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Watching movies on a plane or in a car just became more affordable. Dell Computer Corporation Tuesday announced it is offering DVD drives (digital versatile disc) on its mainstream Inspiron notebook PCs, enabling customers to take movies, high-end games and educational programs on the road.

Beginning now, customers can order DVD on the company's Dell Inspiron notebooks for small business and consumer customers with prices starting at $2,299.

Dell expects the low price to make DVD more accessible to customers who have been attracted to the technology's high-definition video quality but turned off by the high prices normally associated with the DVD systems.

Dell is offering DVD-ROM as a $299 option on its Inspiron 3000 and 3200 series notebook PC that feature Intel Pentium and Pentium II processors, 12.1 to 13.3-inch active matrix screens and high-capacity hard drives. In addition to playing full-motion videos and movies, Inspiron notebooks with DVD come with a special "TV-out" device to connect to televisions to play DVD movies at home.

"Up to now, customers have had to pay a premium to enjoy the benefits of DVD technology," said Stephan Godevais, vice president of Dell's Inspiron notebook product group. "By leveraging the advantages of its direct model, Dell is offering DVD-equipped Inspiron notebooks for less than $2,300."

While some notebook PCs sacrifice size for DVD capability, Dell Inspiron notebooks will maintain a slim-line design by incorporating hardware MPEG2 support through a PCMCIA card similar to that used for modems on most notebook PCs. The credit-card size MPEG-2 decoder card can be easily inserted and removed from the Inspiron PC.

This feature, made possible by efforts from LSI Logic, Billionton Corp. and Margi Systems Inc. allows customers to enjoy the thin-form factor and lightweight design of the Inspiron notebook PC by bypassing alternative integrated hardware solutions. By using a thin MPEG-2 PCMCIA card, customers can experience full 30-frames-per-second video without making additional demands on the processor or memory.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:44 AM