DVDA and H/W Decoding

[noname]

I have 2 questions. In the DVD Writers section, there are 2 writers that say they can produce DVD-audio discs. Is this true? If so, whats stopping any DVD writer from making DVDA discs?

My second question is about hardware dvd decoders in my compter. I have an old Creative Dxr2 card and drive that works great. Most DVD-Roms I see now are just a drive. Are there any good decoder cards/drives out there?

[hodgeac]

Actually, DVD decoder cards are no longer needed...that is if you have a newer video card. All Geforce 3 and 4 cards have hardware dvd assist...I think geforce 2s may also have this feature. On the ATI side I believe this started with the original Radeon. So just buy a newer vid card and a LTD-163D Lite-on 16x DVD-Rom. Its a great drive.

[Baldrick]

1. I removed the dvd audio features for those writers. I haven't added any dvd audio info yet and those were just mistakes. But I think you can burn dvd audio on standard dvd-+r/w media using any dvd writer....but I haven't seen any tools for that yet so I'm not sure.

[Cornucopia]

Baldrick,
Yes, any DVD-burner should be able to do DVD-Audio. It's just a matter of the authoring software being available.

AFAIK, the only apps currently available are:
Sonic Solutions' DVD-Audio Creator (not sure exaclty what it's called)--$$$$ and probably only on Mac platform
Minnetonka's discWelder Chrome ~$2495-4490
Minnetonka's discWelder Steel ~$495

You can find discWelder's website at http://www.discwelder.com
It shows the feature differences between their 2 apps. These look like good apps, just not very well advertised.

Scott

[noname]

Cool, thanks for the help everyone!