Apex 660 and Dreamcast questions dealing with bitrate

[Mazrim Taim]

Hello,
My raite drive in my APEX 660 has broke. I'm going to replace it. I have a question for those who know about bitrates and this particular device. If I put in a fast DVD player that is capable of reading CD's at say 40x or faster (along those lines) will it increase my max bitrate for the system, or is 5000 a hardware limitation otherwise than cd speed in this unit. I'm quite curious as if I put in a faster drive I would gladly spend the extra few bucks to buy a really good drive to increase the max bitrate.
I believe myself to be correct in the assumption, but I'm somewhat of a newbie to this scene, and thought I would ask before I buy any particular drive. Also, what is the max bitrate a dreamcast can play? I tried burning something around a 4000kb/s vcd(well actually I didn't burn it as a VCD just used the mpeg with the dreamcast mpeg player) and it was really choppy. I'm curious as to what bitrate can I use without chopping up? Thankyou for your time and any answers you could give to perhaps help me out.
Regards
Mazrim Taim

[Mazrim Taim]

Oh yah one more question...
would it be possible to just use a CD-rom drive in place of the DVD drive as I also have a Pioneer 434 and I use that for my DVD's as the picture (especially with the progressive scan and component output) looks way better. I would just go buy a 52x speed drive that has low noise, and use it instead if it will work as I only use the Apex for xSVCD playback anyways.
Let me know if you think this will work, if no responses I guess I'll just try ripping out my CD-Rom from my computer to test it.
Regards
Mazrim Taim

[Greg12]

their are flaws in ur plan.

1. a faster dvd player requires more power and your supply might not be able to provide it with power.

2.it will produce a loud noise and overheat.

3. a cd-rom will not work. the decoder boards will not support it.

[suspect]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-20 20:46:17, Greg12 wrote:
their are flaws in ur plan.

1. a faster dvd player requires more power and your supply might not be able to provide it with power.

2.it will produce a loud noise and overheat.

3. a cd-rom will not work. the decoder boards will not support it.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
1. not true
2. not true
3. not true

1. A high speed dvd rom doesnt draw enough to overtax the apex 660 power supply.
2. The heat created is negliable on most high speed dvd roms -- it won't overheat.
3. the interface is ide -- a cd rom will work to read cds, (obviously won't work for dvds).




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: suspect on 2001-08-20 20:57:44 ]</font>

[fugoff]

the dreamcast is an unusual beast in the way it handles mpeg-1 streams. In tmpgenc, using 2-pas manual VBR I have set the maximum bitrate as high as 4mb/s. It was the matrix so I know that for some scenes the 4mbps was used. the DC handles it just fine. No lag or anything.

CBR is a different story with the DC. In streams above 850kbps, the dc tends to lagg a bit. I know that the DC can handle 2mb/s without blockiness, if you use the right encoder. I have had the best results with the Panasonic Mpeg Encoder. Tmpeg was very blocky whereas panasonic was perfect. I experienced no blockiness with panasonic. But since I have gotten my apex ad-1500 I have stopped playing with the DC so I don't know about anything beyond 2mbps

[Mazrim Taim]

Alright MOST of my questions have been answered well. A faster DVD ROM will work for sure as all standard IDE compliant devices are powered off the same (5 i believe) Voltage DC from the computer power supply, so if any one else reads this and wonder who of the two was correct, suspect was. I'm glad to know I can just through in a CD-ROM drive should I choose, but no one answered for sure if this will increase my bitrate past the 5000kbps that the APEX 660 is normally limited too.
Thankyou again.
Regards
Mazrim Taim

[Mazrim Taim]

^up^
someone please answer this question for me....
Will upping the CDRom speed of my unit break the 5000kbps limit of this APEX unit?
PLEASE!!!

[flaninacupboard]

well, DVD's are up to 10000kbps, and we're talking about a DVD player. it seems at least feasible. try it!

[Xitanium]

yeah, but if u need 5000kbps for ur xsvcds u must be using all iframes in a pure-motion movie

[Mazrim Taim]

Well the plan is to find a drive that will work well with 99 minute CDR and that way I can get approx. 22 min of video per CD at a Video only at 6000kbps with a 192 audio stream. I'm hoping to do extremely nice DVD type rips for some anime series. I'm hoping this will work as its pointless on a 74 minute cdr as I will only be able to get a bitrate of about 4400 kbps without 99 min media, but even 4400 kpbs is still nothing to say bad things about...
Anyways thanks for all the help.

[Mazrim Taim]

My intuition was correct, an IDE CDrom works great, and also I have tested a 5500 kbps file on a 24x Cdrom and it ran flawless. A 7600 kpbs ran a little choppy and my guess is that a 40x would help me break that limit as well. A new mark for APEX players as even the 5000kpbs is "hackable" if you would like to call it that. It is remarlably stable with a CDROM in it and does not skip or hiccup in the slightest. I don't just preach the APEX cause its the only thing I have, I also have a Pioneer 434 and its great, and my APEX can't compare to it as far as picture quality goes especially with the component output.
But the APEX after some serious tuning is a fine machine, and after I put in a 8x DVD 40X CD it will be a remarkable unit capable of playing the full 10 000kpbs that the system hardware is capable of(only at times the CD is reading fast enough of course) and the region disabling and macrovision disable is a big plus, I believe I am now one of those APEX fans, but it NEEDS serious TWEAKING to be good