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"codec" for Samsung CD-R/RW DVD drive



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 19th 03, 08:14 AM
Franklin Wright
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Default "codec" for Samsung CD-R/RW DVD drive

I installed a Samsung SM-352B combo drive on my Dell
XPS-R450, and it reads CDs fine. I haven't installed any
other software, but I assume it writes CDs OK, too. But...
when I try to run a DVD, an error message pops up that
says something about no compatible DVD codec. Is this
"DVD codec" a piece of hardware or software?

I was under the impression that no hardware was needed
in conjunction with this unit to enable displaying DVDs.
If so, where does one get the software codec?

Or is that ancient PCI card that came with the early 1999
Toshiba DVD-ROM player in my Dell Dimension still
needed as the codec?


FranklinWright
  #2  
Old October 19th 03, 08:48 AM
Franklin Wright
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Default

"Franklin Wright" wrote:
I installed a Samsung SM-352B combo drive on my Dell
XPS-R450, and it reads CDs fine. I haven't installed any
other software, but I assume it writes CDs OK, too. But...
when I try to run a DVD, an error message pops up that
says something about no compatible DVD codec. Is this
"DVD codec" a piece of hardware or software?


Well, I got an automated reply from Samsung saying to
try calling their tech support line at 1(800) SAMSUNG,
and lo and behold, it was manned by.... an American!! -
in Illinois, where it was around 2:35 a.m., Sunday morning!
It seems the Samsung tech support is available 24/7 -
amazing!

Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


FranklinWright



  #3  
Old October 19th 03, 09:23 AM
Theo
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"Franklin Wright" wrote in news:zlrkb.2422
:

Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching
DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your
player.
  #4  
Old October 19th 03, 11:04 AM
Franklin Wright
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Default


"Theo" wrote:
"Franklin Wright" wrote:
Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply watching
DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your
player.


Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs?

FranklinWright
  #5  
Old October 19th 03, 11:48 AM
Edward J. Neth
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Default

No. DVD decoder boards do, but most of those are gone -- use the software
decoder.


"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Theo" wrote:
"Franklin Wright" wrote:
Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply

watching
DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your
player.


Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs?

FranklinWright



  #6  
Old October 19th 03, 02:24 PM
Markeau
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Default

"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
ink.net
"Theo" wrote:
"Franklin Wright" wrote:
Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply
watching DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what
came with your player.


Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs?


Codecs (coder/decoder's)are required to playback (or record) the many
different media types. DVD video is encoded in MPEG2, so an MPEG2
codec is needed for playback. Other different codecs are required to
playback DIVX movies, mp3 or wma audio files, etc.

There are probably hundreds of codecs:
http://www.siggraph.org/education/ma...cs/Default.htm
http://www.fourcc.org/indexcod.htm
http://www.codec-download.com/module...name=Downloads

  #7  
Old October 21st 03, 11:38 PM
Anonymous Joe
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"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Theo" wrote:
"Franklin Wright" wrote:
Anyway, it turns out that the DVD codec is a piece of
software that appears on the CD labeled "PowerDVD"
(of course) that comes with the combo drive. relief!


Actually... it can be either software or hardware. But for simply

watching
DVDs, software does fine on most new PCs, so thats what came with your
player.


Do the DVD-R/W drives have hardware codecs?

FranklinWright


Way back when DVD-ROM drives were just beginning to be popular, people who
already had a PC could buy a "DVD Kit" that had a DVD-ROM drive, and a PCI
card, an MPEG-2 decoder board. Since DVDs have high bitrate MPEG-2 (its the
high bitrate that gives it the quality, and because of that also needs so
many GBs of space on a disc, and for some longer movies 9.4GB isnt enough
and it has to go to two discs, ie, Godfather II etc.), it would be far too
much for the PC to handle on its own, so the MPEG-2 decoder board would take
the encoded MPEG-2 from the DVD and decode it, so the PC can display it.

Nowadays, though, the CPU is fast enough to decode MPEG-2 all by itself. It
takes about 700MHz to do this reliably, and at the time, there were many
people who only had 300, 400, even 500MHz CPUs that couldn't decode the
MPEG-2 by itself. Therefore, these MPEG-2 decoder boards are completly
useless in a modern PC, so they aren't used.

As to the DVD-R/W (or DVD+R/W for that matter), they also do *not* require
one of these boards.

If someone is so inclined, they can buy a TV tuner for their PC, so that
they can not just watch TV, but also record it. With many pieces of
software, it is an option to record directly to MPEG-2, DVD compatible
format, so it can be burned onto DVD. It is far more demanding for a PC to
encode the video to MPEG-2 than it is to decode the MPEG-2. Therefore, many
of the high-end TV tuners have on-board MPEG-2 Encoder chips. These are
*not* a seperate board, but are built right into the TV tuner board. I have
a 1200MHz PC and a TV tuner, and I cannot encode MPEG-2 directly from the TV
without dropping frames, if I choose a resolution that is almost DVD. (DVD
has 720x480, the resolution my software allows is 640x480, which shouldn't
work when I burn it to DVD). So, even with a 1200MHz that is quite capable
of playing back MPEG-2, I can't encode it in real time. So, if I record TV
it has to be in the older Video CD (VCD) standard which is the older MPEG-1,
at half the resolution of DVD, which would be 352x240. It also has a lower
bitrate, and actually manages to fit audio & video in the same space as an
audio CD fits just audio (ie an 80minute CD-R can record 80 minutes of VCD
files).

Hope I haven't further confused you



  #8  
Old October 22nd 03, 02:39 AM
Franklin Wright
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Default


"Anonymous Joe" wrote:

Way back when DVD-ROM drives were just beginning
to be popular, people who already had a PC could buy a
"DVD Kit" that had a DVD-ROM drive, and a PCI
card, an MPEG-2 decoder board....



Yup, my Dell Dimension with a 450Hz Pentium II came
with a DVD PCI card for use with the DVD-ROM drive.


Nowadays, though, the CPU is fast enough to decode
MPEG-2 all by itself. It takes about 700MHz to do this
reliably, and at the time, there were many people who
only had 300, 400, even 500MHz CPUs that couldn't
decode the MPEG-2 by itself.



The same 450MHz PII in my Dell Dimension handles
the MPEG-2 decoding for my Samsung CD-R/RW DVD
ROM combo nicely. I don't know about doing anything
else while that is going on, though.

The reason for my original question about whether
the codec was software or hardware was because the
minimal setup instructions didn't say that the CD labeled
"PowerDVD" contained the software codec. For all I
could tell, it was DVD editing software. Fortunately,
I thought, I still had the old PCI card DVD codec and
I wondered if I should put that back in the ol' PC. Turned
out it wasn't necessary.

FranklinWright



  #9  
Old October 22nd 03, 06:15 AM
FOR7b
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Default

The same 450MHz PII in my Dell Dimension handles
the MPEG-2 decoding for my Samsung CD-R/RW DVD
ROM combo nicely. I don't know about doing anything
else while that is going on, though.




FranklinWright


I have a self built 600MHZ Athlon system that easily plays movies just through
Power DVD while running quite a number of large programs in the background,
including AOL 9 which I am using to write this. I always thought the DVD
playing a movie would be a real drag to my older system but it handles it very
easily with not much drain at all on resources. Try opening up some big
programs and see how yours does.









  #10  
Old November 7th 03, 06:29 PM
Ray Setzer
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Default


"Franklin Wright" wrote in message
k.net...




The reason for my original question about whether
the codec was software or hardware was because the
minimal setup instructions didn't say that the CD labeled
"PowerDVD" contained the software codec. For all I
could tell, it was DVD editing software. Fortunately,
I thought, I still had the old PCI card DVD codec and
I wondered if I should put that back in the ol' PC. Turned
out it wasn't necessary.


They just told you to install PowerDVD because if they said. "Install the
MPG2 codec" you would have said "What?" So they simply told you to install
software what would automatically install the proper codecs on your
computer. Power DVD will also recognize and play DVD's.

It gets complicated, but the short explanation is that video is encoded in a
variety of formats. In order for your computer to play that format, it must
have the proper software installed to decode it back not viewable video.
That piece of software is called a "Codec". Common formats are. MPG1, MPG2,
MOV (quicktime), AVI (both generic and DIVX) WMA (windows media) RM (Real
Media) and DV (raw uncompressed digital video)

As people posted before, the Codec's were often in the past encoded directly
onto video capture cards. This was because they could create a dedicated
card to convert raw DV into a compressed format. (Raw DV will consume approx
a Gig of space for every 5 min of video.) A card dedicated to doing one
thing will do it alot better than a computer that designed to do many
things. But, as people has said, todays processor speeds make a software
solution far cheaper today. Todays encoders availabe for consumer use can
process uncompressed DV into high quality MPG2 video at almost real time
speeds. For example, I recently encoded a 6gig, 30 Min raw DV into a 500MB
very high quality MPG2.


 




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