Greetings, and welcome to an LGR thing, and this thing

is the Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore Dxr2

DVD-ROM upgrade kit for PCs, released in October of 1997

at a suggested retail price of $379 US.

"Get Tomorrow's Technology at Tomorrow's Price Today, with the 7-in-1 Futuristic Digital Video Disc Solution For Your PC & TV!"

Oh my goodness!

DVDs were extremely exciting back in the day.

(And holy crap, 1997, if you had one of these things, you were absolutely on top of the world.)

I didn't get a DVD-ROM until like 2003.

But, this was available in '97, and... honestly, it was relatively affordable,

because this Encore release here, as the name implies,

is the second generation DVD-ROM offered by Creative.

The first one from them was their PC-DVD, released in March of 1997, and that was $500.

So yeah, in just a handful of months,

it had come down quite a bit; the tech had been upgraded and everything was better for less money.

That's just late '90s tech!

But anyway, this in particular uses Creative's Dynamic Xtended Resolution technology, hm...

also known as Dxr2, and the idea here was that it provided

line doubling to provide a kind of deinterlaced 480p image for DVD video

and dynamic resolution interpolation up to 1280x1024, which meant,

that you were supposed to get a clearer, smoother, crisper image on higher resolution monitors.

But the Dxr2 isn't just for that kind of resolution scaling and whatnot, it is also

the name of the card that is in here.

That's right, this isn't just a drive, this is actually

a card that you plug into a PCI slot, and this is an MPEG-2 decoder,

which was pretty much a requirement for computers at this point, because

it took quite a lot of processing power and graphical power and whatnot to make this happen,

to get all of the video data in MPEG-2.

So you needed a card like this,

especially on systems below 266 megahertz or so.

Of course, this changed over the years, as faster and faster CPUs and GPUs came out,

plus improved DVD software like WinDVD and PowerDVD just making much better usage

of the processing and all the MPEG-2 stuff,

which led to MPEG-2 cards like the Dxr2 becoming obsolete.

But at this point in time, you needed that card,

at least for the computers that were out there.

And that's what we're gonna be installing it on, which in this episode, is a

Packard Bell Multimedia 955, a computer that uh, isn't really great. *Chuckles*

And I recently restored it here on LGR, specifically because it was so friggin' bland.

This is just the most middle-of-the-road late '90s kind of computer.

Not a whole lot going on as you can see from these specs, but that's precisely why I wanted to get it up and running.

Because, it's to me, one of those ideal examples of just

a beige white box-lookin' tower that does what you need it to and

absolutely nothing else,

making it a prime example of something where you should be able to see

upgrades really making a difference.

As for this box itself, well, this is a new old stock box.

It has uh, never been opened.

Comes with all sorts of goodies inside

and...

packed in there are some pretty awesome extras.

Mainly, the game Claw, the DVD-ROM version of the game, which I recently reviewed, and

the DVD version of Wing Commander IV.

*Chuckles* That's pretty sweet because

normally, it came on CD-ROM in a big old box like this

because... it came on six CDs,

so you had just a lot of disc swapping

and not only that, but the quality wasn't as good...

as far as uh, video quality and whatnot, and yes, this is an FMV game

with uh,

a lot of awesome people in it,

and if you've got it on a DVD, like in this package, then you just had the objectively superior experience,

and one of the only ways to get it was to buy one of these packages and get it prepackaged.

So, I am happy to have a copy finally in this PC-DVD kit.

But yeah, that's enough of talking about this thing, let's just dive into it

and see what you got inside of one of these brand-new in October of 1997.

*Box Opening Sounds*

Hmm.

*Box Opening Sounds*

Oh my.

Eheh, well.

Okay, so it looks like the DVD-ROM drive itself...

a big old bag of goodies and you got adapters, documentation, the DVD software...

the Dxr2 MPEG-2 decoder card itself.

Yeah, big ol' chunk of cardboard that is full of nothing whatsoever. *Chuckles*

That's a lot of empty unused space.

Yeah, I gotta take a look at this Dxr2 card itself because I have been darn curious about this thing ever since...

I remember reading about these MPEG-2 decoders and whatnot back then.

It just all seemed so... exotic and futuristic, like "Wow! This card is for DVDs!" *Chuckles*

"Imagine what all these chips do!"

And uh, yeah, this is a passthrough type of card, so you plug in your video card, well,

cable from your video card goes in here, and then this is gonna go to your monitor.

S-Video right here, and then S/PDIF audio out, just for your TV or

Dolby Sound system. This can do 5.1 channel AC3 audio.

'Kay, let's see what we got here.

Oh... okay, I was wondering if it would uh...

actually have that big ol' Dxr2 *Chuckles* thing like it had on the front of the box, but...

I guess not, so yeah, this is the thing. It's a 2x DVD-ROM, manufactured in November of 1997, so...

I guess this one didn't quite come out on launch day, but that is alright.

Uh, I kind of expected that because there is uh, a different box art for these Dxr2 packages like this.

Woah, that's a lotta... that's a lot of cautions. *Chuckles* "Caution, this is gonna be the death of you" in every language!

And we've got this ol' bag of stuff here, which is.. still got a lot of air in it.

Feel like I should say "Nice hiss."

Okay, we have a reference thing here, which is like, yeah,

"Don't contact us for these games and whatnot, 'cause we- we didn't make them."

Uhhh, yeah, this is just, tech support.

Okay, we have some uh, cables here for the uh, video and audio, it appears.

Here's the passthrough to go between uh, the video card and the Dxr2.

And just a regular IDE cables and little passthroughs there for the sound.

Uh, I- I guess that's probably for like CD-ROM audio.

So we've got Wing Commander IV, the DVD interactive version...

and Claw... also the DVD version.

This is such a cool game, and I am excited to check this one out.

And let's see, we have some software here on CD-ROM, which is...

the player and the drivers and Microsoft ActiveMovie and a Creative sample clip.

'Mkay- Oh, there's a floppy disk too.

Oh, that is just the drivers alone, which makes sense.

You don't wanna put the cart before the horse, it's like,

"Oh no! I can't get these because I put that in and replaced my CD drive, and now, nothing works!"

Eh, let's see here. Uh, accessories.

Looks like some other crap you can get from Creative, which is fine.

And we have the rather beefy Getting Started guide. *Chuckles*

That's a lot for just getting started! Although, I guess, really, only up to...

here, or so, is English.

It's, I'm assuming, going to be pretty straightforward, but I will refer to this if I need to.

Let's get this thing installed in the Packard Bell!

*Clattering*

So I'm not entirely sure how to get this out of here yet, but...

I'm assuming like, everything else in this computer, it involves taking out the front panel.

*Clack*

Yep.

*Thud* (x4)

I really don't like when computers do this, like it's a piece of metal that is actually still attached...

to the chassis - that you have to bend out of shape,

and it's all sharp and annoying and urgh.

*Snip*

Uurgggghhh...

*Bang* (x9)

*Whir*

*Click*

Uuuhhhh, yeah, that's really graceful.

Least that gives me the chance to... dust out that little area.

Now, something that I didn't actually notice earlier on the back of the DVD drive is this Digital Audio connector, that is for

DAT, or Digital Audio Tape.

I thought that was interesting, I've never really noticed this - that's what that's for on the back of some of these.

Uh, but anyway, at this point, I need to change it from -

well, no, I guess I need to keep it, it's on slave.

The original CD-ROM that's in here is going to be...

the master...

and then, this is gonna be the slave because...

there is a lack of IDE connections in this thing.

*Click*

So that one's gonna go right here, this connects to the CD-ROM and this connects to the motherboard.

And then, also, I wanna get the CD audio cable connected.

I was wondering why it came with two of them.

TThat this one right here goes from the DVD-ROM to the Dxr2 board.

This one goes from your original CD-ROM to the Dxr2 board,

and so that - they both go to the Dxr2 board, and then there's

a third cable, probably the one that's already in here to go from the Dxr2 to your sound card.

Which, in this case,

is not a card, it's an integrated sound chip right there.

*Clattering*

Okay, there we go...

DVD drive is longer than the CD-ROM.

Yeah, that's an annoyingly tight fit,

but that's one reason I plug in all the cables before putting in the drive into the bay here, because...

it's one less thing to worry about in this tiny little crammed area.

The power... cable is not gonna reach.

*Sigh* Seriously?!

Why do they design it this way? What - what else is this supposed to connect to?

I think if I take the one from the hard drive and then this one, which was on the CD-ROM, it's also plugged into the floppy disk, but...

Okay, power is sorted...

Got these frickin' cables going everywhere...

*Rattling*

And there's the ol' CD-ROM cable, which we don't need because...

*Thud*

it doesn't have a second connector.

So we've got the two CD-ROM audio outputs...

right here.

I just noticed that it didn't come with any screws. *Chuckles*

*Snap*

Probably these...?

*Clattering*

Alright...

*Thud*

It is now screwed.

So yeah, we can see the different uh, audio inputs there for the CD-ROM audio.

We have one and two, and then this goes to the sound card, so...

I have the CD-ROM

and then another CD-ROM...

*Squeaking*

Very squeaky. *Chuckles*

But there we go, we have the CD audio situation sorted and then that'll plug into the motherboard.

Arrrgh!

*Sobbing*

Alright, I'm just gonna get it inserted into the one free PCI slot.

And there we go, it's as easy as 1, 2, 3,

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14...

or so.

It's a very simple process. *Chuckles* But yeah, we have everything installed, so these should be connected.

Well, I'm not gonna put it all completely back together until we *test* this thing, because who knows?

Oh yeah, can't forget though about the video situation,

or really the graphics card and the video card situation, so yeah, this MPEG-2 Dxr2 card is a video card.

You got a graphics chip that's in here, the ATI Rage IIC,

which I actually read that some of the Rage II line have MPEG-2

encoding or decoding in there already, so

either way, I'm gonna use the Dxr2.

And so we got this little passthrough here - this is very similar to what you would do

with a 3D accelerator card of the time period, like a 3DFX Voodoo.

So we've got the computer's VGA output going right here...

to the VGA in...

of the MPEG-2 card.

and then of course, the computer monitor will plug in here to the VGA output.

Or of course, if you're plugging it into a TV, you have uh, the S-Video,

but we're not gonna use that.

Okay, let's see what we got here.

*Whir*

We have video, that's good.

Sweet. It's detected everything, so off to a good start.

Alright, we have a driver detection goin' on, so...

I've got the floppy disk with just the driver. I'm gonna go ahead and use that, 'cause...

I like floppy disks.

*Click*

Oh sweet. I got it.