[iNub]

I've seen those Firewire DVD-RW drives that play DVDs as well as burn them, and I started wondering:

If I buy an ATA DVD player, put it in a Firewire case, and plug it into my iBook, would it play a DVD? I'm curious because I don't have a DVD drive on my iBook, and that would be a great solution.

Or, does anybody make a portable Firewire DVD player?

[Paul S]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I'm sure it depends on this: Does the iBook have a DVD decoder built into it's video card? That is required for DVD playback. If it has it, I would think your idea should work.

[iNub]

Actually, I think pretty much all DVD playing now takes place in software. Computers are fast enough to play it, and adding DVD hardware decoders is expensive. That's why that trick where you take a screen shot of a DVD playing and set that as your background to watch the movie on your desktop only works on certain early Powermacs. Those had a hardware DVD decoder. Now it won't work, because it's all in software.

[Euphrates]

are you saying that the dvd could be played as the desktop picture on those early powermacs?(!!!)

[iNub]

Yeah, you can.
http://www.pbzone.com/archive/0499_8thru15.shtml