Creative Labs MK5005 PC-DVD Encore 8x Dxr3

List Price: $177.03

Features:

• Watch DVD movies on your TV or PC
• Enjoy Dolby Digital (AC-3) or DTS 5.1-channel audio
• Decodes MPEG-2 video with the Dxr3 board
• 6-tap filtering and scaling reduces combing effects and artifacts
• Reads CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, and audio CD discs at up to 50x speeds

Customer Reviews:

clean and clear [Posted on 2000-08-01]
For a combo package with encoder card and drive you really cannot beat the DXR3 with all audio options and a picture stability ajustment thats easy as tracking your VCR. Mine has been running for almost a year and i have had no problems, not even with the drive, Creative Cd drives have a normal life span of almost 6 months under regular use.

DXR3 [Posted on 2000-08-02]
I have the 6X version of the Encore (same DXR3 board, just 6X drive). The Encore is great for the most part, but you should be aware that because the DXR3 "chains" from your graphics card to your monitor, a little signal loss occurs which causes your everyday video quality to drop (muddy/smudgy in my case). For me, I couldn't stand it, so I ended up disconnecting the DXR3 from the monitor and I am just using the TV OUT. The good news is that it does work well with TV OUT, and it does work with VCDs, and even MPEG files.

One more thing... The DXR3 is essentially the same as Sigma Design's RealMagic Holywood+. With a little installation patch, you can use Holywood+'s drivers if you're having problems with Creative's.

Waste of money!! [Posted on 2000-09-09]
I regretfuly have bought three items from Creative Labs-two expensive sound cards and this DVD device, all of which have crashed and burned within three weeks of it being put into my computer.Needless to say, I won't be buying anything from this particular manufacturer again.

Fine DVD playback; includes hardware decoder [Posted on 2000-09-09]
I've used my Encore drive for a year and it has produced solid playbacks of DVD movies on my PC and TV set. The picture on the PC monitor is sharp and clear at 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions but becomes slightly less sharp at higher resolutions. I never have problems like pauses or freezes in playbacks, video-audio out of sync, or crashes in Windows that some users had. I've played over 70 DVDs over the last 3 years, from single-side single-layer discs to RSDL ones.

The included "Dxr3" hardware decoder card (PCI) decodes the DVD video signals from the drive, and then passes the images to your video card via an external VGA passthrough cable (included). Some people have noticed degraded video while using the passthrough cable, but I've seen none on my monitor. The Dxr3 card's back panel has outputs to your TV set (both analog video and S-Video), S/PDIF audio out, and the VGA out to your video card. The picture quality on my 32" TV set is very good and certainly comparable to that from a standalone DVD player. One nagging problem is that I have to unhook the cable TV's coaxial cable from the TV set in order to get rid of interferences on the picture and sound; I don't know whether this is a problem with my PC, the Dxr3 card, or my cable TV provider; and some people don't have this problem. As to the S/PDIF output, I am able to connect it to my Dolby Digital decoder and get great DD sound. It can also be used with a DTS decoder (but I don't have one to test).

You control the DVD playback on your PC with the included "PC-DVD Player" software. All the standard functions like chapter selection, 1x to 3x fast-forward or rewind, pause, frame advance, time search, audio/subpicture/aspect menus are there. You can also store disc-specific bookmarks. Nearly all the functions are accessible with the keyboard. The viewing window is freely resizable, with aspect ratio fixed or unfixed at your choice. There are only 3 adjustable picture settings: brightness, contrast, saturation (older version of the software used to have red, green, blue settings).

One concern is that the drive would become very hot inside after over 2-3 hours of use. So I would be hesistant to play a 3-hour movie back-to-back . In order to minimize wear-and-tear to the drive, I use it only for watching DVDs and use another CD-ROM drive for software CDs. Making sure the PC is well-ventilated would help too.

Be sure to obtain the latest drivers and software from Creative Labs. Once I had a DVD ('97 DVD release of "Dr. No") that couldn't be played on this drive until I updated my drivers and software.

This drive allows you to select any DVD region, but you can only do it 5 times. Also, changing the region requires you to first uninstall, then reinstall the PC-DVD Player software.

I have used only one DVD-ROM on this drive -- the computer game "Overseer" from Access. The experience was very unsatisfactory -- lockups during the game and problems with video playback. It was one of the earliest DVD-ROMs and I suppose later ones should work better with this drive.

I've used CD-R discs, VCD discs, Kodak CDs and they all work fine with this drive.

Creative Labs is pretty much sure-fire [Posted on 2000-11-06]
All creative labs products I have ever owned or my family has ever owned have been great. My family has the CL 5X dvd but with the dxr3 card. We bought it about a year and a half ago and it's still going strong as the only cd-rom/dvd-rom on the system. The picture is crisp, we've had no jitteriness (if that's a word) with the framerate of dvds, there has been no kind of lost picture due to the loopback cable, and the dvd controls are excellent. About the only thing that I would complain about is the time that it takes for the cd door to open, which is pretty dang insignificant.

We also had a Sound Blaster Live! Value card in the system and Cambridge Soundworks 4.0 surround sound speakers which in combination produced amazing sound. Just think what this new dvd and a new sb live 5.1 and those new CS2500 5.1 digital speakers would do!

When we first watched a DVD on it, it was everything I expected it (DVDs in general) to be. When I watched DVDs on my friend's system (software decoding), it was choppy and nasty. When I watched a DVD on my sister's laptop (software decoding), it was fairly decent but with that choppiness going on again. The dxr3 decoder card is great. If you buy a dvd player, get a decoder card with it, and more specifically, one from Creative Labs.

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