Good afternoon chaps. Some of you may remember my Microsoft Multimedia Hell post. Well it likely isn't as bad as all that but MS does not like anything but WAV or WMA/WMV files as default. So I was chagrined when the issue of DVD playback arose. This is a Windows Media Centre PC so uh...yeah, I kind of thought it should play DVDs out of the box. And I am sure it did when new. I re-installed the OS last year and did not realise it needed a separate dvd decoder. Again, should be a standard docoder/driver out of the gates. So I found the ffdshow decoder which is an old standard. Well WMP11 does not like it. It gives a big red x by it when I use Windows XP video decoder checkup tool. It says WMP10 syncrononisation feature is not compatible with ffdshow (v1.2.4422.0) and they recommend not using it. I suppose the Windows Media Centre would be just as unhappy with it so I left it unchecked. Anyone know of a freebie that works? I don't really care about WMP so much but it is linked as a media server to my PS3 and it is handy to be able to use it at the tele. Hence the need for a compatible decoder.
Now to more pressing issues. The DVD drives are DOA and comatose. I cannot complain. They are eight years old. The first died two years ago and I simply disconnected it in BIOS and used the second drive till it went flaky a few weeks ago. Rips with EAC are taking AGES whereas before they took about five to ten minutes. Here's the rub. The pc is about seven years old. Still works well so we keep it around. The trouble arises with the availability of sata channels. I have two but they are in use with hdds. The optical drives were interfaced through the old standard IDE cable. This would be fine save for two things. IDE cables are large, do not tuck away well in the case, and are almost impossible to source anymore without paying a LOT more for them. Newegg listed three, two of which were unavailable and the third was nearly $50. Too much for this application.
So I started looking at sata adapters. Sata optical drives are barely $15-30 anymore so an adapter plus the drives is certainly the more economical way to go. There are those which interface via PCI cards and typically have two to four channels. Then there are those which plug into the IDE port on your motherboard and allow one or two sata channels. I have almost certainly rejected the latter. A stop at our Micro Center reveals the IDE models come back regularly as not working. It is not so much the device as the BIOS of many motherboards do not like them. The clerk told me the return rate is nearly 50%! So I figure it is PCI card for a solution.
Now here is where things get a bit dodgy. These cards range from $12 to $60 and reviews are all over the place for all of them. I know nothing of brands so here is where the brain power of B&B comes to bear. Help me find a PCI card with at least two internal sata channels for a reasonable price. Most come with raid software but it is not needed. These will see only optical drives. Another issue that comes up is boot ability. Pretty nice if you need to re-install Windows to have the ruddy optical drive be bootable straight away. Otherwise it is a usb boot stick and sometimes that stuff is dodgy. Particularly if you are trying to get the danged drivers installed for the opticals. Anyway, give me your thoughts on this. Remember, this a XPsp3 Media Centre, 2.8ghz pentium4, 1Gb ram, PCI(not PCI-E) bus and is bootable from usb. No floppy drive. Thanks.
Cheers, Todd
Now to more pressing issues. The DVD drives are DOA and comatose. I cannot complain. They are eight years old. The first died two years ago and I simply disconnected it in BIOS and used the second drive till it went flaky a few weeks ago. Rips with EAC are taking AGES whereas before they took about five to ten minutes. Here's the rub. The pc is about seven years old. Still works well so we keep it around. The trouble arises with the availability of sata channels. I have two but they are in use with hdds. The optical drives were interfaced through the old standard IDE cable. This would be fine save for two things. IDE cables are large, do not tuck away well in the case, and are almost impossible to source anymore without paying a LOT more for them. Newegg listed three, two of which were unavailable and the third was nearly $50. Too much for this application.
So I started looking at sata adapters. Sata optical drives are barely $15-30 anymore so an adapter plus the drives is certainly the more economical way to go. There are those which interface via PCI cards and typically have two to four channels. Then there are those which plug into the IDE port on your motherboard and allow one or two sata channels. I have almost certainly rejected the latter. A stop at our Micro Center reveals the IDE models come back regularly as not working. It is not so much the device as the BIOS of many motherboards do not like them. The clerk told me the return rate is nearly 50%! So I figure it is PCI card for a solution.
Now here is where things get a bit dodgy. These cards range from $12 to $60 and reviews are all over the place for all of them. I know nothing of brands so here is where the brain power of B&B comes to bear. Help me find a PCI card with at least two internal sata channels for a reasonable price. Most come with raid software but it is not needed. These will see only optical drives. Another issue that comes up is boot ability. Pretty nice if you need to re-install Windows to have the ruddy optical drive be bootable straight away. Otherwise it is a usb boot stick and sometimes that stuff is dodgy. Particularly if you are trying to get the danged drivers installed for the opticals. Anyway, give me your thoughts on this. Remember, this a XPsp3 Media Centre, 2.8ghz pentium4, 1Gb ram, PCI(not PCI-E) bus and is bootable from usb. No floppy drive. Thanks.
Cheers, Todd
