good enough? A friend of mine had choppy playback with dvd's after building his mother a similar system.

This is not about playing DVDs. That was the most taxing thing he could think of. Other functions are word processing and internet usage. I still suggests a 400MHz FSB 1.6 or better. Because.... they will do a little photo stuff, some homework that might involve Excel, maybe some quick video edits with captured MPEG1 files, play some simple games, and other simple "on campus" stuff. 512MB, but maybe get away with 256, but would avoid it. A 40GB drive as the 20s tended to be carp, if you can swing it. Onboard audio and video. They want to play games, offer the "upgrade" (so go with a PCI-e board or AGP is your other choice?).

That was Intel, I am not sure where this maps to in the AMD space, but the AMD package will do well and for a better price/margin. The only place it will get bit is in the WMV-HD and H.264 space where Intel has a little more headroom. BUT the video/audio is killed for that anyway so that is a pointless consideration.

 

[l3ored]

heres the specs i'm considering: low end socket 754 sempron or celeron d. my real question is whether or not onboard video is sufficient for watching a dvd. i'm not thinking home theater or anything, just decent playback with cheap speakers or headphones. i'd be running linux to keep costs down so i'm probably going to go with a via k8m800 chipset, because they have linux drivers on the site. i havn't looked at intel chipsets yet, i'm sure they offer linux support. so really, would onboard video from either of them be good enough for solid dvd playback? other than that, how much ram should i put in? 254 or 512 (maybe 128??)?

 

[l3ored]

you're close gsellis, but wrong. i do want to provide these people with a computer thats fully capable of playing a dvd without being choppy, but not much more beyond that.

 

[rbV5]

my real question is whether or not onboard video is sufficient for watching a dvd

Depends on the onboard video, but my Xpress200 onboard graphics is plenty up to the task, and I'm sure any of the recent NForce onboard will be fine as well.

 

[MiranoPoncho]

Keep it real, My Cousin's piece of crap compaq played purple rain at 12x10 perfectley, and that had a 466mhz proc, windows me and 64 meggers of ram, 8 of which was shared and it sounded fine, looked crisp. Just my $.02

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: l3ored
you're close gsellis, but wrong. i do want to provide these people with a computer thats fully capable of playing a dvd without being choppy, but not much more beyond that.

Keep an eye on your market. Remember that portable DVD players are approaching $99, so they will displace that functionality.

 

[l3ored]

yea but consumers in the market for this kind of computer probably dont have that kind of money. regardless, i wouldnt feel right selling someone a computer that couldnt play a dvd.

 

[Melted Rabbit]

Originally posted by: MiranoPoncho
Keep it real, My Cousin's piece of crap compaq played purple rain at 12x10 perfectley, and that had a 466mhz proc, windows me and 64 meggers of ram, 8 of which was shared and it sounded fine, looked crisp. Just my $.02

Bah, I played DVDs back in 1999 on a dual Pentium Pro 200MHz system running Windows NT4. Granted the system had a DVD decoder card, but it looked great.

 

[Lonyo]

P3 600 w/384MB RAM and a TNT2 can play DVD's.

 

[ShadowBlade]

almost any cpu for sale now
min 512MB of ram for XP
FX5200 with newest drivers
80GB+ HD

 

[n7]

You don't need a dedicated video card to play DVDs.

Any mobo with onboard video will be fine.

 

[HDTVMan]

Onboard video is fine. I do HD stream at 1280x960 with onboard video from an NFORCE 2 chipset and Athlon 2100+ cpu. Certainly any chipset today can do DVD.

DVD requires about 300mhz CPU
DIVX requires about 700mhz CPU