Rating: 
Summary: Terrible If You Have Windows 2000
Review: Although I got a great deal by using coupon codes ..., I am sorry to say that it works terribly under Windows 2000. I understand that this has been on the market for about a year, yet the drivers for Windows 2000 are still in beta. The audio skips and I am unable to use the software unless I am logged in as Administrator.
Rating: 
Summary: The DxR3 decoder card makes this kit a winner!
Review: Although new to the world of DVD-ROM drives, I have had a stand-alone DVD player (region 1) in my living room for some time now and built up a sizable collection of disks. I was particularly interested in adding a drive to my PC for the sole ability to be able to change regions and play DVDs from another country--in this case, region 4 (Australia). I am very happy to report that this kit handles the job extremely well.The only drawback is that the drive, like nearly all those for sale these days, only allows the user to change regions a maximum of 5 times before it becomes permanently region locked. For me, this was not a problem, since this is what I intended to do with it anyway, but it could be something others might want to consider. The DxR3 decoder card--IMHO--is worth its weight in gold, delivering frame rates as smooth as my living room player, as well as excellent color and sound. And my PC is just slightly above min requirements with a Celeron 466 (recommended PII 400). I was truly impressed. But possibly *the* best feature of the decoder card is its ability to output the signal to a regular television via an S-Video cable (optional), or the S-Video-to-RCA plug included in the kit. Not only can I watch my region 4 disks on my computer monitor, but the included software allows me to output the signal as "Force to NTSC", which basically means my region 4 PAL format DVD disks play absolutely perfectly on my standard NTSC television screen, with no loss of signal or frame stutter! The setup and installation presented no problem, although I found the enclosed instructions slightly lacking. There was no mention of using the video loopback cable with your existing graphics card, and the software installation instructions were more than a little vague. Computer savvy users will have no trouble figuring it out, but beginners might find it a little intimidating. In closing, I can recommend this DVD-ROM kit to computer users who not only want DVD-ROM capabilities in their home PC, but to anyone who is thinking of adding a different region drive to their existing setup.
Rating:
Summary: Home Theatre in any room of the house!
Review: As with most things DVD oriented, people are tempted to wait for the next best thing to come out before they buy. I assure you this DVD player is a must buy for anyone considering puting a DVD player into their home PC. The main advantage is the DxR3 Decoder card included with the actual drive itself. This adds into the overall graphical quality of the picture you see. It has a hardware chipset which smoothes out the display textures and colors much better then any software driven computer DVD player. Those with 3d Accelerator cards do not worry, the Decoder card actually plugs into your accelerator card to maintain the ability to play the most demanding games. I have a VooDoo 4500 set and it works fine. A fantastic feature of the decoder card is it's S-Video Out port. This allows you to run a DVD on your PC while displaying it on a full size television set! The picture quality is very respectable and you can select between Letterbox, Pan and Scan, or Standard display. The DVD player comes with an optional adapter to make the S-Video port into an RCA port to make it compatible with almost any televison set. The encoder card also comes with two audio out ports allowing surround sound cards and speaker systems to work wonderfully along side. The user screens to control the DVD are fantastic as well, allowing for easy control through the various features of all DVD's including angels, surround sound settings, and menu searches. You can even fine tune the picture to your personal tastes. I have used at least 15 different DVD's and one DVD ROM (Dragon's Lair)with the Creative DVD player and all worked perfectly. The only drawback to this particular DVD setup is that it does require a free PCI slot inside on your motherboard. Those with add on modems, graphics cards, soundcards and the like may need to get an external device to free up a PCI slot. I have also found the DVD works wonderfully with the new Klipsch THX v2-400 cpmputer speaker system to produce unreal sound reproduction comparable to systems costing over $1000.00! Anyone with a computer in their bedroom or off to the side in a kitchen or living can create a wonderfull mini-home theater and enjoy great DVD reproduction on a full screen. You can even run the DVD display on your TV, play the sound through your TV AND your computer speakers and continue to use your PC in a different manner such as work online, write a paper, play a game, or pay bills all at the same time!! I am very pleased with Creative's system and I have yet to see anything remotely rival it's capibilities. It does come with a 1 year limited warranty.
Rating:
Summary: DO NOT BUY this¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
Review: Creative Doesn't has soport for win 2000, so you won't be able to play dvds with is so called DVD Decoder, # years later they haven't relesed the win2000 driver, and i'm sure they aren't ever going to.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent for viewing dvds on your computer or television.
Review: Creative has out did themselves with this wonderful product. Why buy to seperate dvd players for your television and computer when you could just by one. Best of all the DVD player comes with its own decoder card which has its own outputs like video out to mention one. Install the dvd player into your computer run a cable to your televison and you our set.
Rating:
Summary: Another great product
Review: Creative has shown they make the best hardware products out there. I just got this drive installed it was very easy. No problems at all, now I could watch DVDs all the time. With the DxR3 decoder it makes you able to use digital sound systems like the DTT 2500, although I own the DTT2200 which is a 5 piece speaker system with 5.1 Dobely Decoding. You could also with the DxR3 card connect your computer to the televesion to watch movies. To make the work you need a serial link. Now it's just like being in there in a theater. To make it even better experiences purchase a Creative Sound Blaster like MP3 LIVE!
Rating:
Summary: (dollar amount) paperweight
Review: For some reason I have always thought that a Creative product was a good thing. I consider that to be dead wrong now. The box boasts Windows 2000 compatability, but thats a joke. I was able to get it to work in Win2k, after MUCH tweaking, and divine intervention I think. When I reformatted this weekend though, nothing I do will get it to work properly. Creative is notorious for releasing massive bloatware with their products, and this is no exception (although it is not as bad as their Live! products). I can't believe this thing cost (dollar amount), when a (dollar amount) generic DVD player will work better, if you have a decent processor and video card the "extras" don't do much at all. Stupid me for buying this, don't make that mistake. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent decoder card! Easy workaround for Region change
Review: For the uninitiated, the DXR3 Decoder card is really the Creative version of the excellent Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus MPEG2 decoder card, which has been around for quite some time. Absolutely fabulous video quality. I do have a couple of other home DVD players (a Toshiba SD-2108 & a nice region-free SD-1200 that I bought in Asia), but sometimes it's really nice to kick back in my study area and watch a movie also. Video quality and ease-of-use wise, the DXR3 card is still noticeably superior to the quality you get out of DVD players bundled with the most recent GeForce2-based accelerator cards. There is an easy solution to the max 5 times change for the DVD Region. Simply go to: www.visualdomain.net Erwin van den Berg has an excellent little utility called Remote Selector which allows you to work around the silly DVD region coding nonsense the movie studios came up with.
Rating: 
Summary: DVD Encore
Review: I got this and it didn't work... Don't think it won't work for you. It was a setting problem. It plays DVDs ok. It works great with the Creative DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT2200. Over all I give it Two thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: Unstable Product!!!
Review: I have a Dell P3 700mhz 256MB PC. I bought this drive with the dxr3 card. Whenever I play dvd's on it, the sound and video de-synchronizes in the middle of the movie. For instance you would hear the words outta someone's mouth, but later see the movement on video. I recommend buy a sony dvd drive with an Nvidia video card installed in your computer. That way you won't require the dxr3 board. Also with this creative dvd encore, you can only play dvds with the software it comes with. Other dvd playing programs are not compatiable with the drive. Trust me I've tried loads of other programs like Directdvd, powerdvd etc...
| 
