>>The DVD decoder cards are in fact 16-bit PCMCIA, same as Airport - see >>the developer notes to confirm this. Not that it helps a great deal >>unless you can get DVD going on a non-CB PB. > >What does the DVD card actually do ? I think I can get a DVD drive >into a PB1400, but I am not really familliar with DVD in general. If >I have a drive and the card, is that all I need ? > >>I'd be interested to know if anyone has got an internal/ext DVD drive >>going on an older Power Mac - say, a 7300/7500 or something. I sometimes wish we didn't start these threads <grin>
First off, the only ways I can conceive of getting a DVD unit working on a legacy Mac are (i) internal on Power Mac (ii) external FireWire or SCSI on PowerMac (iii) FireWire or (maybe) SCSI on PowerBook. SCSI DVDs cost the earth (and more). Only recent PBs support FW. More importantly, I have no idea what hardware a generic DVD device looks for - if it looks for anything on a Mac. I note some PC DVD drives bundle an MPEG-2 decoder PCI card with the drive. While DVD-RAM is known to work - because Toast supplies the necessary drivers, as does Apple - I suspect Apple's driver supports the ATA bus only. I've never seen any evidence of FireWire bridge support. Bottom line: the 1400's video capabilities are extremely lousy in any case. Best off to invest in a Lime iBook 466 or Lombard 400 or something, if you want a good, reasonably priced portable DVD machine. Cheers, RD Remy Davison Contributing Editor, Insanely-Great Mac <http://www.insanely-great.com> mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> RD's PowerBook page: <http://www.macpowerbook.com> -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
