--= Newbie: Need help with dvd software player =--

[J Crew]

hello, i'm very new to computer based dvd player. i have just purchased a sony digital 8 camcorder and am currently in the process of upgrading my computer so that i'll be able to make digital movies and edit them with adobe premier and ulead videostudio 5. i want to be able to burn these movies onto cdr and watch them. unfortunately i bought my dvd player forever ago it seems, and it will only play vcd. i want to be able to watch svcd. i will say now that money is exremely tight with me right now, especially since i've had to buy much more than expected to make the digital video thing to work right. so here come a large amount of questions:

1- what is the best program to use to play svcd on your computer. i have a copy of windvd from a buddy... is this the best?
2- will my regular cd rom play svcd?
3- i've read alittle about miniDVD... will a dvd rom drive read miniDVD?
4- if a dvd rom will read miniDVD, will any make, model, brand read this format or only certian ones? for instance, if they will read this format, must it be a drive that has a decoding card because a decoding program like winDVD won't cut it.
5- would you suggest i go ahead and purchase a dvd rom drive for my computer? (i will never watch dvd's on my computer... will only watch my home movies that i'll burn.)
6- if you do suggest i purchase a dvd rom drive, what one would you suggest i buy? and, is this a good buy - http://www.mpcnow.com/web/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=MPC&Category_Code=Toshiba-DVD ... a (TOSHIBA 16X SD-M1502 INT EIDE/ATAPI DRIVE... DVD-TOS-16X40-1502S) for $47.88 bucks? it does not come with a card or software... but i do have winDVD burned on disk for me, so i don't really need software. unless winDVD just sucks d¡ck.

anyways, sorry for the long post and many questions, but it would be very helpful if anyone could help me out. thanks for your time and any suggestions. peace

[CornelisJ]

Here an answer to a few of your questions:
1) In my opinion at the moment WinDVD is the best program to play svcd discs at the computer (I use WinDVD 2000 v2.6). It is one of the few programs that acually recognises an svcd disc as svcd (provided that a SEGMENT folder is present on the disc, that may be empty though). PowerDVD 3 for example does not recognise an svcd disc as svcd.

2) It should be no problem to play svcd's from a regular cdrom drive.

Concerning miniDVD, I think this is an high bit-rate MPEG-2 file (bit-rate comparable to normal DVD) that is burned on a cdr. So I think it is even possible to play a miniDVD in a regular cdrom drive with WinDVD, but I am not 100% sure about this one.