Decoder Cards:

There are several types of decoder cards, some are PCI cards (Desktop), some are PC-Card (Notebook).

The single most popular decoder card in existence today is the SigmaDesigns Hollywood-Plus.

Whether you know it or not, you may have this card. Several OEMs such as Creative (DXR3), Hitachi and VideoLogic sell the Hollywood-Plus card under their own label.

Most decoder cards require the bare minimum of a Pentium 133mhz to function correctly. Certain cards (such as the Creative DXR2) might actually work on a Pentium 90mhz. But just to be in the clear, I would recommend a Pentium 200mhz (this is me being careful, it should work fine at 133mhz).

The major advantage of decoder cards is that they usually use better TV-Out hardware, so the TV image looks better compared to some display adaptors which may use inferior output components to save costs.



Software Decoders:

Before going into the actual software decoders, there are quite a few issues to deal with first:

• Super-7 motherboards:
  If you are using a K6 based CPU then most likely you are using a Super-7 motherboard with a chipset from either VIA or ALI. These motherboards require special DMA and IRQ routing drivers installed for DVD playback to work correctly. Without them DVD playback may be slower, unstable or simply won't work. To get the latest drivers for your motherboard, go the home page of whomever makes it.
  
  Beside the driver issues, there seem to be a myriad of problems with Super-7 boards of different manufacturers, some seem to work fine, while others will conflict or slow down DVD playback regardless of what drivers you install. So be aware that playback on K6 type processors may be slow.
  
  I've heard reports of playback being slow on 475mhz K6-2 machines and being smooth on 300mhz machines. Both using the same player.

• ISA Sound cards:
  There are two issues involving sound cards. The first is, ISA cards will only play 44khz audio, while DVD Audio is 48khz. Some of these cards will claim to play 48mhz, but will usually just fail or give a noisy output when trying to play.
  
  The second issue with ISA sound cards is that they will slow down system performance by up to 20%.