That's a big decoder card.. 😉 Never seen that one, any specifications? I think there're some informations about those main IC series datasheet but not sure and I don't think it'd be easy to find a manual, I suppose it's great to even have the floppy disks. I had some long forgotten MPEG2 decoder card in the past which I could not find even the drivers no matter how much I looked for and I don't even have the card anymore. Does it even encode MPEG2?

386SX wrote on 2022-09-12, 17:20:

That's a big decoder card.. 😉 Never seen that one, any specifications? I think there're some informations about those main IC series datasheet but not sure and I don't think it'd be easy to find a manual, I suppose it's great to even have the floppy disks. I had some long forgotten MPEG2 decoder card in the past which I could not find even the drivers no matter how much I looked for and I don't even had the card anymore. Does it even encode MPEG2?

Here the announce 😉 and links bellow with specification. Its only decoder, no encoding functionality.
https://www.global.toshiba/ww/news/corporate/ … /09/pr2601.html

Very interesting, did you already test it? Compared to the other common decoders how it works?

386SX wrote on 2022-09-13, 06:52:

Very interesting, did you already test it? Compared to the other common decoders how it works?

Just do basic test - Win98 detects it and install with common Win98 WDM "TOSHIBA DVD (PCI) DECODER CARD"
Will do more tests and compare it with my Creative Inlay DVD decoder and Creative DRX2, DRX3 decoders later.

Have a nice detective reading last night. This cards Toshiba uses in their Infinia 72X1 series of multimedia computers.
Infinia series based on Intel TC430HX (S3 Virge) and AN430TX (ATI Mach/Rage) motherboard.
So the cable is universal for 26-pin (ATI, Cirrus 5440) feature connector and 34-pin (S3) feature connector.
Manual for Infinia-series (p.21)
http://minuszerodegrees.net/manuals/Toshiba/I … ce%20Manual.pdf

Babasha wrote on 2022-09-13, 07:49:

Just do basic test - Win98 detects it and install with common Win98 WDM "TOSHIBA DVD (PCI) DECODER CARD" Will do more tests and […]
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386SX wrote on 2022-09-13, 06:52:

Very interesting, did you already test it? Compared to the other common decoders how it works?

Just do basic test - Win98 detects it and install with common Win98 WDM "TOSHIBA DVD (PCI) DECODER CARD"
Will do more tests and compare it with my Creative Inlay DVD decoder and Creative DRX2, DRX3 decoders later.

Have a nice detective reading last night. This cards Toshiba uses in their Infinia 72X1 series of multimedia computers.
Infinia series based on Intel TC430HX (S3 Virge) and AN430TX (ATI Mach/Rage) motherboard.
So the cable is universal for 26-pin (ATI, Cirrus 5440) feature connector and 34-pin (S3) feature connector.
Manual for Infinia-series (p.21)

Interesting, it's always good to hear and read about these alternative less known decoders. As lately tested if and when everything was working in the best conditions I'd say sometimes they had even higher quality of the more common and easier to use cards.

Test it with my ATI Rage II and ATI Rage Pro cards and… its HELL with Win95, and so/so with Win98.
Try to test it with S3 Virge/DX and Virge 325 later this week. I have a fillings this decoder highly optimized for Intel TC430HX motherboard and S3 Virge videocards with 34-pin feature connectors (S3 LBP connector).

I like these Asus and Diamond S3 Virge cards compared to many other based on unknown brands, cheap components etc.. So in Win it is more a problem of installation, feature connector compatibility or a problem of final decoding quality/dvd compatibility ?

Win98 install using Windows integrated drivers.

I wonder if the Win integrated drivers were the latest and best ones. Also I wonder if it's using the old Win 98 dvd sw player which I suppose wasn't much optimized compared to a proprietary player (beside the driver version which I suppose might even be the latest). 😉

386SX wrote on 2022-09-14, 10:35:

I wonder if the Win integrated drivers were the latest and best ones. Also I wonder if it's using the old Win 98 dvd sw player which I suppose wasn't much optimized compared to a proprietary player (beside the driver version which I suppose might even be the latest). 😉

It uses the Windows 98 DVD player; no additional player is included with the card. Between the DVD players, it's just OK. The biggest issue is the inability to resize its window. I have one (my image is actually posted above of my card), and after trying several different players, ATI or Power DVD has the best concerning flexibility, ease of use, and image quality. This Toshiba card is but a cheap curiosity, now.

I rank the old DVD players:

1 or 2 ATI
2 or 1 PowerDVD

After this point, they aren't worth using other than curiosity:
3 WinDVD
4 Creative PC DVD/Encore w/DXR2 (never tried the DXR3)
5 Windows 9x DVD player

Meatball wrote on 2022-09-14, 14:31:

It uses the Windows 98 DVD player; no additional player is included with the card. Between the DVD players, it's just OK. The […]
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386SX wrote on 2022-09-14, 10:35:

I wonder if the Win integrated drivers were the latest and best ones. Also I wonder if it's using the old Win 98 dvd sw player which I suppose wasn't much optimized compared to a proprietary player (beside the driver version which I suppose might even be the latest). 😉

It uses the Windows 98 DVD player; no additional player is included with the card. Between the DVD players, it's just OK. The biggest issue is the inability to resize its window. I have one (my image is actually posted above of my card), and after trying several different players, ATI or Power DVD has the best concerning flexibility, ease of use, and image quality. This Toshiba card is but a cheap curiosity, now.

I rank the old DVD players:

1 or 2 ATI
2 or 1 PowerDVD

After this point, they aren't worth using other than curiosity:
3 WinDVD
4 Creative PC DVD/Encore w/DXR2 (never tried the DXR3)
5 Windows 9x DVD player

Interesting, I've never tried this decoder card and I was expecting a proprietary sw player to exist (considering it may have been oriented to Win 95 which I imagine didn't have at default a dvd sw player).

I bought a Dxr3 when in the 1999 my brand new K6-2 350 config could not nearly decode a full bitrate MPEG2 and the brand new Voodoo3 with its "supposed to assist" MPEG2 feature (the basic video decoding part most chips already supported..) wasn't helping at all, so until CRT monitors existed the Dxr3 has been a great card with the usual problems of the analog overlay bandwidth limitations and the thin vga overlay cable both decreasing imho the final VGA output but at least the decoding quality itself was very high with low CPU usage and stable frame rate. Based on the Hollywood+ decoder card this last had a better and longer sw/driver support which fixed many problems and helped in the monitor calibrations. Both cards shared problems anyway and seen also different PCB revisions and known imho better than others cause they mostly worked when other cards instead using the vga internal feature connector, introduced a big amount of compatibility problems. But some of those (late) other cards when found the right combinations of hardware (which wasn't easy) imho even surpassed the Dxr3 which still had the analog overlay logic as a big problem but at the same time a solution to the problems other cards had. 😉

PowerDVD was initially very light and supported many video cards but I had problems with the ATi features which instead worked in "their ATi player" which basically was based on the Cinemaster software decoder engine that was the real "miracle" of that player. Good was the combination of that decoder sw engine with the help of the MC/IDCT accelerations of the Rage/Radeon series.

Meatball wrote on 2022-09-14, 14:31:

It uses the Windows 98 DVD player; no additional player is included with the card. Between the DVD players, it's just OK. The biggest issue is the inability to resize its window. I have one (my image is actually posted above of my card), and after trying several different players, ATI or Power DVD has the best concerning flexibility, ease of use, and image quality. This Toshiba card is but a cheap curiosity, now.

Hmmm… i dont have any issues with resize Win98 DVD Player. Example on my picture - just take video window by right-back conner and resize it smaller to not overlap with Control Panel - System window. Fullscreen is OK to by press fullscreen button.

Babasha wrote on 2022-09-14, 20:27:

Meatball wrote on 2022-09-14, 14:31:

It uses the Windows 98 DVD player; no additional player is included with the card. Between the DVD players, it's just OK. The biggest issue is the inability to resize its window. I have one (my image is actually posted above of my card), and after trying several different players, ATI or Power DVD has the best concerning flexibility, ease of use, and image quality. This Toshiba card is but a cheap curiosity, now.

Hmmm… i dont have any issues with resize Win98 DVD Player. Example on my picture - just take video window by right-back conner and resize it smaller to not overlap with Control Panel - System window. Fullscreen is OK to by press fullscreen button.

Is that an actual DVD playing? If so, great, I must have had some kind of issue and I'll try again in a future reinstall.

How is the video decoding quality? Upscaling, details, frame rate stability? And still considering the card release how it was supposed to work in Win 95?

386SX wrote on 2022-09-15, 06:38:

How is the video decoding quality? Upscaling, details, frame rate stability? And still considering the card release how it was supposed to work in Win 95?

Quality is normal for that 1-st generation less or more equal to my Creative DVD Inlay PCI decoder or Apple DVD decoder in MacOS (connected thru future connector or ZIVA-port) with normal filtering up to 1024x768. Pixelated in higher resolutions - its normal for all PCI decoders I own.
It has Win 95 (ver. 1.1 and 2.1) drivers and Toshiba Media Player 1.5 for Win95 but I can not get stable setup all ways I try it(((

So my compatibility and quality rating is:

1) Creative PC-DVD Inlay PCI + ATI Rage series videocards (Win95, Win98, WinNT based systems)
2) Apple DVD decoder + ATI Rage 128 OEM for Apple Macintosh (MacOS 8-9 only)
3) Toshiba DVD decoder card PCI + ATI RageII series videocards (Win98 only currently, some macrovision restriction with TV-out capable cards)
4) Creative PC-DVD Encore DXr2 PCI + Matrox Mystique (or any other high-quality videocards) VGA-VGA pass-thru cable (Win95, Win98, WinNT based systems)
5) Creative PC-DVD Encore DXr3 PCI + Matrox Mystique (or any other high-quality videocards) SVHS(VGA mode)-VGA pass-thru cable (it on 5-th place only by the shitty connection pass-thru cable) (Win95, Win98, WinNT based systems)

Babasha wrote on 2022-09-15, 06:59:

386SX wrote on 2022-09-15, 06:38:

How is the video decoding quality? Upscaling, details, frame rate stability? And still considering the card release how it was supposed to work in Win 95?

Quality is normal for that 1-st generation less or more equal to my Creative DVD Inlay PCI decoder or Apple DVD decoder in MacOS (connected thru future connector or ZIVA-port) with normal filtering up to 1024x768. Pixelated in higher resolutions - its normal for all PCI decoders I own.
It has Win 95 (ver. 1.1 and 2.1) drivers and Toshiba Media Player 1.5 for Win95 but I can not get stable setup all ways I try it(((

Interesting would be to see if the Toshiba Media Player when working would improve something compared to the Win 98 default player. As said from first generations of decoders I'd not expect much but maybe some specific optimizations for the card. 😉

About the Dxr3 rating, I think to remember some discussed if the thin cable wasn't "unofficially" the main reason for the decreasing signal quality but more the on-board limited analog overlay chip and also a combination of the monitor, video card (of course) and I'd add also the monitor vga cable itself. But imho all those problems matter in loosing much of that great DVD decoded video quality (also considering how many different CRT monitors existed) and imho the thin cable was a problem beside how much.

The later last X-Card solution solved that switching from the Win desktop input to decoder output directly without overlay as much as I remember. And if I remember correctly they went for a better thick cable that I suppose should theorically work (and would have been interesting to test) on a Dxr3 (I used the Dxr3 cable on the X-Card and it worked) and the thick cable (if confirmed I think it was a better cable) would explain a lot why it did matter.
But the X-Card wasn't easy to find the perfect VGA out decoder config to drive every monitors "manually". I had to set the exact LCD monitor specifications to make it work and still not perfectly "inside" the monitor size limits. The default configs were mostly TV oriented and less for the classic old style 4:3 monitors. I suppose the idea was more oriented for a secondary monitor setup while using on the main monitor the Win GUI.

Drivers (ver. 1.01 and 2.01), support software and Toshiba Media Player 1.5
This is Windows 95 only drivers/software for VERSION 1 of Toshiba PCI DVD decoder card!!!

Babasha wrote on 2022-09-20, 10:46:

Drivers (ver. 1.01 and 2.01), support software and Toshiba Media Player 1.5
This is Windows 95 only drivers/software for VERSION 1 of Toshiba PCI DVD decoder card!!!

Awesome! Where did you find these?