software vs. hardware decoding

[pvrproblems]

Hello,

I have a Hauppauge 350 and recently learned that I cannot watch DVD's because I was doing hardware decoding and the 350 didn't support it. I would like to do hardware decoding and still watch DVD's. Is there a card that will allow me to do this? Or, is this just a limitation of tuner cards?


Many thanks.

[sub]

The world seems to have moved away from dedicated hardware decoding cards, instead opting for software decoders, but able to use hardware accelleration features offered by many moder video cards (ATI, nvidia etc).

I guess a big part of the reason for this is that machines are easily capable of software decoding these days. In the big days of the XCard, Hollywood+, PVR350 etc, PC were (usually) too slow to do the decoding in software.