What is the best Hardware Decoder?
Most standard display cards today come with a TV-Out option which gives a better image quality and allows for a greater degree of control. Hardware decoders are just not needed these days. A Hardware Decoder card is of great use if you plan watching DVD movies on a TV and would rather use the computer to do it cheaply (with an older machine). Using a hardware decoder on a PC Monitor is usually a bad call as most of them use a pass-through cable which degrades the monitor image quality. The reason? the cables are cheaply designed, just compare the cable you get with say a Hollywood+ decoder to a cable that comes with the Diamond Monster II, it’s practically half the width. This is most evident on the Creative DXR2 where the monitor quality is awful. As a rule, it is advised to use a Software Decoder if you plan to view movies on your monitor, with the exception of very slow computers (under 300-350mhz). When picking out a Hardware Decoder there are certain things you may want to conside
