ASUS E612 DVD-ROM

Have you played VideoCDs on your computer? I believe you must have. No hardware decoder is required to play those movies, right? Same goes with DVD. There are many soft-DVD players out there and each is capable of producing stunning images. While Video CDs are MPEG-1 encoded, DVDs are encoded using MPEG-2 compression technique. As long as you have a computer capable of decoding MPEG-2, there's no reason in getting a hardware decoder. Hardware decoder has a few advantages though. First, it removes the load from the CPU which normally handles all the video and data processing. Most hardware decoders also come with a SPDIF-out connector which allows you to connect the drive to an external Dolby Digital or DTS decoder. In addition, it also has a TV-out connector so that you can watch all those movie titles on your big screen.
Nevertheless, many graphic cards these days have TV-out connectors as well. Combine that with a sound Card that has a SPDIF-out connector and you are on for the big screen effect. It is really pointless to get a hardware decoder unless you intend to watch DVDs on your TV everyday or if you have an external Dolby Digital decoder.
FYI, one of the best hardware decoders in the market currently is the Creative DXR3 - or so I heard.
ASUS E612 comes with a CD loaded with a soft-DVD player to let you play your DVDs instantly. It's called ASUSDVD 2000 but it actually is the same player as PowerDVD 2.55.