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REALmagic Hollywood Plus DVD Decoder Card |
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Conclusions and New Driver Update
My Overall Impression of the REALmagic Hollywood Plus:
I would recommend this product to anyone. The Hollywood Plus is a pretty awesome piece of kit - the DVD playback quality is superb. Even Playback to a computer monitor is far superior to what you get from a software decoder. The image is silky smooth, with no noticeable decompression artefacts, and crystal clear.
Audio quality is also excellent, the full Dolby Digital sound available to those who have the audio hardware to make use of it.
If you are serious about your DVD's, a hardware decoder is the only way to go, and the REALmagic Hollywood Plus is at the top of my picklist. It is worth noting that Creative Lab's new DXR3 decoder board is based on the very same REALmagic hardware.
On the application side, DVD Station has all the features you need, and is very easy to use. It may not look as flashy as some of the software decoders that are out there, but it is perfectly functional. When coupled with Remote Selector or Zone Selector you end up with a product that has equivalent output quality to a stand alone player, is region and macrovision free, and has flexibility in that the machine may be used for other applications such as an MP3 player. I am now working on cramming my a/v PC into a black anodised aluminium case to match the rest of my audio gear, with a colour vga lcd display salvaged from an old portable computer. I'll post photos when I have them available.
Two final words on the Hollywood Plus - BUY ONE - you won't be disappointed.
Special Thanks to David 'Lebowski' Stroud for talking me into purchasing a hardware decoder, for supplying me the links for Remote Selector and various DVD related sites, for loaning me some region 1 DVD's to test region switching and NTSC - PAL conversion, and for sharing his in-depth knowledge of DVD formats and the film industry.
UPDATE:
Sigma Designs have released (22 October 1999) version 1.8 of their Hollywood Plus drivers. Version 1.8 not only supports DTS (Digital Theatre Sound), but significantly improves the NTSC to PAL frame-rate conversion. A trained eye will still pick out a very slight stutter, but it is dramatically improved - most would not even notice it at all! A big thank-you (and about time) to Sigma Designs for this update, which must surely now make their Hollywood Plus product the very best available PC DVD decoder card. Get the new drivers here.
I have tested these V1.8 drivers with both Zone Selector 4.1 and Remote Selector 1.7, and am happy to say that these software products still work perfectly - the Hollywood Plus is still region and Macrovision free! Be careful though if buying a new DVD drive. It would appear that the latest 4th Generation drives (such as the 10X DVD Pioneer 104S) are region locked. They will allow only 5 region changes, and will lock themselves to the region selected at the last change - neither Zone Selector nor Remote Selector will help you out here, as both products work at a higher level, and will not get around region locks at the drive itself. It would appear that the only way to get around this would be via a firmware update/hack, but I do not know for sure if this is possible/available (keep an eye out at [url]www.dvdutils.com ). I would recommend a 3rd Generation drive such as the Pioneer 103S, as it will still work flawlessly with the Hollywood Plus, and you won't run into problems with region locks (so long as you don't pull the RPC jumper from the back of the drive!)
Also of interest at Sigma designs is their new infrared remote control, for use with the Hollywood Plus. This allows you to control the player application from your favorite armchair! A must have, and retails for only US$19.99. I enquired on shipping cost, and they said they will mail it for US$10 - a total of US$29.99 That works out to be a little less than AUD$50 - I'm going to order one next week :) Check it out here - it looks pretty neat too, and hopefully it will be added to the list of supported remotes in Erwin van den Berg's 'Remote Selector' app (get it here) so as it may be used by those who have the Creative DXR3 cards (Hollywood Plus with Creative badge).
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