Features:
- Portable DVD player with PC card for notebook computers
- Includes MPEG-2 decoder for DVD movie playing
- Compatible with CD-R and CD-RW discs
- Reads DVDs containing up to 17 GB
- 2x maximum data transfer
Description:
If you own a notebook with a CD-ROM drive and are trying to upgrade to a DVD-ROM drive, you may be shocked at the upgrade prices offered by the dealer. We suggest looking into a third-party alternative such as the EXP DVD-789 external PC card DVD drive. However, make sure you're packing a notebook with a powerful processor and/or the specific Texas Instruments-based CardBus PCMCIA controller recommended in the manual if you want maximum performance. The EXP DVD-780 is a very lightweight, portable DVD drive built with 32-bit Cardbus PC Card technology. It is fully plug-and-play-compatible with both Windows 95 and 98 and even installs easily to notebooks with Windows NT 4.0. Installation is simple--just plug the PCMCIA card into the adapter, load the drivers (which come on a single floppy), and use the drive. The DVD-780 is compatible with all current DVD media and CD-ROM media, including CD-R and CD-RW. While the DVD-780 advertises a 2x maximum data-transfer rate of 2,700 KB per second (2.6 MB per second) for DVD content, our tests produced a more sobering DVD speed of 1,530 KB per second (1.5 MB per second) with a top-end speed of only 1.2x. For CD-ROM content, we also found the real-world performance of the DVD-780 to be less impressive than the promised 2,400 KB per second (2.3 MB per second): we were only able to achieve a maximum throughput of 1,663 KB per second (1.6 MB per second) for CD-ROM speed, which is a data-transfer rate of only 11.5x compared to the advertised 16x. We were never able to reach the full speed of the drive, and we think it's because the two new notebooks we tested it with did not use the recommended TI PCI CardBus controller. (The manual specifically states that the TI PCI-1221 does not have DMA support.) However, we also tested the EXP DVD-780 drive on two other laptops, both of which contained a common 32-bit PCI system bus-architecture based on the Intel 440BX chipset, and we came away with the same benchmark scores noted above. The DVD-780's kit includes a complete version of CyberLink PowerDVD 1.5, which is excellent DVD decoding software. PowerDVD supports letterbox mode for 16:9 widescreen titles (which have black stripes at the top and the bottom of the display window) and offers menu selections for title, root, subpicture, PTT, and audio menus. PowerDVD also supports multiple languages and up to nine multiple angles and offers parental level control. We recommend installing the free upgrade of PowerDVD 2.0 via CyberLink's Web site. In addition, the kit comes with an external power supply, although you don't need it to operate the DVD player. We found the power supplied via the PC card slot to be more than adequate to use the drive or even watch movies. Keep in mind, though, that powering the drive via the PC Card slot will drain the notebook batteries faster, which may make it impossible to watch a full movie. The picture quality of the EXP DVD-780 is sharp, with bright colors. In our tests, the DVD player displayed a few artifacts (pixelation and dithering in the playback that make the compression algorithms readily apparent), but we only noticed them when we looked very closely. The only major problem we experienced was occasional slowness and dropped frames, which we attributed to the fact that the drive was not operating at the rated 2x speed. In addition, the drive is somewhat noisy when reading discs, but this sound is easily drowned out when watching movies. We believe that this drive most likely performs up to spec, but only if you own the prerequisite Texas Instruments CardBus controller. Otherwise, you may want to look for a portable, external DVD drive. Pros:
- Easy installation
- Excellent DVD movie playback quality
- Lightweight and portable
- Includes external power supply (not required for use)
Cons:
- Actual DVD speed is half the advertised speed
- Slow DVD movie playback with dropped frames
- Noisy drive
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