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Can I Play DVD Movies on My Computer?<br />
<strong>Chapter</strong> 4<br />
DVD and<br />
Computers<br />
Yes, if your computer has the right stuff. Almost all Windows and Mac OS<br />
computers with DVD drives come with software to play DVDs.<br />
The computer operating system or playback software must support<br />
regional codes and be licensed to descramble copy-protected movies. If<br />
the computer has TV video out, it must support Macrovision in order to play<br />
copy-protected movies. You may also need software that can read the UDF<br />
file system format used by DVDs. You don’t need special drivers for Windows<br />
or Mac OS, since the existing CD-ROM drivers work fine with DVD-<br />
ROM drives. In addition to a DVD-ROM drive you must have software (or<br />
extra hardware) that knows how to play the DVD-Video format and decode<br />
MPEG-2 video and Dolby Digital or MPEG-2 audio. Good-quality softwareonly<br />
playback requires a 350-MHz Pentium II or a Mac G4. Almost all new<br />
computers with DVD-ROM drives use software decoding instead of hardware<br />
decoding. Hardware upgrade kits can be purchased for older computers<br />
(usually minimum 133 MHz Pentium or G3), starting at $150.<br />
Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) had no support for DVD playback when<br />
released in March 2001, and also did not support Apple’s DVD authoring<br />
applications (iDVD and DVD Studio Pro). (More info at CNET.) Support for<br />
DVD playback was added to version 10.1 (Puma).<br />
If you’re having problems playing movies on your computer, see the section,<br />
“Why Do I Have Problems Playing DVDs on My Computer?”<br />
Certain MPEG decoding tasks such as motion compensation, IDCT<br />
(inverse discrete cosine transform), IVLC (inverse variable length coding),<br />
and even subpicture decoding can be performed by special circuitry on a<br />
video graphics chip, improving the performance of software decoders. This<br />
is called hardware decode acceleration, hardware motion comp, or hardware<br />
assist. Some card makers also call it hardware decode, even though<br />
they don’t do all the decoding in hardware. All modern graphics cards also<br />
Copyright 2004 by Jim Taylor. Click Here for Terms of Use.
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