A 2nd try

If I were to do this project again, I would

	do more research on notebook CD-ROM drives and their connectors. The advantage of notebook drives are low power consumption and all they need is a 5V power supply. Unlike the PC drives which require 12V. However many notebook drives have propriety connectors. It is essential to find a drive that has an adapter for sale because of the difficulty in connecting 25 or so wires to the small connector on the back of the drive.
	Find alternative data sources. There are more options that I did not explore. Data sources like smart media, compact flash cards etc. There should be something out there with a more elegant interface than the ATAPI interface.
	Use the a Maxim power regulator for the decoder circuit. For the current version, 2 separate power supplies are needed, 5V and 3V. A power regulator connected to the 5V source can supply the 3V for the STA013 decoder.
	Try looking for other decoder chips. In the design section I mentioned several other chips that are available. There might be some with a compact flash interface or smart media interface built in. This might make the design much more compact and simpler to implement. The supported bitrates would also be much higher because of the integration.