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Thilo Ettelt · Jun 9, 2004, 08:32 AM

Hi,

has anyone here tried out to put a DVD drive into the first generation iBook yet?

I am wondering whether it will be able to play DVD movies. A well reputed german tech site says a computer should have at least 500 MHz (regarding PCs though) but they also claim that when a computer can play a divx movie file (a ripped dvd movie) then chances for dvd playback rise.

My iBook 300 can play DivX well enough imho (maybe about 12 fps), so I'm looking into getting a dvd drive for it but i would like know if other people have done that before so i won't spend the money useless.

The exchange of the drive is no problem for me, I have successfully replaced the 3 GB HD with a 30 GB one 3 days ago

- Thilo

wataru · Jun 9, 2004, 01:51 PM

Why in the world would you sink more money into a computer that old? I'd be saving up for a new iBook if I were you.

Thilo Ettelt · Jun 9, 2004, 02:04 PM

Originally posted by wataru:
Why in the world would you sink more money into a computer that old? I'd be saving up for a new iBook if I were you.

Because I love this computer and it makes me happy, I am more productive with it than with some faster machines (probably because i tend to play around when i have free time on the computer). But it's not really a "sink", this dvd drive is just 60 bucks. And I want a cheap on-board-cinema

(for airplane)

- Thilo

RadarBob2 · Jun 10, 2004, 07:20 AM

I'm with T.E. I've breathed several more years of life into my Precious by upgrading the HD and memory.

As for a DVD, I've heard about it, vaguely. I understand that it requires a firmware update. I'm noy keen on that, so I've not investigated it further. As I *vaguely* understand it you must be sure to get a player that will work with the machine and the firmware update. I've not seen a definitive list.

jedi2187 · Jun 10, 2004, 08:40 AM

I think the big factor may be the video card it came with. It may not have the muscle to handle DVD. There may be an earlier thread about this, so you may have to poke around.
Now, I'm not saying that DVD would be totally out of the picture. You may have to use a 3rd party program like MPlayer to play the movies in case Apple's own DVD Player refuses.
I have 3 clamshells myself: 2 indigo for me and my wife, and a tangerine for my mother-in-law when she comes over this summer from Prague. When I was assembling hers, I remembered that they have a different keyboard layout in Czech than in English. Luckily, I found a Mac reseller that has parts for the clamshell model.

Thilo Ettelt · Jun 10, 2004, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by RadarBob2:
I'm with T.E. I've breathed several more years of life into my Precious by upgrading the HD and memory.

As for a DVD, I've heard about it, vaguely. I understand that it requires a firmware update. I'm noy keen on that, so I've not investigated it further. As I *vaguely* understand it you must be sure to get a player that will work with the machine and the firmware update. I've not seen a definitive list.

Good point. From what I have heard that there are differences in how the DVD player software by Apple works. Up to a certain version it uses hardware decoding, which i found out does the 233-250-292 MHz Powerbook G3 Series with a PC card (which is needed for the DVD built-to-order option), the new players however let the processor handle this. It seems like the 233-250-292 Powerbooks do not have the sufficient power to do that. The iBook however was the first Mac to feature UMA (Unified Motherboard Architecture) and it might fast enough to decode DVD (mpeg2...) with at least 10-12 frames per second (in 32k colors; it can decode a DivX movie well that way). On the other hand it has just a 66 MHz bus just like the PowerBook G3 Series.

I guess I will have to get the dvd drive and find out? It's 60 Euros so it wouldn't be that much of a loss since I could at least read DVD-ROMs...

- Thilo

discotronic · Jun 10, 2004, 09:27 AM

I had read that someone using a Tangerine iBook put a DVD drive in their book and it worked. The problem they had was getting a player that worked. If I'm not mistaked they used VLC as the player. I can't remeber what forum it was on. I did a search and came up with nothing. Post back with your results.