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You don't say what machine you are transferring to. Any DVD player needs at least 350 Mhz to run without a hard card. My recommendation, not knowing what kind of machine the player will go into is to use a hardware (card) solution instead of softDVD.(Hollywood+) Video cards and DVD cards must be compatible but they don't have to come from Gateway.(Hollywood+) Gateway goes to great lengths to make sure that their components work together but you have to keep in mind that Gateway buys their stufffrom someone else.(Hollywood+) And yes, I am an apologist for Hollywood+, because it works well. www.sigmadesigns.com

While agree with the previous response, in that the Sigma Designs Hollywood+ is a great card which I currently use in a system, you may find it more advantageous to buy a nice new video card. Most now days come bundled with a software DVD solution and you get great 3D game performance. As previously mentioned your system does have to be pretty fast to handle software DVD. Any Pentium III will do fine, Pentium II and Celerons should be above 300Mhz. And whether you go with hardware or softwareDVD you will want atleast 64 meg of memory. As for the parts on the Gateway being proprietary, I doubt it. you should be able to use these parts in other systems with no problem. And I have never seen a DVD Drive that required a specific decoder card. Have fun.