DVD Computer Drives vs DVD Players

[zombiewhacker]

When DVD computer drives first came onto the market, my lasting impression was they did not do nearly as good a job playing movies as did standalone DVD players. The dropframe rate was high, and I consistently witnessed image stutter and other movement artifacts. This was never the case when the same movie played on a standalone DVD player.

Many generations later, have computer DVD drives caught up in playback quality, or do standalones still perform better?

Also, given a choice between a standalone DVD recorder and the new computer DVD-R/DVD-RW drives, which would you prefer for recording shows and movies?

 

[Woodman]

The dropframe rate was high, and I consistently witnessed image stutter and other movement artifacts. This was never the case when the same movie played on a standalone DVD player.

Many generations later, have computer DVD drives caught up in playback quality, or do standalones still perform better?

Stuttering had more to do with the system (specifically the slower processors, and maybe the memory) which was available at that time, and not primarily on the DVD drives. Playback quality between computers and stand-alones nowadays, I don't know. But things have improved considerably since then, so I'd guess computer played DVDs would be better, and for a lot of other reasons too.

Also, given a choice between a standalone DVD recorder and the new computer DVD-R/DVD-RW drives, which would you prefer for recording shows and movies?

Depends. If I prefer convienence, then maybe the stand-alone recorder, to be considered if the price is attractive. Else almost certainly the computer DVD recorder/burner.

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I shaved myself.

 

[zombiewhacker]

So as far as anyone knows, computer DVD drives now play back movies with the exactly the same quality as a standalone DVD player? Wow, that's amazing... does that go for computer DVD-RWs as well? Because a computer DVD-RW from a company like Lite-On is much cheaper than its standalone cousins, at least at the moment.