DVD Rom speed?

[ChingChang]

Does the speed really matter? I just want one for watching movies once in awhile. What should I be looking for? and can I just get a real slow one so it's cheaper?

Thanks

[BillLeeLee]

DVD speed speed doesn't matter that much for watching a DVD. I think 1x DVD speed is enough to watch a movie.

The cheapest DVD-ROM drives out there are $28 or so (like the Lite-ON one). Slower ones won't be much cheaper.

[ilkka]

Just for plain movie viewing, a 4x works fine. In fact, since the point of DVD drives is to watch movies, every DVD drive can do it.

A faster drive can be useful if you want to fast forward or something like that, though. What you should be looking for is a quiet and reliable drive, that reads questionable disks well. Customer reviews would probably be most helpful.

[mcryptic]

12-16x drives are cheap anyways, besides if you want games like ut2k4 or farcry you don't want to be stuck on a 4x dvd-rom.

[TechHead]

Yeah, as a rule, the faster the DVD-read speed, the faster the CD-ROM read speed.