How important are system requirements???

[Chuck Antinoro]

I'd like to get an internal DVD burner for my P2 350mhz 384 mb RAM PC running Win98. How important are system requirements listed by manufacturers? I wouldn't load any of the software just the hardware and only really plan to use DVD Decryptor and DVD Shrink to make backups. These programs currently work fine on my current system (mentioned above) for ripping, I just have no means of burning. And I don't want to choke my system. I know I'm in need for an upgrade, but figured if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[wwjd]

You can probably make do with what you have BUT be prepared for
it to take a very very long time to just about anything related to video.

My advice is to wait until you can upgrade significantly. I am not sure
what you eventually want to do but there are other ways to go such as
a DVD recorder.

[SLK001]

Can you get the drivers for WIN98? If so, then you can probably get it to work. Remember, a DVD is approx 4,700,000,000 bytes long, which is above the standard disk sizes of WIN98 fame, so you'll have to burn from more than one partition. Never heard of any burning program doing this, but then I've never looked for that capability. A DVD burning at 1X has to have a sustained data rate of ~ 1.4MBytes per second. Check to see if your system can do double this, just to be safe.

Anyway, DVD burners are cheap, so at worst, you'll just have to set your purchase aside until you finally upgrade your broken system. And yes, your system is broken. Fix it. IIRC, even DVDDecrypter uses the NERO engine to burn, and they need a PIII or greater machine, so you may not even be able to attempt a burn. I don't know of a DVD burning program that runs on 98 (but never looked for one, either).

But then, there are still people here who still use WIN98, just like there are people who still drive '66 Plymouths. But virtually no "modern" software will run on your machine.

If you DO upgrade, I believe that you will enjoy the experience and will never look back.

[lenti_75]

for ripping and burning alone, that is fine.

if you want to do encoding...that sucks, need upgrade, unless you want to spend 24 hrs for 1 hr of video.

[TBoneit]

SLK001: You've confused File size limits in Win98 with partition size.

4Gb is a file size limit of win98 FAT32.
The partition can be much larger.
Using DVDDecrypter it will automatic split ISO output for fat32 when ripping a DVD for example and will also burn the split ISO fine.

For ripping a DVD to files none of the files even approach 4 Gb in size and of course any DVD burning S/W will burn from more than one file or even more than oner drive letter to one destination DVD.

Cheers

[akrako1]

For ripping a DVD to files none of the files even approach 4 Gb in size and of course any DVD burning S/W will burn from more than one file or even more than oner drive letter to one destination DVD.

Extracting streams or an mpeg file from a dvd-9 could result in files greater than 4GB. There are dvd's that only contain the movie and are dvd-9's. These could all generate a .mpg file larger than 4GB. (i'm thinking LOTR non extended edition puts the entire 3+hr movie on 1 dvd-9. I'm sure the movie takes up more than 4GB...)

[SLK001]

SLK001: You've confused File size limits in Win98 with partition size.

4Gb is a file size limit of win98 FAT32.

You're correct. When I ran '98, I maintained a FAT16 file system for compatibility, which kept the partition size to 2GB. I do see that FAT32 drives can be HUGE, but limited to the 4GB file size.

[sholmes202]

I would advise seriously considering a new system. For not much more than what you would spend on a burner you can certainly get a more powerful system. I have seen Celeron and P4 systems at CompUsa in the $400 range and a decent burner already runs you $200 or so. You have very little room to spare in the RAM department and what you have is SLOW RAM...probably PC133...perhaps even slower than that...also Decrypting and Burning tax a P4 system with 512mb RAM...I can only imagine the time it would take to rip and burn a disk, if you could do it al all without freezing the system. I would hate to see anyone put good money into a system that was never intended to do this sort of thing.

Holmes

[Epicurus8a]

You might get by with a single or dual speed burner, but you also might be wasting your time. I agree with the poster above. For Less than $500 (US) you can purchase a new system with a DVD burner. If you can use your existing Monitor, Keyboard, & Mouse you'll pay even less. Moreover, it will be a good investment because you'll be able to everything much faster.

[spiderman2k1]

I have a P2-400 and with DVDshrink it the same as real time. So if a movie is two hour dvdshrink will take two hours.

My AMD 1.8 would take about 20 minutes to do the same job.

[TBoneit]

For ripping a DVD to files none of the files even approach 4 Gb in size and of course any DVD burning S/W will burn from more than one file or even more than oner drive letter to one destination DVD.

Extracting streams or an mpeg file from a dvd-9 could result in files greater than 4GB. There are dvd's that only contain the movie and are dvd-9's. These could all generate a .mpg file larger than 4GB. (i'm thinking LOTR non extended edition puts the entire 3+hr movie on 1 dvd-9. I'm sure the movie takes up more than 4GB...)

The movie is more than 4Gb I'm sure too, however I never extract to a single mpeg file. I ectract as a decrypted DVD with VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders. Doing it that way the largest file size is 1,048,404 KB as reported by windows thus easy to do on a fat32 system such as Win95 OEM B or C versions and Win98. FYI Win95 OEM B & C versions also supported fat32 whereas win95 retail and original versions only supported fat 16.

Cheers