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Introduction:
ATI DVD is bundled with many ATI graphics card and is not available as a retail product. ATI has used Ravisent's soft-Cinemaster DVD decoder as the core for this player, since this decoder has extensive support for ATI's iDCT DVD acceleration. This player hasn't been updated in a while, and so cannot be really compared to the latest range of software DVD players.
Review:
Finally! A nice looking player ...Using the cinemaster decoder, the ATI Player is probably the best looking player around. Unfortunately, this beauty is only skin deep.
The biggest problem with the ATI player is its sluggish nature. On anything less than a PII 400, this simple chokes, having to wait several second for a command to respond. Although this is not a big problem, as you don't have to use these commands during playback, this prevents this player from being classed as a five star one. Another niggly problem is the non-functioning "lock-aspect ratio" option. While this works perfectly in windowed mode, in full screen play, which is what most people use, it doesn't allow you to turn this option off. This isn't a big problem with widescreen discs, but with Anamorphic titles, which you might want to connect to your tv-out to watch on your 16x9 enhanced TV, this can be quite irratating. I've also noticed some strange crashes, but that may be just me. As against, the cinemaster decoder is top notch, meaning playback is fast, smooth and consistent. Sound quality and volume is extremely good, as with all players based around the cinemaster decoder. The ATI 3.1 is the best overall player!
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Review Summary |
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Decoder : QI Cinemaster Efficiency: Excellent Quality : Very good User Friendliness : Average Acceleration Support : Good Comments : The fastest and nicest looking player around, although a little sluggish to use and cannot resize the movie. Looks and feels poor against recent competition, particularly against PowerDVD and WinDVD |
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System Requirements |
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Processor : PII-300 (without HWMC*) Graphics card : 8MB PCI card (16MB AGP recommended) Memory : 32 MB Sound card : 44kHz PCI DVD-ROM drive : 1x or better DVD-ROM drive Operating system : Windows 9x HWMC* - Hardware Motion Compensation - DVD acceleration |
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Review Rating |
| 70% | |
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